I am going to set the scene of Stan’s new miniseries Thou Shalt Not Steal for you: 80s, Western, dark comedy, Outback, Sherry-Lee Watson. Are you sold yet?
Well this is exactly how Sherry-Lee Watson felt when she first heard of the show. But the uncanny similarities between her character Robin, and her real life with both being Aboriginal girls from Alice Springs, with family ties to Jay Creek in the Northern Territory (with Sherry-Lee’s family holding title there), it becomes abundantly clear that Robyn is the role that she was born to play.
Sherry-Lee portrays Robyn, a 17-year-old on the run from the law on a cross country road trip bursting with hijinks, humour, and social commentary. Robyn breaks out of juvenile detention, takes her grandfather out of hospital, gets into the cab of Miranda Otto’s Maxine and after an altercation steals her taxi, and embarks on a road trip to find her absentee father, roping in fellow Heartbreak High alum Will McDonald for a wild adventure across the Australian outback.
The series is not shy about Australia’s dark and tragic history, with the first moments having Sherry-Lee’s narration state, “Them missionaries reckon thou shalt not steal. Bit rich from the Bible-bashing bastards that stole our country!”, and the show cleverly uses humour to demystify a lot of the realities for young people growing up in the Northern Territory. Sherry-Lee intended to portray Robyn as realistically as possible, with the stoicism that many of these young children exude.
When asked about the significance of multifaceted and honest depictions of First Nations people in Australian media, Sherry-Lee tells Missing Perspectives, “We can be really rough and tough and quick witted, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we are bad people, which I feel like those two things can get conflated.”
From her breakout role as scene-stealer Missy in Heartbreak High, Sherry-Lee is known for portraying straight-talking, complex female characters, and Robyn in Thou Shalt Not Steal is no different. But there is always an undeniable warmth and softness to each character, something that Sherry-Lee strives for in her portrayal of these women. The significance of this representation can not be understated considering how scarce nuanced media representation for First Nations people is.
With moments like showing the audience that Robyn does not know how to spell, to her innate intelligence at outsmarting the police who are chasing her, these moments touch on the multigenerational and institutional ways that racism can permeate through a person's life.
“I can speak as a First Nations woman, we always have something to say” quips Sherry-Lee in her interview with Missing Perspectives, “and we’re not necessarily given the opportunity to speak what we feel all the time”.
So let this series be a lesson to the Australian entertainment industry, proving what magic can happen when you showcase a uniquely First Nations story and invest in authentically First Nations voices, because believe you me, that you will get amazing results.