Priscilla and Patriarchy? Or not....
“The journey to Alice Springs is about how mobility, scale, and space “disassociate� Mitzi, Felicia, and Bernadette from their local roots in Sydney, but it is Priscilla that furnishes a haven from which the three friends can safely face issues of sexual identity, home, family, and community. “ (Aitken and Lukinbeal, 349)
Though I agree with Aitken and Lukinbeal’s assertion that Priscilla creates a safe space for the gay men who take the road in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but I do not agree that “…the broader narrative of the movie, with its focus on family, community, and sedentarism is suffused with a seemingly incontestable patriarchal logic� (Aitken and Lukinbeal 358). The suggestion that this film ends within the patriarchal structure is absurd to me. Bernadette, a transsexual, stays with the man she wants to be with in Alice Springs. Felicia, Mitzi, and his son return to Sydney, where the boy will be raised by drag queens (which he is fully accepting of). Neither of these cases appear to be “normal� patriarchal roles, aside from Mitzi accepting his responsibility as a father (which he has neglected for several years), but they leave without the “subservient mother�, a key part of the traditional family model. The focus on the community is emphasized, but it is a queer community, severely departing from the traditional idea of a community, what I would envision as a neighborhood gathering for a block party. To me, there is no real “return to masculinity� in this film; in fact, when Mitzi attempts to ‘play’ the strong, outback man for his son, he rejects that version of his father, preferring the softer, more feminine, and most importantly real and true version of his father.