Priscilla

Drag queens parading down the street, lip-syncing to the music pumping in the background, a bus in the background. Is this The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert or is it the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade? To my young self, they were one and the same. A world of flamboyance, overt sexuality, torch songs, deep hurt, and discrimination. This was how the world presented the gay world to me, and how I was imagining the world I would be part of.

I arrived in Australia from Vietnam as a 5 year old in 1991. By the time the grand bus came to cinemas in 1994, swept the world and won a well deserved Academy Award for best costume design, I was 8 and had no idea that Priscilla existed. (1994 was also the first year that the Mardi Gras parade was first broadcast on commercial television). It was not until 2 years later when it was broadcast on free-to-air television that the film registered on my radar.

At 10 years old, my sexuality was starting to develop and I started to have an inkling that I was more interested in boys than girls. Sex, let alone being gay, was not something that was discussed in my family. Nor, at the time, was homosexuality discussed in any media or tv show readily assessible to a 10 year old. Sure, there may have been more adult tv dramas and some art house movies, but it was hard out there for a young gay kid from the western suburbs of Sydney to find early 90s gay representation. (That's why I also have a soft spot for Philadelphia, which also received this VHS treatment. Whatever your qualms about its quality, it nevertheless was much more accessible than the independent queer films of that time!)

But, as kids are wont to do, the topic surfaces in some way, and I knew somehow that there was this thing called Mardi Gras and drag queens, and they were the 'other' that I could possibly, scarily and completely unwittingly, could be part of. Then came the ads for Priscilla and lo and behold, here was something that piqued my interest. I can't remember dates and times - it was all a pre-puberty blur. But I remember that there was a curious little secret I had, something no-one talked about so it had to be hidden, something special but also something scary. So I secretly videotaped the movie when it was on. Full of nerves, I watched bits and pieces of it when I could, since I could not really chance someone in my family finding me watching it.

In this way, I don't think I fully really watched the film until much later in life. Like these secret opportunities I had, all I remember of the film were mere imprints and impressions of what this 'other' life was about. I could not tell you what I thought of the plot, character development, or anything else. These were the individual impressions I remember:

• This movie was strange, and there were so many things I didn't understand and just glossed over. Mainly: most, if not all, of the sexual jokes. Having said that:
• The film made me realise (or confirm) one thing: Men were sexy, and this was something that somewhere inside I knew to be true. It was great to see it on screen. Guy Pearce shirtless was my gateway drug - his abs, his pecs, his arms, his cheekbones. He had that toned underwear model body that paraded around at Mardi Gras. If anything, this confirmed my attraction to male bodies. What was important here was that my attraction was purely physical, I found. My earlier attractions was to a boy named Paul from my year 4 class - the classic nice guy who was voted class captain because everyone liked him. Here, Felicia was a troubled, acerbic, sarcastic personality, one that that I was not at ease at, and yet I still found him attractive. Yep, I liked men.
• This film was weird. I realise looking back, that the film is a masterclass tonally, swaying between sexy, scary, funny and (to 10 year old me) quite creepy at times. Case in point: the bathtub flashback scene played between scary and dark humour. I don't think I had been exposed previously to dark humour and tonal changes. As I have discovered later in life, I am not very particular to dark humour - I'm too delicate a flower!
• The costumes, of course, were amazingly fun. Even a young me appreciated that!
• The scenery too was beautiful and iconic. A cock in a frock on a rock indeed.

For all of the above individual impressions, the overriding impression I got was that this was a strange strange world. Did this world really exist? If so, was I automatically going to be in? Was I going to automatically become one of the characters? Which one? Did I belong in this world? Would I like it?  For me, Priscilla asked more questions than it answered. How exhausting!

I wish I had a window to my thoughts and feelings back then, to see how I processed it and what I did with it. Perhaps, a young me, took in what I could. I know that, like many others would have, I would have proceeded to bury those thoughts and feelings, just like I would hid the VHS tape back in the recesses of my room.

Looking back, I missed out on all the nuances and depth to this film. My objective view of the film is pretty much like the consensus view - a great gay film, with maybe some outdated views on race. But a time capsule it remains. I'm grateful for the film because, for me, it remains a time capsule of the beginning of my gay awakening. And it introduced me to this sexy stud muffin!

Further reading:
Don’t Let Them Drag You Down: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert from Senses of Cinema
Soundtracking: "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" from The Film Experience
Camping it out in the Never Never: Subverting Hegemonic Masculinity in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994)
Curator's Notes - Australian Screen