Australian Voices in Film: “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” Essay Question: Stereotyping of character representations “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” is a hilarious comedy, brought together brilliantly by writer and director Stephan Elliot. Tick/Mitzi and Adam/Felicia are two drag queens that travel across Australia on a lavender bus with there transsexual friend Ralph/Bernadette. All three challenge the dominant stereotype of the Australian male. Released
Undoubtedly, the film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, that was filmed in 1994 in Australia and directed by Stephan Elliott. In the film, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, it illustrates a story about two drag queens and a transgender woman, as they travel across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Spring in a bus named “Priscilla”, along the way they encounter a wide-range of groups and individuals. During the journey, they face less accepting attitudes and
Crocodile Dundee (1986) directed by Peter Faiman and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) directed by Stephan Elliott are two Australian films that have unique plots. The expositions of both films have various similarities and differences in the context of quirky ‘Aussie’ characters, stereotypical Australian language, themes and the vast outback setting. The exposition of each film reaffirms typical Australian stereotypes. The Australia Outback is portrayed in films as vast and
masculinity. Priscilla’s understanding of homosexuality challenges these ideas of masculinity, but does so whilst maintaining the differences between homosexuals and modern society. Both Ballroom and Priscilla share a conflict that is used to reiterate the ideas of Australian masculinity. Specific to Priscilla is the fact that homosexual men in drag costumes have the ability to accomplish the same as any other heterosexual or masculine men. These films put out a statement, that a homosexuality can possess
towards LGBT people ( “A Brief History Of Drag Queens”). Drag performers had to be wearing no less than 3 items of male clothing at all times, if not, they would be arrested. In 1965, the Imperial court was founded. This was the first type of organization for drag queens, and it soon lead to drag balls. Drag balls are often described as a “fraternity like system” where queens formed houses and the “Drag Mother” would be the head of the house. The queens the Drag mother took under her wing were called
Intro: Like various art forms such as film, television, and literature allows artists to express their own sense of identity, that being nationality, race, class, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. In this case, Queen uses music to illustrate the themes of gender and sexuality through their music video I Want to Break Free (1983). This essay will attempt to discuss how Queen’s music video, I Want to Break Free, explores queerness in relation to queer theory. Firstly, I will introduce the ideas and arguments