30 Years in High Heels: Priscilla Queen of the Desert

1994 was one of those movies years that as Darryl Kerrigan from the Castle would say “Goes straight to the Pool Room” with almost all of the major studios putting out absolute gems that would become timeless classics,

Muriel’s Wedding
Speed
The Lion King
True Lies
Forrest Gump
Pulp Fiction
Natural Born Killers
The Shawshank Redemption

To name a few but along with Muriel another gem of Australian cinema came out that year and that was the Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert written and directed by Stephan Elliot and starring Terence Stamp, Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce as 3 drag queens (Stamp’s character is also transgender) who head to Alice Springs to perform their cabaret act via an old bus which takes them through the centre of Australia and to places like Broken Hill and Coober Pedy.

And the film was an enormous success at the local box office and would become one of this country’s most iconic films (the centenary of Australian cinema just a year or two later would reference the film and Muriel a fair amount) and a week or so ago my main cinema recently picked it up for very limited showings and I decided to go and check it out.

And I am very glad I did as I had a lot of fun rewatching this on the big screen, the film has held up very well with Stamp/Weaving/Pearce and the late great Bill Hunter all giving brilliant performances and for pretty much the entire runtime of the film I had a big smile on my face and I was tapping along to the various songs on the soundtrack, my favourite being FINALLY by CeCe Peniston and when that song came on I was singing along as quietly and loudly as possible in my seat.

But it was also a fascinating experience to have as this is also in some ways a movie of its time and the first sign of that is the Sydney Petrol Price I got a glimpse of as the Bus departs for Alice Springs, it was 64.9 cents a litre and I thought to myself “You won’t see those prices again” as you pretty much now have to put a 1 in front of that and people nowadays think “That’s pretty good.”

Another area where the film dates itself is the glimpse I got of an Ansett Australia logo on a poster in the dressing room in Alice Springs, Ansett was at one point in time the major airline here in Australia along with Qantas but in 2001 they collapsed and later went out of business leaving only Qantas as our national airline and they haven’t covered themselves in any great glory in recent years either.

A third area where the 30 year time skip is marked is a brief scene where Guy Pearce’s character goes into a video shop in Coober Pedy and asks for the Texas Chainsaw Mascara and at one point you get a quick glimpse of some of the video titles on the shelves such as Keeper of the City, Under Siege and Strictly Ballroom as well as a small poster for Elliott’s previous film Frauds which starred Phil Collins and Hugo Weaving.

And now sadly Video Stores have gone extinct due to the meteorite of streaming services wiping them out as consumers could have similar access to movies and TV shows in the comfort of their own home instead of going to a specific place to rent or buy them and as a kid of the 90’s I miss the Video Shop and the communal experience it helped to add to the overall movie watching experience which is something you just don’t get when watching something on a streaming service and paying an eternal rental fee to access a specific film or TV show instead of buying a physical copy of either.

And that too has become greatly diminished in the last 30 years as the 1990’s was a genuine boom for video retail here in Australia, it started with CEL in the mid 80’s and their Entertainment Revolution but the 90’s was when it really hit its stride with the major players like Warner Brothers, Roadshow, Fox, Columbia/Tristar, CIC which had Universal and Paramount and Disney/Buena Vista selling many of their old and new titles for consumers and fans to own (the ABC would also do the same through a deal with Roadshow) and I still prefer having a physical copy of a movie or show that I love instead of just watching it on a streamer and then it not being there because said streamer has pulled it off their servers.

And lastly the film is a product of it’s time in regards to its attitude to the characters sexuality, there are numerous scenes in the film where people come up to them only see one of the men wearing a dress only to drive away as fast as possible and then in Coober Pedy Pearce’s character is beaten up by a group of men having a drink one night as he comes up to them with long hair and in a dress and heels.

And then there is the situation with Weaving’s character having a son in Alice Springs and being very nervous to build a bond with him due to his choice of lifestyle which thankfully he doesn’t have a problem with and neither does his ex-wife.

And here is where I think things have gotten better in the 30 years since this movie’s original release and that is there is now much more acceptance and tolerance of LGBT+ people and the struggles they face in their life, now this isn’t to say things are perfect because they are certainly not (and we have seen that in regards to trans people in particular) but the way people’s sexuality isn’t stigmatized or seen as a negative about that person for the most part has changed and become much more celebrated than it was when I was growing up.

And yes change is hard, it’s hard fought and requires a lot of persuading people and encouragement of them to come to accept who they really are instead of having to pretend to be something their not and they just bottle it up so much that it becomes suffocating but the fact that this movie did become such a huge hit at the box office, has endured all of this time and into the future (a 4K disc release with a new restoration and lots of extra features is due to come out towards the end of this year) is a sign to me at least that when we look past our differences and can understand where others come from in their life then things can change for the better and we can create a better world.