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When Priscilla was released in 1994, it broke new cultural ground. Fifteen years on, Iain Clacher examines the legacy of that desert journey.
Released in 1994, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, is the ultimate drag road movie, winning an Oscar, a raft of AFI Awards and a GLAAD Media Award. Its midnight screening at Cannes brought the house down. Younger readers may be unaware of the film at all - “It’s a musical, isn’t it?”
But despite its sensational ‘coming out’, what effect, if any, has Priscilla had on GLBTI life and culture? Has it had an impact, big or small, on how Australian GLBTI people live and work, or how GLBTI people are perceived in this country?
The answer depends on who you ask.
For veteran Sydney drag performer Mitzi Macintosh, the movie led to 12 “very long years” starring in The Priscilla Show at Erskineville’s The Imperial Hotel, the nightclub featured in the movie’s opening credits. “[Director] Stephan Elliott came up with three characters that played very well,” Macintosh says. “It certainly took drag into the mainstream.”
For Macintosh, an artist who has been performing for more than two decades, Priscilla captured a style of drag that was popular in Australia at that time. “It wasn’t a statement about gay rights or identity, it was more about entertainment,” she says.
Macintosh has no doubt about the enduring impact of the film, saying that the most frequent request from corporate clients hoping to book a drag show for business functions is for a “Priscilla gig”.
Shadd Danesi, owner of The Imperial Hotel, agrees: “The film has been absolutely fantastic for the hotel and made it world-recognised,” he says. Far from playing down the Priscilla connection, the hotel, now closed for renovations, will feature an extended ‘Priscilla Bar’ when it reopens later this year.
But while The Imperial continues to spruik its reputation as “the Priscilla pub”, the same cannot be said of Lasseter’s Casino in Alice Springs, where the film’s climactic drag show was shot.
“We don’t get a lot of people asking about it,” Lasseter’s assistant manager Michael Jones tells SX, adding that no one who worked at Lasseter’s in 1993 when the movie was being shot is still an employee. And the Casino itself is vastly different today, he says, with the bar and auditorium where the drag sequence took place long since removed.
Would a bus load of drag queens get a gig at Lasseter’s these days? The answer, surprisingly, is yes.
“Drag queens do come and perform here as we have requests from companies wanting a Priscilla-style of show for their conferences,” Jones says.
But while some locations take some pride in their connection with the film, others have come down with a case of cultural cringe, like the former Queen of the Desert Hotel. Though not shown in the film, the Alice Springs establishment has since changed its name to distance itself from the movie. Today, it operates under the name Airport Hotel.
However, Phil Walcott, who owns The Rainbow Connection, a GLBT-friendly bed and breakfast in Alice Springs, is more upbeat about Priscilla’s legacy on the region.
Walcott says his own B&B had thrived in the wake of the movie’s success, as had gay tourism in general. “It allowed other things to happen and NT Tourism has become very supportive of the gay and lesbian tourism market.”
While the film’s impact on the country’s tourism industry has, by most accounts, been positive, what effect has Priscilla had on a cultural level?
Somewhat removed from the movie’s desert heart is Tasmanian gay activist Rodney Croome. He says that Priscilla has made a “far more profound cultural impact than most gay movies”.
“While films like The Sum of Us have been relegated to the ‘art house’ section of DVD shops, Priscilla is still well and truly on the front-row, icon-movie shelf,” he says. “I think this is because Priscilla is ‘fabulous’ in both senses of the word. Obviously it’s ‘fabulous’ in a camp sense. But it’s also fabulous in the sense of being a fable – the characters, events, stories, and even the colours, are simple and universal.”
While the film didn’t delve deeply into as many GLBT issues as people would have liked, it did explore other concerns that were just as important to some degree, such as gay father-son relationships, homophobia in rural communities and the hurdles facing older transgender women within both the queer and broader community.
Transgender activist Linda Petrie says although the film didn’t concern itself with the lives of most transsexuals, it did “reveal the often-ridiculed and difficult trans lives of those on the drag circuit”. She adds that Terence Stamp’s performance as Bernadette was a “brilliant, empathetic and touching portrayal of the often potentially lonely, often tragic lives many transgender people face as they enter their twilight years”.
“I think the film really endeared and raised the profile of trans people” Petrie says.
Priscilla’s reincarnation into a stage musical now means that a whole new generation of viewers can enjoy its story. The themes – more about acceptance and family than it is about sexuality – the character’s journeys, the music, the costumes and the setting, continues to strike a chord with audiences, young and old, just as much as the film did.
As Macintosh says: “There’s a heart and soul in this movie, because it’s all about people, friends and family, and in particular, friends looking after each other.
“It transcends homosexuality. It’s very much a film about family. Just not your everyday family.”
With Reg Domingo
Priscilla: The Musical returns to the Lyric Theatre, Star City from October 7, 2008. For tickets and further info, visit priscillathemusical.com.
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Priscilla revisited
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