There it is,shrouded in shame and criminality. In many respects it’s a complicated first scribble on the clay tablets of Australia’s queer culture. At the same time it’s a stark reminder of the challenges which lay head (and continue to do so) for a culture sprung from a cocktail of secrecy and shame.
Queerstralia tackles,in three parts,Australia’s queer history from penal colony toPriscilla:Queen of the Desert,a complex journey through colonisation and criminalisation,trans pioneers and cross-dressing bushrangers,to the Mardi Gras,Australian drag culture and the legalisation of gay marriage.
Comedian Zoë Coombs Marr is tasked with unraveling the details,delivering early a caveat on her qualifications. “I’m a comedian,not a historian,” she says. But it’s a shrewd decision. Australia’s queer history is replete with hardship and exclusion. A little levity is not unwelcome,for those who endured it,and for the audience invited to now look back.
As it turns out,like most minority groups,they were not the authors of the history books. So the history books largely and conveniently forgot about them. And yet,queer culture was everywhere:in art,in literature,in our colonial history,in police records. While it is still an incomplete document,scratch the surface and the pieces of the jigsaw start to emerge.
Coombs Marr is not alone on her quest. She is aided by activist,writer and actor Nayuka Gorrie,who steps in while the program explores the intersection between our queer and Indigenous cultures,and Anthony Brandon Wong,who serves as the program’s slightly hilarious narrator. (If you listen hard,you will hear Ghost fromThe Matrix.)
The arrival on our shores of World Pride has triggered something of a mini-tsunami of queer-themed content. This series lands just after the feature,Outrageous:The Queer History of Australian TV,from producers Andrew Mercado and Margee Brown,which takes a deeper dive into one specific piece of the gay jigsaw:the iconic TV soapNumber 96.