Learng om the liv of gay and lbian Atralians

Contents:

• 10 GREAT ATRALIAN GAY FILMS
• FROM TROYE SIVAN TO PADAM PADAM: ATRALIA IS S GAY ERA AND THE WORLD SHOULD THANK
• JAKE'S STORY OF BEG GAY RAL ATRALIA
• THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS
• GAY MELBOURNE

10 GREAT ATRALIAN GAY FILMS

The Set (1970) is the first Atralian film wh homosexualy as a central theme, while gay men appeared sexploatn favour such as Atralia after Dark (1975) and The ABCs of Love and Sex: Atralia Style (1978), which H was for homosexualy. Sign up to BFI Flare emailsGet the latt #BFIFlare news and ticket release Max 2: The Road Warrr (1981) featured a gay villa (the leather-clad Wez, enraged by the slayg of his lover), while more sympathetic homosexual characters appeared prison drama Stir (1980) and fay melodrama Mull (1988).

FROM TROYE SIVAN TO PADAM PADAM: ATRALIA IS S GAY ERA AND THE WORLD SHOULD THANK

The Naked Bunyip (1970)Homosexualy was tnip to many of the filmmakers behd the wave of sexploatn documentari that flourished Atralia the 1970s, which often served as an exce to show tillatg shots of lbians gettg down to bs the bedroom.

The film draws parallels between the close mascule relatnships that form unr the Atralian phenomenon of ‘mathip’ and homosexualy, while talkg heads discs the importance of crimalisg gay sex, which at the time of the documentary was a crimal offence  Atralia.

JAKE'S STORY OF BEG GAY RAL ATRALIA

Bond himself was gay, an early bar scene looks like a scene om William Friedk’s S&M thriller Cisg (1980), while is clear that some sort of sexual act, probably a rape, tak place between the teacher and Doc after a vlent stggle, sendg the protagonist to another spiral of spair.

The Clic (1982)In this fun and bawdy bo of scy edy and sex tn aid, we dip to a day the life of a VD clic, where a laid-back doctor (Chris Haywood) and a pdish medil stunt (Simon Burke) tend to patients of all walks of life, om ank sex workers to ashamed hoewiv, om promiscuo gay men to cheatg hbands. But ’s wickedly entertag, Arthur Dignam is excellent as the polician, and ’s a unique film that uld not have been ma at any other time, wh sex scen too graphic for before the 1980s and an anti-gay streak too unpalatable for the 1990s.

THE SECRET HISTORY OF ATRALIA'S GAY DIGGERS

For much of s length, the film feels very post-gay; Isaac (Ewen Llie), our antihero, a moody Greek Atralian who unearths some unpalatable fay secrets when he returns to Greece followg the unexpected ath of his father, is certaly not fed by his homosexualy. Matt’s birth mother is the member of a homophobic church, and he qutns her beliefs at every opportuny, while Graham, an adopted 11-year-old who n’t read, fac new challeng when his dads move to Fiji wh him and enurage him to keep their sexualy a secret owg to s nservative society.

Wh such a hateful swamp of nservative legislators, was left to the movie dtry to fight for equal rights love, marriage and child ctody law, hence why, nearly all of the movi here, the gay relatnship is a ‘problem’ for wir society and the participants endure abe, vlence or hate. There have been plenty of high school g-out films, but none as raw or emotnally-charged as this (very) low-budget ’90s tale of two awkward teenagers clumsily workg out their feelgs for each other and pg wh their (very) dysfunctnal fai and latent homophobia. The anizatn’s choice of name was a nsc play on the term ed by many Atralian gays of the time to refer to themselv, “mp, ” a word that would rema age until the adoptn of the word “gay” om the Uned Stat gay liberatn movement to Atralian English 1972.

GAY MELBOURNE

The rt of the saw the appearance of three short-lived tl jog Camp Ink, the Sydney Gay Liberatn Newsletter (1972-1973) which beme Gay Lib News (1973-1974), and Red and Lavenr: Newsletter of the Socialist Lbians and Male Homosexuals, published om 1976 until 1978.

In 1982, s tle changed to simply The Star (1982-1985), followed by the Star Observer (1985-1986), Sydney’s Star Observer (1986-1987), Sydney Star Observer (1987-2014) and the ntemporary Star Observer, at The 1980s saw the addn to the Atralian gay prs scene of a journal om the Sydney Gay Wrers Collective, Inversns, published 1980 and 1981, and the first issue of an annual serial, Atralia and Beyond: a gay and lbian gui to Atralia & New Zealand, which would rema prt until 1991. In 1992, the Atralian Gay and Lbian Law Journal began publitn, and would rema existence to the twenty-first century, changg s tle to the Atralasian Gay and Lbian Law Journal after 1993 and to the Gay and Lbian Law Journal startg 2001. While the motn on this pot did not rry, tert remaed as to “whether the law should attach crimal nsequenc to all physil sexual acts between male homosexuals and whether Christians were unr a duty to support the matenance of existg laws” (Report 1971: 1.

While the Commtee favored retag the laws limg offensive behavrs, remend that “the provisns of the Victoria Crime Act 1958, which renr crimal those homosexual acts mted private between nsentg mal of 18 years or olr, should be repealed.

The full text of that speech was reprted his 1979 llectn of wrgs Comg Out the Seventi unr the tle “Fom on Gay Liberatn “and offers a unique wdow to how the ias and tes of the then-new gay liberatn movement were beg exprsed wh an Atralian ntext. Its preface c the work of Aled Ksey and quot the Wolfenn Report om the UK as a amework for the then-recent visibily of homosexualy as a social issue, then exprs ncern that chang the social environment towards homosexuals may tempt many people to choose homosexual rather than heterosexual (and Scripturally sanctned) norms of behavr. The “Remendatns” sectn of the Report lls upon what terms “practicg homosexuals” to cease their activi and strs the threat that the homosexual movement pos to Wtern society before llg for reforms the area of the homosexualy laws of Atralia (towards a greater uniformy) and police practic and the availabily of psychologil rehabilatn.