The 1990s and After

The explosion of queer Australian films in the 1990s was, arguably, heralded by the stunning success of Baz Luhrman's Strictly Ballroom (1992). The romance plot may be straight but the film is saturated with camp and kitsch, and is a forerunner of Luhrmann's later international extravaganzas, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Moulin Rouge (2001).

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Ann Turner's feature length Dallas Doll (1992), starring American comedienne Sandra Bernhard as a bisexual adventuress let loose on an "ordinary" Australian family, was a patchy yet intriguing venture that failed to find mainstream cinema release.

In 1994, however, three seminal films, all comedies, and all with serious thematic underpinnings, were released to critical acclaim and commercial success: P.J. Hogan's Muriel's Wedding (1994), with its friendship between two young women on the loose in Sydney, saturated in camp and grounded in an (unrealized) lesbian subtext; Stephan Elliot's exuberant Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), the story of three Sydney drag queens (one transsexual, one homosexual, and one bisexual) who embark on a bus journey to Ayers Rock, scandalizing the local yokels on the way; and Geoff Burton and Kevin Dowling's The Sum of Us (1994), starring Russell Crowe as a working-class gay plumber, living with his sympathetic straight father.

The comic vein continued with Emma-Kate Croghan's Love and Other Catastrophes (1996), a witty take on the screwball genre focusing on the romantic misadventures of five young students in Melbourne, two of whom "just happen" to be lesbians.

Yet towards the end of the 1990s a more serious tone began to emerge. Lawrence Johnson's Life (1996)--acclaimed by critics but too confrontational to attract the crossover success of Priscilla--offered a searing, timely study of relationships between men in an HIV division of a state prison.

Ana Kokkinos's Only the Brave (1994), a sometimes scrappy, yet engaging, short film about the lesbian awakening of a working class Greek-Australian girl, paved the way for Kokkinos to direct and co-write Head On (1998), a technically impressive adaptation of Christos Tsoilkas' grunge novel Loaded, featuring a striking performance by Alex Dimitriadis as the antihero Ari.

Novel to film adaptations have also provided the impetus for the work of Samantha Lang who, with Kokkinos, heads the vanguard of younger queer-focused directors. The Well (1997), a visually stunning version of Elizabeth Jolley's story of closeted lesbian obsession, stumbles a little, perhaps due to uncertainty about the veiled strains of the original, but The Monkey's Mask (2000) works creditably to capture some of the intelligence and eroticism of Dorothy Porter's complex verse detective novel, eliciting powerful performances from Suzie Porter and Kelly McGillis.

Conclusion

Australia's diverse and distinctive contribution to queer film has secured increasing international recognition. While the halcyon highs of 1994 have yet to be matched, the tradition is, it is hoped, sufficiently solid to withstand the strands of social conservatism and fiscal restraint that mark Australian life in the new millennium.

Historically, Australia has produced some important gay and lesbian artists, but only recently have openly glbtq artists felt comfortable in Australia.

In the past two decades Australia has come to occupy a leading place in gay and lesbian literature, and New Zealand has recently produced some significant gay and lesbian texts.

Despite some important breakthroughs in the depiction of gay men and lesbians in the past, Australian television today lacks any regular and open discussion of queer issues and lives.

Given its history, it is somewhat surprising that Australia now has exceptionally gay-friendly laws and public attitudes, with widespread public tolerance and acceptance of the glbtq community.

Since cinema began, Hollywood has been fascinated with finding ways of representing homosexuality.

With thriving glbtq communities, an accommodating atmosphere, and a mammoth Mardi Gras celebration, Sydney is a center of glbtq culture and a favorite destination for tourists of all genders and sexualities.

Representations of transsexuality in films range from freak-show exploitation, to dramatic and documentary depictions, to the use of transsexuality as a metaphor for exploring the crossing of all kinds of borders.

Too often cinematic drag is reduced to a mere joke, a harmless tease that tacitly reassures us that people can change their clothes but not their sexual identities.

Sharp-tongued comedienne, writer, singer, and actor Sandra Bernhard is known almost as well for her amorphous sexuality as for her cynical wit.

The work of Australian lesbian poet Dorothy Porter presents a cheeky challenge to a literary establishment whose poetry has often been defined by pretension and obfuscation.

At the height of his athletic career, Australian rugby superstar Ian Roberts made the courageous decision to come out as a gay man.