Stereotypes upon stereotypes....
“But the return home in Priscilla, as in the Wizard of Oz, can be a rejection of difference and a return to familiarity,” (Pamela Robertson, Home and Away). I believe what Robertson has said about stereotypes and their usage to frighten those who venture to be very true. Firstly, stereotypes stem from something that may have been true however, they are excessively used so that they usually cause harm towards a specific group of people based on nationality, sexual orientation, appearance, etc. The three main characters Tick, Bernadette, and Adam, are minorities in the Australian outback where most likely people don’t see a group of men dressed in ‘feminine’ clothing therefore, this could end up to be a dangerous encounter between the ‘normal’ or accepted and the transsexual and drag queens. Many studies have found that people tend to be afraid of the unknown so they act out in sometimes very hateful ways. This is true for both parties of people in the case of the film Priscilla.
When they made their journey on the road they had a very friendly departure with people hooraying and being merry but once they hit the road and the outback they realized they were no longer in their safety zone where their bus had hateful words directed at them involving the stereotype of AIDS coming from all gays. In this same place where their bus was graffitied they met a woman who was mean and vulgar towards them who ‘just happened to be’ a butch woman. Bernadette makes a comment that reflects her appearance and the fact that she will never get laid. Here Bernadette reacts to an insulting stereotype by dealing out her own. Before Bernadette was a white woman she was a white man and perhaps these stereotypes of women were engrained in her from the very beginning of her existence that she does not even realize she is only continuing the hate and stereotypes that she is held accounted to because she is a transsexual. Another interesting scene is where the Filipino woman is stereotyped as this crazy, exotic, and manipulative woman while her husband Bob, a white European man, is portrayed as this gentle kind soul. Here Cynthia will never find her place and society and will always be seen as the strange or ‘alien.’ Bernadette refers to Cynthia as a bitch which furthers the negative stereotype of all women who act out as bitches and also how it is becoming a popular word for even women to use against other women securing patriarchy.
The last scene that I believe imperative to discus is how the ‘manly outback man’ is stereotyped as sex deprived and therefore incredibly horny. He is also incredibly ignorant and the town bully. Adam decides after binging on drugs to go off and find some excitement. After an altercation Adam and the outback man get in a fight and Adam gets a blow to the face and nearly a blow to his pelvic region which was intended to reinforce the fact that he was not a true man because he dressed in feminine clothes.
Although I do not believe that it is the responsibility of minorities and the ‘other’ to help stop stereotypes nor do I find them more wrong if they themselves use stereotypes it is very possible that this film has perhaps dangerously used the stereotypes of transsexuals and drag queens to reinforce other stereotypes such as the butch woman and the exotic, manipulating immigrant.