Priscilla: The Outback Roadshow - Hunter Bardin

    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 are trapped in the middle of the Outback. This isolation could represent how these characters are actually feeling about themselves as transgender and/or drag queens. They are outcasts of society so when they are in a place like Sydney or any small town they find themselves in they can still feel as isolated as they were in the desert. This kind of shows when Adam gets himself in Coober Pedy. Like the Outback there are a bunch of things out there that can easily hurt or kill you if you act reckless and that is what almost happens to Adam before Bernadette saves him from the townsmen. As Lauren Challinor mentions in the reading, this is more of a turning point for Adam as well since it gives him more respect for Bernadette and he stops calling her Ralph.

    One thing this movie does well is de-establish gender roles. The character that fits this perfectly is Tick as while a drag queen, he still wants to be a supportive husband and father to his wife and kid. The movie doesn't try to make Tick completely change himself to fill that masculine role by the end of the movie, but he still changes to become that supportive figure to his family still. His son, Benji, doesn't care what his father does and he even thinks its pretty cool as he asks him to perform an ABBA song sometime even though it was something his character was against earlier in the film. It isn't much of Hugo Weaving play this role as he has appeared in other LGBTQ movies in his career like as Agent Smith in The Matrix. It is a role that I think he plays perfectly, but for the longest time while watching the movie I couldn't place where I recognized him from until I looked him up on IMDB. Tick ended up being my favorite character in the film probably because he felt the most relatable out of the main three, but his character arc also was my favorite as well. While I probably won't ever camp in the Outback like that knowing what is out there, I am happy to have seen Tick, Bernadette, and Adam make their journey.

    

Comments

  1. Jackson DiCarloApril 1, 2021 at 7:19 PM

    Another excellent post Hunter. Something that you mentioned that I hadn't considered was the setting of the Australian Outback. You said it leaves no distractions for the characters, making it so they have to focus on themselves and their interactions. I'd thought about it very briefly throughout the watch of the movie, but I realize now just how crucial of a point it is in the movie. If they'd been driving down the main road or through city streets, the movie would be far less involved and interesting environmentally. And I agree Tick is a very relatable character and does a great job of de-establishing gender roles. It was fun to see Hugo Weaving in the role. I knew him as Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy first, so to see the contrast of these characters was another bit of fun the movie had going for it.

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  2. Matt HApril 3, 2021 at 7:22 PM

    Hi Hunter,

    I think your point about the outback setting being a metaphor for loneliness was fantastic! I never considered it before reading your post but I can definitely relate to a sense of feeling isolated in a heteronormative society. I think the isolation of the desert probably contributes to the way the characters treat each other as well. The fact that they are all trapped together alone on a bus in the middle of nowhere raises tensions, and the stress of that environment probably led to the characters being so snippy to each other. I definitely I would never go camping in the outback either haha.

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