Group 3: What's the point of making drag and transgender so spectacular and campy? How are the road scene of landscape and encounters with outback gender normatives used as a backdrop for this gender extravagance and excess?
In the film "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert" the main characters, Mitz, Felicia, and Bernadette, stand out excessively against the desolate backdrop of the desert. The point in doing this could be as simple as making a film completely over-the-top for the purposes of the audience shock factor, or it could be for a much deeper purpose. The three characters all take to the road for different reasons, leaving the acceptance of the city for the outback. Their bus named "Priscilla" is their refuge and encompasses their identities. It is large, over the top, complete with wardrobe, a fully stocked bar and all the glitz and glam that three drag queens could ever need. Throughout the movie, it is made clear that the "outback" is a place of homophobia and where unacceptance runs wild. While they do meet a few friends on the way, the majority of the outback world of suburbia does not understand drag, anf thus eventhough the three characters went on the trip seeking space, and freedom from the city, they instead find themselves even more confined and not accepted.
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