Drag Queens to 'Come Out' at Aussie Olympics
Aug. 24, 2000 -- Drag queens wearing original costumes from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert will recreate scenes from the film at the closing ceremony of the Olympics in Sydney.
Original clothes from the 1994 movie about drag queens in the Australian Outback (which won an Academy Award for costume design) will be worn by drag queens recruited from Sydney’s gay theater circuit.
Olympics Minister Michael Knight on Wednesday confirmed the Priscilla segment, which will be part of a tribute to other Australian movies.
Although other films to be featured have not been revealed, the list of internationally successful Australian films includes Babe, Crocodile Dundee, Strictly Ballroom and the Mad Max series.
Some Controversy
When organizers of Sydney’s Olympics decided to include drag queens in the Oct. 1 closing ceremony, the first open involvement of gays in an Olympic event, they knew it would ruffle feathers.
Australia is a nation that lives for sport, seeing in it traditional values that do not include open homosexuality among its sports stars.
The Olympics provide Australia, world champions in rugby and cricket, with a great opportunity to show the world what a healthy, outdoor, sporting lifestyle can achieve.
Now Sydney may also be remembered for being the Games in which the Olympic movement accepted homosexuals.
Church groups and far-right politicians say the inclusion of drag queens in the Olympic jamboree, no matter how indirectly, could make Sydney the “homosexual capital of the world.”
“This blatant condoning of a public homosexual display during the closing ceremony will not enhance the Olympic Games nor Australia as host to the Games,” said the Rev. Fred Niles, a New South Wales parliamentarian.
“Homosexual and lesbian behavior is not a true representation of Australian culture and lifestyle. Drag queens do not truly represent our great Aussie culture at all,” he said.
‘Gay Capital’ — and Proud
The irony is that many Sydneysiders proudly believe their city is already the world’s gay capital.
They boast the largest gay parade, an annual Mardi Gras that attracts up to 1 million people from around the globe.
The parade in February or March is estimated to earn nearly $100 million in Australian dollars (U.S. $60 million) a year, generating more income than any other cultural or sporting event in Australia — including the Australian Formula One Grand Prix.
Two years from now, Sydney will host the sixth International Gay Games, when 14,000 competitors — 4,000 more than the Olympics — will descend on the city.
Stuart Borrie, sports director of the Gay Games, could not say how many competitors in the 2000 Olympics were gay but expected some of them to “come out” and join the Gay Games.
“Athletes are very nervous about admitting to being gay while participating in such a major event,” he told Reuters.
“Gays and lesbians are pretty much invisible in international sport because they are very wary about loss of income. But once the Olympics are over we could expect more high-profile support.”
Power of the Pink Dollar
It is not just public attitudes toward the city’s gay community that have changed since the Mardi Gras started in 1978 as a small, protest event.
Companies have realized the potential of the pink dollar, and some travel agents cater solely for a gay clientele.
In Sydney’s gay magazines and newspapers like Outrage, Capital Q and the Star Observer, advertisers such as Motorola, ANZ Bank, airline Qantas, and automakers Ford and Volkswagen target the gay market with ads featuring same-sex couples.
Marketing consultancy Significant Others estimates the pre-tax earnings of Australia’s gay market at about A$36 billion.
Ian Johnson, founder of Significant Others, said it an estimated 6 percent of Australia’s population over the age of 17 were gay, about 813,000 in a country with a total population of about 20 million.
Reuters contributed to this report.