When you’re outclassed, all you can do is sit down and take notes. And maybe get new equipment.
There’s more dancing than meets the eye in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994). It’s the story of two drag queens and a transsexual, traveling from Sydney to Alice Springs, Australia, in order to take a gig doing what they do best – lip-syncing and dancing to disco hits for audiences. They have a bus, which they name Priscilla, and it serves as transport, stage, and setting for their trip and their lives.
But the real dance here is their desperate tap to maintain their identities and sanity on the edge of a society that they need to survive, but has, at best, mixed feelings about them. Each has a story to tell.
Transsexual Bernadette’s search for a place and a husband (she begins the movie mourning her young husband’s death) takes her into a step mother role for the two drag queens, counseling, sometimes against her better judgment, them on the tricks of survival, both physical and emotional. She once had a long career as a ‘lay girl,’ and this is the resumption of this older woman’s career – and perhaps a return to her glory years.
Tick is called to Alice Springs on an ulterior motive, which he fears to reveal because it will lay bare a sordid past – at least in this company. A wife and child speak to the influence of traditional society, even on those despised by it, and a call for help and promise of a gig motivates him to leave home – and the support of the local community of what has come to be known as the LGBTQ – in order to pay fealty to that influence, even if unappreciated by most of society.
Adam is the young firebrand, embittered by society’s rejection and consequently embracing his lifestyle full on. One moment kicking society in the shins, the next retreating into the age-old tradition of alcohol and drugs to survive another night, Adam’s rejection by society is mirrored in his own rejection, spotty as it may be, of even his own companions. This is a drag queen with testosterone, and all the confusion that plagues young males of almost any species.
The trip isn’t just about covering geography, although that’s an important part of a trip across rugged, dangerous Australia. This trip is more about traveling the spectrum of society’s response to them as they are and wish to be – and how that threatens society. On one end of the dial, they experience a brutal rejection in a town where they invade – and win over – a local bar, only to find Priscilla terribly defaced with hate-filled words in the morning.
But, stranded by an engine failure in the midst of the Australian desert, they find the other end of the dial as they experience the simple acceptance of a local Aboriginal band who are throwing a party under the stars. This is an interesting scene, as the Aborigines are portrayed with eyes that are steady, accepting, and, in some nameless way, wise, while Adam, Tick, and Bernadette have eyes that are restless and, well, modern, darting about in ways signaling their concern about this society. But they volunteer to take part in the party by performing, and soon the disco beat of “I Will Survive” is echoing throughout the ancient hills as they gyrate in costumes to rival the Milky Way above, much to the amusement of the Aborigines.
And then the story-tellers add in a magical element: an Australian didgeridoo blends with the disco beat and Aboriginal chant to bring into the fold, into at least this society, our heroes and their way of life. The ancient, in the form of the Aborigines, has always had a whiff of ancient wisdom for Western ears, for good and bad, and the simplicity and deep bass pitch of the didgeridoo reinforces that impression, even if the actual tradition isn’t the ancient Western world. The blending of one of the newest of musical art forms with one of the oldest and, one would think, most incompatible of instruments, brings a lift to our protagonists, as they face the next day of an immobile bus. The scene is below, although extracted as it is from the full movie, the effect is diminished.
The Aborigines are not the only folks accepting of their lifestyle and choices, though, and Bob, the mechanic they find in a small town and who nursemaids their bus, symbolizes those parts of modern Western society who are transitioning from easy hatred to justifiable acceptance and, perhaps, understanding. Bob’s wife, though, indicates that there are still potholes on the way – and quite potent for our performers, who find that Bob’s wife’s performance is more popular than all three of them put together.
Eventually, they reach Alice Springs, do the gig, take care of the kid (a minor miracle in himself), and Bernadette decides a new challenge is in order for herself.
It’s an off-beat movie. There are no individual antagonists, only the resistance brought on by bigotry and xenophobia, and how it messes with the lives of the protagonists – and how they mess with it right back. In the process, we see how persistence, spirit, and creativity are the yeast in our lives – and how not all things come out as expected. And, fortunately, it also has fine technical aspects, and the acting is strong across the board.
Strongly Recommended. Even if you don’t like disco.
