Priscilla, (White) Queen of the Desert Queer Politics and Representation in a "Postcolonising" Nation — Page 4:
16 To return to my earlier points about queer theory, then, it is necessary to maintain a focus on the fact that whilst claims to multiplicity in relation to identity may well be of use to white queers who find norms of gender and sexuality to be oppressive, they may not necessarily be useful (or useful in the same way) to those queers who do not identify as white. In addition, a focus on sexual multiplicity and fragmentation does not necessarily require white queers to examine our own complicity with whiteness, nor the benefits we gain from living in a society that privileges the values of white people. Whilst focusing on complicity and privilege may not necessarily be high on the priority list for those white queers involved in activism, I believe that it is important that this focus is given greater consideration within queer politics. Thus, whilst approaches such as those advocated by queer theorists may be useful for challenging heteropatriarchy, it is important to incorporate a focus on how subjectivities in Western nations continue to be shaped through discourses of race. Otherwise, as Bernard suggests; "no matter how coalitional its compass, [any rights campaign] that identifies itself in terms of gender and/or sexual orientation only […] will be a white-centered and white-dominated politics, since only white people […] can afford to see their race as unmarked, as an irrelevant or subordinate category of analysis" (3).
17 One example of how white queer politics can at times fail to critically interrogate the intersections between race privilege and oppression based on sexuality appears in the work of Kitzinger and Wilkinson, two white lesbians who elaborate in their writings some of the precedents that have been used to push for marriage reform within the US. One particular case that is used repeatedly in this area is that of Brown v. Board of Education, which sought to challenge the racial segregation that existed in the US at the time. Whilst this has proven to be an important precedent for gaining access to marriage rights for white queers, the problem as I see it with using this case as a benchmark against which to contrast the exclusion of (primarily) lesbians and gay men from marriage is that it runs the risk that comes from trading on histories of racialised oppression to critique oppression based on sexuality. These risks I believe are twofold: first, it compares sexual and racial oppression in ways that may not necessarily be conducive to maintaining a critical focus on ongoing race privilege and discrimination. In other words, if white queers use legal challenges to racial oppression as a benchmark against which to measure oppression based on sexuality, then this may well serve to ignore the ways in which the privilege that white queers experience (as white people) comes at the expense of Indigenous and other people variously labelled as "non-white" who may or may not identify as queer. Second, the equation of sexual and racial oppression effectively sidelines the overlaps that exist between racial and sexual privilege and oppression (Barnard). In the context of Australia, for example, this could well work to position oppression based on sexuality at the forefront of rights issues, which would obviously do little to engage with the unfinished Treaty business that exists in Australia currently (Haggis; Moreton-Robinson, Talkin'). To equate racism with heterosexism may thus in many ways be to implicitly suggest that white queers are not racist, or for that matter, to suggest that white queer men (in particular) are not sexist. My point here is obviously not that white queers should not desire marriage rights (or any other form of rights for that matter), but rather that the use of analogies such as those made by Kitzinger and Wilkinson draw upon a moral position that may at times co-opt the voices of non-white queer people in order to warrant the moral positions held by white queer people. Moral authority in this instance is taken to be applicable across contexts, and as transferable between racially diverse populations. Such an approach does not pay significant attention to the incommensurable differences that may shape both the lives of white and black LGBTI activists, nor the range of political contexts within which particular moral claims are made, such as apartheid South Africa, Jim Crow US, and contemporary UK (where the previously mentioned authors are currently located). My suggestion is thus that whilst it is one thing for queer people who do not identify as white to talk about the similarities between racial and sexual apartheid, it is another thing entirely for white queer activists to do the same thing — it requires in part a claim to moral authority that is in many ways unearned, and which in my opinion seriously undermines the truth claims of white LGBTIQ activists.
18 This brings me back to my earlier point about the canonical texts of queer theory, and their location within a particular social context that valourises the values of white middle-class men. Whilst queer politics are of course all about challenging the normative frameworks of gender and sexuality under heteropatriarchy, they are by no means exempt from perpetuating those same norms. Part of this problem may stem from the fact that "queer is nominally ungendered" (Barnard 11). Though ambiguities around gender are of course an important aspect of the challenge that queer politics present to heteropatriarchy, a failure to engage with the very real ways in which bodies are gendered can institute a logic where, much like the failure to interrogate race privilege, the gender privilege of some queers is also left unexamined. Whilst to destabilise gender binaries is a key function of the work of queer politics, this, I would suggest, should not come at the expense of examining how particular queer identities (no matter how multiple or fractured) stand to benefit from gender norms. This theme of how gender operates in queer politics and representation is one that I shall return to in the analysis that follows.
Priscilla and the racialisation of queer representation
19 Released in 1994, and written and directed by a white gay Australian man — Stephan Elliot — The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a campy take on the life of three white queers who travel together through the outback to perform a drag show in Alice Springs. Along the way the three main characters meet a number of different people from a range of backgrounds, some of whom become part of the story as it progresses. Whilst the film is primarily the story of the three main characters, and their own queer identities and forms of representation, I believe it can afford us particular insight into how white queer politics and representation operate in Australia. To supplement my reading of the film, I will also in this section engage with one particular academic paper (Padva) that has taken up the "cause" of the film, which is depicted in the paper as an example of the "politicization of camp subculture." Through a reading of these two texts, I will highlight how white queer politics in Australia may at times trade on particular hegemonic forms of representation, and how they may as a result fail to interrogate white privilege.
20 There are three particular areas of symbolism that I wish to focus on in this section in regards to Priscilla. First, I seek to explore how white queers are at times seemingly placed outside of oppression. Second, I look at how white queerness may be seen within the movie to co-opt Indigeneity, and how this is simultaneously challenged by Indigenous people. And third, I wish to explore how white queer belonging is claimed, and how it is also unsettled within the film. These three foci will be interspersed with my own responses to the aforementioned paper that focuses on the politics of the film (Padva), in order to more closely examine how Priscilla has been read, and how such readings may similarly neglect to engage in an interrogation of the film's racial and gendered assumptions.