Robertson. Ugh.
The stereotypes presented in Priscilla are presented that way for a reason. I don't believe it's the reason Robertson states, however. In Australia the depictions of the butch woman, the Fillipina woman, the aboriginal group, as well as the "rednecks" are all presentations of the colonial/outside world view of Australia that Australia has come to internalize. When this film came out, as Robertson talks about, Australia was trying to come into it's own and shrug off these views, especially the romanticized Dundee image. These characters are straw-(wo)men in the film to shine a light on those stereotypes. It is a magnifying glass used against generally accepted concepts of what these people are in Australia. The most interesting part to me was the most hyper-magnified/dramatic/focal/comic presentation of Cynthia. Robertson talks about the blame forced on immigrants in Australia and the inability for them to assimilate and how we don't know how Cynthia feels. This is how Fillipina/o people are treated though, they do lack a voice and are seen as tricky. The grotesque way Cynthia is portrayed is to make you uncomfortable with this idea, the character is upsetting because that idea is upsetting, not because Fillipina women are like that. The same goes for the butch woman, the aboriginal group, and the rednecks. These are all upsetting/one dimensional/incomplete presentations of people because that is how people view Australia, Unfeminine, mystified, and extremely masculine/intolerant. It's to make you think about these stereotypes and why they exist, not to say they are accurate. Through the film you are siding with the "other" and the straw-characters are used to show that everyone is "othered," but people living within that world are less likely to scrutinize widely accepted stereotypes.