ENGL 227.1 Spring 2021 Class Discussion Blog

Priscilla: The Queen of Queer Characters  By Jackson DiCarlo I was extraordinarily pleased with The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I was a bit worried going in that the film would be very one note and gimmicky. How exciting does a bunch of drag queens on a bus in Australia sound to me? Not. Not exciting to me. But Mama Mia was I wrong. The film gradually pulled me in with it's outstanding characters and conflict. They were each so nuanced and interesting, and I found it difficult to pick a favorite. I found myself respecting the hell out of Bernadette, empathizing with Tick, and really laughing at Adam. Bob was great too, what a wholesome guy. Not only are these characters well written, but the obstacles they overcome are just as interesting. I totally felt my heart sink when the trio saw their graffitied bus, I was scared for Adam in Coober Pedy, and I was just as nervous as Tick was when I realized he was about to meet his son. Really, an all around excellent ...

  Let me start off first by saying The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert was not at all what I was expecting. Whenever I watch a new movie or hear of a new movie I never look up anything about it because I like to be surprised. When first hearing this movie title I immediately thought it was going to be about some goddess like cleopatra dancing around in the desert and I’m glad I was wrong. I thought all in all this movie was very entertaining and I was utterly shocked when I realized that Bernadette (Terence Stamp) was the same person who played the creepy butler Ramsley in the movie The Haunted Mansion . The range Terence Stamp has as an actor is astonishing. It was also very shocking to find out all three of these actors are straight in real life because their performances were so convincing . Terrance’s performance reminded me of another fellow staright actor named Cillian Murphy. I’m not sure if I've mentioned this before in a previous blog post but the movie Breakf...

     The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert  was a fun road trip movie which is the genre I think it best finds itself in. It reminded me a lot in premise of films like Smoke Signals  where we follow multiple characters, some not exactly liking the other, as they make their way to their destination with as little money as possible. There is something I enjoy a lot about this type of movie though, especially the type of setting that Priscilla  finds itself in. The desert Outback provides a lot of room for the movie to focus on the characters of the film as there really isn't much else to distract them or the viewer from showing what these characters are like. It is just us, them, and the open road. The entertainment comes from how they interact with each other and not what is going on around them necessarily. This helps even more with inter-character conflict as they have to deal with each other since they really have no place else to go since they...

  Before viewing this film I had looked into it and it seemed promising with a Rotten Tomato Score of 96% by critics and 88% audience score. When I started watching it though I didn’t see these scores reflected in the film. It didn’t do much for me as a viewer. With that said I looked more into the reading that came with the film afterwards to get a better sense of the world the director created. The characters in this film are what really made this film what it is. They all have really good background stories to show the viewer why they are the way they are. Two characters in particular I took an interest in was Bernadette and Adam. Especially with them having a relationship that as the reading calls it is a “fragile tolerance”. Bernadette had to fight so hard and long to feel confident in her gender identity and she has gone through many struggles with this aspect of her life. She is posed and mature and the fact that Adam thrives off dramatics it shows they’re two very opposit...

  Hello everyone! Thank you all for tuning in and taking some time out of your schedule to look over my blog post. This time,  I want to do things a little bit differently. Normally I would talk about the movie, what parts I liked,  and what parts I loved, but today I want to talk about a specific part of the movie, and not the movie as a whole. Before I jump into that though, I do want to just briefly say that I loved The Adventures of Priscilla: Queen of the Desert.  The movie had so much heart, the acting was so good, and I loved the story that was being told. Overall I 100% loved the film. However, of all the parts, people, places, it was really just one thing that had me jumping up and down with cheer, and that was the character of Bernadette. This woman is my hero. From the moment she walked onto the screen I was obsessed with her look and the way she carried herself. I think for me, one of the biggest things that I like right away was her style. I think normal...

  While watching, “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”, I was able tolerate the movie. I didn’t hate but I also didn’t enjoy the film. Besides that, I really enjoyed the story the movie told and the obstacles they had to face. This film was very different from a lot of other films we have watched. It shows the journey these three drag queens had to go through. This is a more harsh and realistic view on queer representation. In the movies we’ve watched before, it never showed the terrible things queers have to go through on a daily basis. This film explores all the trauma queer people get from homophobic people. For example, Adam was about to get attacked by a group of homophobic people until Bob and Bernadette came in to save to him. This left Adam a little traumatized and this is something queer people have to go through on a daily basis. Everything they went through in the movie made the scene where they climbed King’s Canyon that much impactful. It was more impactf...

 Jon Vitka     Alrighty, this was defiantly one of the obvious types of queer movies that we had watched throughout this year. It saddens me to know that this was the very last one we would write about on our blog so I wanted to put everything into this last blog of mine. First things first let's talk about the characters,  especially on the fact that they go around dressing and sing like women. there was the transgender person, the gay drag queen, as well as, other queer-like characters that could be found throughout the movie. After reading our required reading you can actually learn how these characters played the biggest role in queerness since they didn't try to hide the fact that they were queer in some way or another. "I s a lens through which to examine the traditional views of masculine and feminine gender roles" (Challinor). This is quote really basically sums up the whole purpose of the movie as well as the readings as it simply states that we watched this...

 I tend to have a pretty strange  sense of humor for lack of a better word, so when a movie can so much as elicit a chuckle from me, I find myself impressed. This movie did just that. It had some scenes that were legitimately comical and the bits of dry humor that Bernadette slung as retorts definitely hit the mark. The actors did a fantastic job as well. Each character felt like a real individual. I believe this movie definitely accomplishes what it sets out to do (at least what I think it sets out to do, that being show the hardships of individuals like Bernadette and company). They're just people aiming to live their lives and do their own thing, but are accosted for simply existing. When the main three characters were surrounded in that bar, I expected some sort of violent confrontation to occur. Seeing Bernadette absolutely rip into that lady who was leading the charge against her was absolutely amazing. The cherry on top was how the crowd absolutely loved it. One thing t...

  The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert- Leah Von Ohlen          Now, all I have to say was, what even was this? This film was not only the definition of cheese, but the comedy was unfathomable. It also falls underneath the movie musical category. The movie begins with Adam Whitely, or by their drag queen name, Felicia Jollygoodfellow, performing an opening song. The other two main characters Anthony “Tick” Belrose (Mitzi Del Bra), and transgender female named who goes by the name of Bernadette Bassenger. They tour their bubbly act through the crazy Australian outback travelling on their tour bus they named “Priscilla” (therefore their adventuring tales title). It is most certainly the definition of queer. Between the drag makeup, the stereotyping, and the mannerisms the queerness is just clear and right in your face.          In the article An Examination of Gender Roles in The Adventure...

  Overall, I didn’t really mind The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. It was tolerable, but I definitely won’t be watching it again. The reading on oncourse really helped me have a better understanding of the film because it breaks down each character and the personal struggles they go through.  Although Adam was really mean to Bernadette I found that I liked him the most out of all the characters. You could tell that he tried very hard to hide his insecurities and personal struggles through being rude to others and making scenes in public. He was really entertaining to watch although you could see most of his actions probably stemmed from past trauma/experiences in the world from being part of the LGBTQ+ community. Of course, this is no excuse for being hateful and nasty to others, but I still felt a little bit bad for him. Bernadette was a badass in this film and she always seemed to know exactly how to get the group out of trouble. She chose to use her words fi...

     I really wanted to like this film, but I couldn't.  From the little bit I'd seen of it the costumes looked cool and it seemed fun and campy.  Unfortunately the few good scenes in this film stood no chance of redeeming  Priscilla for me in the face of how much problematic content this film has.  Don't get me wrong, I understand that it is a product of it's time but am never going to enjoy a movie with this much rampant transphobia and racism in it.  I think my hatred for the racist way Bob's wife is written is so blatant I need not elaborate on it, especially with the recent AAPI anti-racist movement.  The transphobia though I think may be easier to miss if you aren't trans yourself so I would like to elaborate upon it.     The way Adam treats Bernadette in the first half of this film makes my blood boil.  He literally admits that he makes transphobic jabs and deadnames her for no other reason than he thinks its funny to up...

      When looking through the syllabus and seeing that we were going to eventually watch this movie, I definitely wondered if I would like it or not because I have heard both good and bad things about this film. It's that type of movie that you either love it or you hate it and for my first time watching it I was definitely very intrigued to see if I would enjoy this movie or not. Overall, I really did enjoy this movie, it was definitely not like something that I have ever watched before. I usually do enjoy musicals some what depending on the movie, but this was not what I was expecting this film to be like at all. The constant breaking into song was something I enjoyed for most of the movie but at times it got over bearing and made me not that interested and was hard for me to keep up with. The representation of queerness throughout this film was another thing I did not expect when watching it. From the first scene it went from a straight wedding and a straigh...

  Rocky Horror is a cult classic for a reason. It is hilariously campy and silly and strange in extra leaps and miles. I understand why people don’t like this movie, I used to be one of those people. It was very hard for me to digest all the wackiness and all I saw was a bad movie. I mean, looking at it on paper it should be a horrible movie: It’s full of hypocrisy, has poor taste, has cheap and ridiculous plot points, etc. However! The cheese in the movie prevails through and turns it into cheesy gold. It's when you learn to laugh at and with the movie that it opens up and becomes a very fun time, almost like an amusement park ride (in the best of ways).  In terms of the movie’s sexuality, it can be best described as; a lot. Sexuality is everywhere in this movie and never gives up the spotlight. Not to mention, it is widely progressive compared to anything else we’ve seen in class and is still progressive even in today's standards. The unapologetic atmosphere of the entire mo...

  Wow, this movie was an interesting one. I’ve heard a lot of things about this movie and I could’ve sworn that I’ve seen it in the past, however, after watching it I definitely have not seen it before. I have to say, the actual movie itself I didn’t hate, BUT I am not a fan of musicals whatsoever. This made it quite difficult for me to keep up. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes a little bit each time someone broke out into music, which was quite a lot. When it comes to the queer aspects the movie really went form 0 to 100 pretty fast. It started pretty hetero from what I could tell with the straight wedding of Brad and Janet. That didn’t last very long when we met the “sweet transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania”. Dr Frank n Furter was an interesting character to say the least. Very rarely do I see characters in movies dress up in drag so that was fun for me to watch.  Something that I did like about this movie was how freeing it was. Whether that be the characters being ...

                           Yep. I can now see the hype of this phenomenal piece of art. I had to collect myself afterwards, for I felt like I traveled back in time (No pun intended. Albeit debatable.) in 2018, when I saw Kinky Boots for the first time. Sadly, it wasn’t the Brendan Urie production, but that’s besides the point. Christ, was that such a fabulous ass show!             I feel that this placement regarding when to watch the movie was one of the best ways to be acquainted with it. What I mean by that is that because of the other movies that we have seen prior, being able to recognize the elements that it borrowed, such as the setting and dynamics of Riff Raff and Magenta and other archetypes from The Old Dark House , the leather culture and callback to Greek culture from Orpheus , and the campy ambience and queer manifestation as monsters or “freaks” f...

Hello everyone! Welcome back to my Bi-weekly blog! This week we're going to be talking about my reaction to our most recent class viewing: The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Going into this film I really knew almost nothing about it, which feels insane in hindsight. Don't get me wrong I've heard tons of people talk about this movie, and I knew that Tim Curry was in it, but honestly that was pretty much it, but I was still super excited coming into the showing, and BOY WAS I NOT DISSAPOINTED! So the opening is cool and sets things up, but lets just jump to when shit got really good, lets talk about when Tim Fucking Curry enters the arena. In my title I said that this is my new favorite musical, that is 100% true, and that is 1000% because of the absolutely breath taking performance from Tim Curry. In my opinion, Tim Curry has one of the most unique voices I've ever heard. I've been listening to the song "Sweet Transvestite" on repeat since we watched the movie....

    Rocky Horror is a beautifully eccentric movie that plays into many aspects of cult classics and camp films. Though I know this film may be hard for some audiences to follow between the musical numbers and the absolute craziness that goes on. It still stands as one of the most prominent queer films to date. This is a movie that is referenced still in indie films such as The Perks of Being A Wallflower. The reference in this film I think was important for the plot of The Perks of Being a Wallflower because there is a connection between coming of age and queerness. Especially since The Perks had a queer character who was vibrantly himself. In the 90s (when this movie was portrayed) and being in a production of Rocky Horror was representation for the character. After looking at the film analysis Medium did of RHPS I think it really summed up what this movie is all about. A safe community and space for viewers and an opportunity to see oneself in a film. RHPS has such an effec...

  FADE IN:  INTERIOR. JACKSON'S FRESHMAN DORM - 2018, NIGHT JACKSON, a late teens social studies major, sits at a desk staring dead eyed at a laptop's screen. The soft blue light glows upon his sullen and confused face as he holds his head in his hands. His friends, happily sit across from him on the other side of the room, admiring their handiwork. As the credits of The Rocky Horror Picture Show roll, the gears turning in Jackson's head snag and tear into one another, attempting to process the last hour and forty one minutes. Jackson's ROOMATE, sits on his bed, smiling as the credits roll across his TV. ROOMATE (Awestruck) That was incredible! FRIEND #1 I'm glad you liked it. It's really something else, huh? ROOMATE Yeah man, those songs slapped. Total bops. The attention shifts to Jackson, as his hands slide up his head, nearly failing to keep his head from slamming onto the desk, ending it all. FRIEND #2 (Smirking) So Jackson, what did you think? Silently, J...

     I think it is safe for me to say that I have quite the history with Rocky Horror Picture Show . Watching it for this class was probably my fourth or fifth time that I have ever seen the film and I've enjoyed it almost every time. I can't quite remember how old I was when I first saw the movie, but I was probably in early middle school or something around there. I remember that I was scrolling through the TV channels one night and it was coming up on some channel. I have heard of the movie before because my older sister had watched it after she heard about it while watching Glee . I didn't even remember that part until I read about it being in the show in the reading. Coincidences aside, my older sister was in the room with me and suggested that I'd watch it. I had already listened to the Time Warp numerous times up to that point so I was pretty curious about the movie it was from. I do not remember what I really thought about the movie after I watched it except tha...

 Rocky horror picture show is a fantastic film that still holds up today in bringing laughter to people. having seen it multiple times it is STILL fantastic and always with the watch!  I didn't ever look too deep into the queer themes of the movie getting lost in the wonderment of the film though thinking about it critically it offers some intriguing ideas. It is hard to tell whether queerness is endorsed in the film as Tim curry gives such enticing energy to frank while playing someone cold and murderous. In my perspective of him however, yes he is murderous, but he is defensive. the mansion he and his people live in appears to be a safe space for queerness but he has a volatile reaction the moment things don't entirely go his way. its not super pronounced but one can pity him in his situation that all that he had was crumbling because of his own wild and free ways.  Brad and Janet are great foils to Frank being the definition of "straight couple" at the beginning of...

    The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a cult classic if I've ever seen one. I understand how the film can be harder to enjoy for certain audiences, but this movie is one of my favorites of all time and is a Halloween staple for me and my friends every year. I was singing along to all of the songs while we were watching the movie. I've seen Rocky Horror a hundred times, but watching it for class made me look at it through a critical lens.     One of the best parts about Rocky Horror  is that most of the characters are visibly and unapologetically themselves, and it's openly queer in a wonderfully divergent way. When I say divergent, I think about many of the queer movies in the mainstream today, where the gay characters are closeted and their biggest obstacle is coming out. What's refreshing about Rocky Horror is the fact that the characters sexualities are never a topic of discussion, they just exist as they are, and I think that's very comforting for queer audie...

  The film, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, changed the representation of queerness in a positive way. This film let people know that it’s okay to be queer and they should embrace it. Before this film, the film industry gave people the idea that being queer was a bad thing and you should be afraid of being queer. This made a lot of queers hide in the closet and not want to come out because of the way they were being represented. This was until “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” came out and it changed the way queer people should act. All the queer in the film were proud of they were and they weren’t trying to hide for anyone. This is a huge change because in most films, queer characters were seen as a joke or they were get killed off at the end. For example, Frank N. Furter was represented as a queer character who wasn’t afraid of being different. He wore women's makeup and in most films this will be used for comedy but not in this film. Frank was portrayed as a man who was confide...