How to tell the difference between a positive image and a stereotype: reading Priscilla, Queen of the Desert

This paper intervenes in critical discussions about the representation of homosexuality. Rejecting the ‘manifest content’ of films, it turns to cultural history to map those public discourses which close down the ways in which films can be discussed. With relation to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, it examines discussions of the film in Australian newspapers (both queer and mainstream) and finds that while there is disagreement about the interpretation to be made of the film, the terms within which those interpretations can be made are quite rigid. A matrix based on similarity, difference and value provides a series of positions and a vocabulary (transgression, assimilation, positive images and stereotypes) through which to make sense of this film. The article suggests that this matrix, and the idea that similarity and difference provide a suitable axis for making sense of homosexual identity, are problematic in discussing homosexual representation.

Idaho city : queen of the gold camps /

Mode of access: Internet.

The seven lamps of architecture; also, Lectures on architecture and painting; The study of architecture; Sesame and lilies; Unto this last; The queen of the air; The storm-cloud of the nineteenth century /

Mode of access: Internet.

Rosamund, queen of the Lombards, a tragedy,

Spottiswoode & Co., printers, New-Street Square, London.

Memoirs of the queens of France. Including a memoir of Her Majesty, the late queen of the French (Marie Amelie).

Mode of access: Internet.

The crown of wild olive, and The queen of the air /

Mode of access: Internet.

Queen of the meadow /

"Lithographed and printed by Ernest Nister of Nuremberg."

The queen of the lakes. A romance of the Mexican Valley.

Mode of access: Internet.

The queen of the Savannah; a story of the Mexican war,

Mode of access: Internet.

Tomb 2 (M2D1; likely the Queen of the King of Jiangdu), excavated artifact, #7 Heart-shaped Pendant

Jiangsu. Wuxi County. Dayunshan; L: 1 13/16 in.; white jade

Tomb 2 (M2D1; likely the Queen of the King of Jiangdu), excavated artifact, #7 Heart-shaped Pendant, line draing of the remaining fragment

Jiangsu. Wuxi County. Dayunshan; white jade

Tomb 2 (M2D1; likely the Queen of the King of Jiangdu), excavated artifact, #7 Heart-shaped Pendant, rubbing

Jiangsu. Wuxi County. Dayunshan; white jade

Elizabeth Montagu, the queen of the bluestockings, her correspondence from 1720 to 1761;

Genealogical table in pocket (v. l)

The queen of the kitchen. A collection of Southern cooking receipts. Containing over one thousand Southern receipts in practical cookery.

At head of title: The great "Southern cook book."

The queen of the Sciences,

Mode of access: Internet.