Cirrus@Austlit

It’s been six years since the passing of the marriage equality act, and 43 years since the decriminalization of homosexuality in Victoria (1980). With the teaching of Queer sexual education, with programs like Safe Schools, and national access to PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and PEP (post-exposure), it is hard for today’s Queer youth to imagine the dangerous, devasting HIV/AIDS epidemic that faced gay men in Australia, and around the world in the 1980s and ‘90s. Neil Armfield’s Australian Drama Holding the Man (2015) is based on Timothy Conigrave’s memoir of the same title. Conigrave completed the memoir on his death bed, and it was published just months after his 1994 AIDs-related death. The Queer-romance film authentically portrays Australia’s 1970s and the navigation of a schoolboy romance and homosexual relationship, disrupted by the 1980s HIV crisis. The movie not only embraces gay identity but also captures the warmth amidst the frightening challenges faced by the gay community, including widespread gay bashings, public outings, and family disownments. By blending biographical and romance genre conventions, Holding the Man goes beyond storytelling; it becomes a powerful tribute to the resilience of Queer Australia during a tumultuous era, shedding light on impactful civil rights movements such as the Campaign Against Moral Persecution (CAMP Inc). Most importantly, it stands as a testament to the enduring strength of same-sex love, defiantly flourishing amidst Australia’s authoritarian oppression.' (Introduction)           

'This dossier represents emerging writers from RMIT University’s undergraduate Film Genre course, as they explore ways that an individual film may use, knowingly play with or revise genre tropes, in the midst of other artistic, industrial and socio-historical factors. The ubiquity with which the idea of genre circulates in popular culture may potentially present a somewhat misleading picture of consensus that the course then problematises and unpacks over a semester. As Steve Neale points out, genre does not merely consist of a set of “conventions” used within films, but also “systems of expectation and hypothesis” among audience members. In turn, these genre expectations can be influenced by marketing materials and reviews. Films that were first marketed as one genre can be subsequently re-labelled as another genre by scholars and critics, or by the industry itself. In the contemporary era, streaming services frequently use multiple and sometimes “oddly specific” genre labels, in ways that challenge a dominant idea expressed by Rick Altman that “if it is not defined by the industry and recognized by the mass audience, then it cannot be a genre.  As such, while the repetition of recognisable codes and labels may be central to our understanding of genre, so too variation in how genre is used – by filmmakers, the film industry, and audiences – is also key to the genre system.' (Introduction)          

'In his 2006 thesis, “‘Staying Bush’ – A Study of Gay Men Living in Rural Areas”, author Edward Green described his subject as the “largely hidden and untold story of gay men living in rural areas”. That was a pivotal year for gay men living in the bush, with Australian television broadcasters platforming two of their stories. In the space of one 12-month period, this cohort went from “hidden and untold” to prime time. From as early as 1989, rural politician Bob Katter had been declaring that he would “walk to Bourke backwards if the poof population of North Queensland is any more than 0.001 per cent”. Analysing media and popular culture, this article explores the visibility and portrayal of rural gay men in Australia prior to and after 2006. In spite of Katter’s minuscule population estimates, the rural gay cohort continues to defy assumptions.' (Publication abstract)