Muriel & Priscilla
SCREEN QUEENS CELEBRATE 20 YEARS
They allowed us to laugh at ourselves and let the world in on the joke, too!
In 1994, two Aussie films about daggy underdogs on voyages of self-discovery entranced the world – and put a whole lot of ABBA on the big screen. Marc Andrews celebrates the enduring legacy of Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert.
In 1994, Australian movies were roughly stuck in two camps. The Crocodile Dundee franchise had the world believing the average Aussie bloke could tackle man-eating reptiles with his bare hands, while the Mad Max films (or Road Warrior as it was re-named for the US) served up a futuristic orgy of revheads with Tina Turner as a post-apocalyptic Mohican for its Thunderdome edition. Yes, we needed another hero. Mercifully, two little Australian movies came along and changed everything. Released around the same time in September of 1994, Muriel’s Wedding and The Adventures Of Priscilla: Queen Of The Desert became local breakouts, and then groundbreaking worldwide hits.
Muriel told a wry tale about a sad sack fat girl from the small town of Porpoise Spit who dreamed that one day her life would be as good as an ABBA song. When Muriel (Toni Collette) meets Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths) they become a quasi-ABBA covers band and Muriel, soon to be Mariel, is never the same again. She moves to Sydney, gets a hot boyfriend and then… well, if you haven’t seen the movie it was at turns deliciously camp, heart-wrenchingly moving and provided a sardonic insight into contemporary Australian life.
Muriel’s Wedding kickstarted Toni Collette’s career, leading to her Oscar nomination for The Sixth Sense. “You’re terrible, Muriel!” became the catchphrase of the decade. Afterwards, writer/director PJ Hogan (no relation to Crocodile Dundee’s Paul Hogan) became a big cheese in Hollywood, especially after 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding fleetingly transformed Rupert Everett into the big star he always thought he should be.
Priscilla, meanwhile, was gleefully named after a rustbucket of a bus. On paper, a movie about three trannies crossing the outback and crossdressing while they do it probably only looked like a tax write-off. Perhaps because it was made with more heart than money it won audiences everywhere. Director Stephan Elliott understood the characters he created, basing them on real-life Sydney drag queens.
Stephan also had a good ear for a tune, mixing and matching hits from the ’70s ( Shake Your Groove Thing from Peaches And Herb and I Love The Nightlife from Alicia Bridges) with contemporary house classics ( Finally by CeCe Peniston) and killer power ballads Save The Best For Last from Vanessa Williams and the woefully brilliant story-song I’ve Never Been To Me by Charlene. Even better, Stephan wisely chose Lizzy Gardiner and Tim Chappel to design the memorable, now iconic, outfits on a shoestring budget. There were cupcake dresses, thong dresses (that’s flip-flop dresses for overseas readers) and even frill-necked lizard dresses. The costumes they whipped up were downright genius and the Academy Awards agreed, giving the duo an Oscar for their work. In true Priscilla style, Lizzy attended the awards in a dress stitched together from 254 American Express gold cards.
While many assumed Priscilla wouldn’t have great legs the movie lived up to its motto: I Will Survive. After Steven Spielberg’s lame attempt to copy the movie (1995’s To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar) bombed, Priscilla proved to be a movie with many lives, not just costume changes.
During the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Priscilla was woven into the closing ceremony celebrating Australian popular culture. Then, in the dark days after September 11, 2001, TV stations around the world began airing Priscilla, offering the world the colour, movement and dragtastic hope it so badly needed for the future.
In 2006, a successful musical adaptation began travelling the world capturing the
original gay abandon of the movie, although the ABBA songs had to be changed to Kylie ones for Australia, and then to Madonna ones in the US for copyright reasons.
It should not be forgotten that Guy Pearce, at this stage mainly known as amateur bodybuilder Mike from Neighbours, parlayed his queeny turn as Adam in Priscilla into an exceptional, award-lauded acting career which has including Memento, The King’s Speech and, er, Iron Man 3. While it also transformed British actor Terence Stamp into a bankable star again, briefly, it was Hugo Weaving who benefited the most from the potent Priscilla potion by commencing a long and hugely successful career that includes The Matrix, Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit.
While Muriel equally celebrated and mocked Australian dagginess, Priscilla was all about the fabulousness and bitchery of drag life. Post- Priscilla, Sydney’s gay bars were suddenly filled with tourists, especially young women, who’d seen the movie and wanted to experience fab drag with their own eyes. While at first the gay bars encouraged this, soon enough it became clear Priscilla, and the Sydney drag scene, was becoming a victim of its own success.
As straight crowds flocked in, the gay boys flocked out. It didn’t take long before almost all of Sydney’s drag venues, including the legendary Albury Hotel, had either shut or changed their door policy. Only The Imperial Hotel in Sydney’s inner-west, where some of Priscilla was actually filmed, survived the straight onslaught. With its own Priscilla show a staple for years, the nofrills pub’s appeal to the local council to let “the home of Priscilla” plonk a large neon drag heel on its roof was rejected on the grounds it would might turn the neighbours gay, or something similarly ridiculous. Priscilla represented a time in Australian life, and Sydney life, that has sadly long since vanished. Both Muriel and Priscilla were snapshots of their time. History buffs will appreciate that much of Muriel was actually filmed on Sydney’s famous “golden gay mile” of Oxford Street, long before it was taken over by straight kids from the suburbs. Muriel’s Wedding is not a gay movie per se, but it has a very gay sensibility,
especially
with its depiction of an outsider bravely risking a chance on life, its portrayal of the importance of friendship, and let’s not forget that pack of mean girls.
Priscilla, two decades later, is still all about the great costumes, great music and even greater snide quotes. It is nothing less than a fitting legacy to the huge role drag played in building Sydney’s gay community, especially in rallying the troops and keeping them tittering during the grim AIDS era.
These two heartfelt comedies thankfully manhandled Australian cinema out of the obsession with its inglorious historical past, allowing us to finally laugh at ourselves and let the world in on the joke, too… as we all sang along to ABBA. One of Muriel’s key lines is “My life is as good as an ABBA song!”, while Priscilla’s is “No more fucking ABBA!” How could we not fail to be bedazzled by these two great queens of Australian cinemas?