AustLit
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Despite an often‐repeated cliché that gender and sexually diverse characters are relatively absent from film and television, Australian screen production has a very rich history of representing sexual and gender diversity: greater than nineteen wide‐release films since 1993, including internationally recognized films such as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), The Sum of Us (1994), Head On (1998), and The Monkey’s Mask (2000), portray gender and sexual diversity. Nine Australian films with LGBTQ, gender, and sexually diverse themes were released between 2013 and 2018, indicating an entrenchment of LGBTQ representation on Australian screens. Characters in major Australian television dramas and soap operas, such as Home and Away and Neighbours, have increased in regularity and complexity over the past two decades. Sexual stories, including narratives of minority sexual lives, have never, of course, been repressed or invisible, but according to Ken Plummer, they have long been central to contemporary Western culture (4). Stories representing gender and sexually diverse subjects depicting identity struggles and articulating minority health outcomes are a major and ongoing part of Australian creative production. What is significant in cultural analysis is not questions of visibility or invisibility but how the continuities and disruptions of depictions of gender and sexual minorities play a significant, pedagogical role in social participation, social harmony, acceptance, individual health and wellbeing, and community belonging (Cover, Queer Youth Suicide; Emergent Identities).' (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert 1994 single work film/TV
- The Sum of Us 1994 single work film/TV
- Head On 1998 single work film/TV
- The Monkey's Mask 2000 single work film/TV
- Home and Away 1988 series - publisher film/TV
- Neighbours 1985 series - publisher film/TV
- Monster Pies 2013 single work film/TV
- Boys in the Trees 2016 single work film/TV
- Drown 2015 single work film/TV
- The Slap : Hector 2011 single work film/TV
- Cut Snake 2014 single work film/TV