30 years later, few movies understand the magic of drag quite like ‘Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert’

Welcome back to our queer film retrospective, “A Gay Old Time.” In this week’s column, we’re revisiting The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, which was released in the U.S. on August 10, 1994—30 years ago today!

Although the primary goal of this column is to highlight queer films that have been forgotten by time or are in need of a cultural reassessment years after release, every now and then we focus on a movie that became a classic almost immediately—stories that expanded what queer film could be and look like, and oftentimes crossed over into the mainstream consciousness.

The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert became a surprise worldwide hit when it was released in 1994. Its portrayals of LGBTQ+ individuals—including the little-seen or discussed trans community and the drag subculture—felt groundbreaking at the time, and marked a decided “before & after” in terms of how our lives were portrayed on screen.

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It’s easy to see how Priscilla led the way for other ’90s movies with similar themes, like To Wong Foo in ’95 and The Birdcage in ’96. After a Cannes Film Festival premiere, director Stephan Elliott’s feature was received with universal acclaim across the globe, earned an Academy Award for its costume design, and has become a beloved cult hit.

Today, Priscilla celebrates its 30th anniversary—and even has a sequel on the way! To celebrate, we’re taking a look back at how its portrayal of the inner lives of LGBTQ+ individuals still feels so radical, its legacy within mainstream queer cinema, and of course, at all of those incredible costumes.

The Set-Up

For those unfamiliar with Priscilla and its desert creatures, the film follows three Australian drag queens as they take a journey across the outback to reach a hotel where they will be performing a residency.

Tony/ Mitzi (Hugo Weaving) is an anxious gay bachelor who is hiding the fact that the person who hired them is his ex-wife and mother of his estranged son, Bernardette (Terence Stamp) is a recently widowed trans woman and veteran performer who joins the trip to get over her grief, and Adam/ Felicia (Guy Pearce) is a young and reckless queen who is eager for adventure.

The three embark on the trip on an enormous bus they nickname the titular “Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert,” and encounter a variety of expected obstacles, including prejudiced townspeople, a curious Indigenous tribe, and a friendly but explosive mail bride (perhaps the element that has aged the worst), all while looking their best in high heels and under tons of sequined fabrics.

Down A Familiar Road…

The film hits every note of a road trip movie, from the unlikely group of friends—one that’s constantly clashing but with an unbreakable bond—to brushes with unfriendly and untrustworthy strangers, a car breaking down, and emotional revelations that only come against the vastness of the landscape.

It also uses many plot points that we’ve come to expect today in the sub-genre that explores when “the queer community and the outside heterosexual world collide”: the initial hesitation of embracing one another, the realization that we have more in common than differences, and even a makeover as an olive branch, in which repressed commoners are able to find their strength through drag (this is the entire premise of To Wong Foo, after all).

The Art Of Drag

However, what Priscilla was able to capture in such a distinct and specific way—and that other movies of similar themes have mostly failed to do so since—is that it depicts queerness and the art of drag as a deeply personal and almost spiritual ritual.

While the portrayals of drag in media (both in fictional entertainment and in reality shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race) mostly tend to highlight the performance aspect—the element that is put on for others to see and react to—most of the drag in Priscilla actually takes place in private, or in fantasy. For large portions of the movie, it’s just our three protagonists against the endless desert, dressed up in the most elaborate garments, performing for their own sake.

We see and indulge in the small in-between moments before and after each performance; the actual travel between venues, the waiting while someone else is performing, the rehearsals. We see the care and time and passion it takes to become larger-than-life beings. Through many montages set to iconic lip sync songs, we see the real work that embodying these other personas entails; getting ready, winding down, and doing it all over again is part of the process as much as performing on the stage.

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A Walkabout In Heels

The film is deeply embedded in Australian culture and lore, and the plot in many ways resembles a spiritual walkabout: three people wander into the desert one way, and emerge completely different. Through the many skins that they try on (and truly, the master craft of Tim Chappen and Lizzy Gardiner’s costumes cannot be understated), they are able to understand themselves better, and work through the many issues that are bubbling underneath their lives: grief, guilt, confusion.

Even the final images of the film, in which the dressed-up dummy that was lost in the wind is revealed to have been found and is now worshiped by monks in Tibet, makes the connection that by doing drag, you are connecting with the deepest, highest version of yourself.

Shantay You Stay, Priscilla

That is not to say the movie is not also tremendously entertaining, marvelously performed by its three leads (oh, to have a time machine to meet 1994’s Guy Pearce), and with a heart as big as the Australian desert.

Its impact on queer culture is still visible (there is a direct line between Priscilla and the grandeur that is expected every week at the main stage of Drag Race), but it also paved the way on how we would represent ourselves in media for everyone outside of our community to receive.

Like the three queens atop of that fabulous silver bus, we are big, loud, and unapologetic. Because, while others may be welcome to enjoy the show that we’re putting on, at the end of the day we are doing it for us.

The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert is currently streaming via Amazon Prime Video, Freevee, Hoopla, Kanopy, Pluto TV, The Roku Channel, and Tubi.

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