Australian masculinity on the road

Abstract

In an Australia where the old images of masculinity are no longer serviceable, the road provides an ideal site for films wishing to explore ways of being a man at the dawn of the twenty-first century. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, True Love and Chaos, Doing Time for Patsy Cline and Kiss or Kill critique or destabilise traditional models of masculinity, and use the road as a space where masculinity is free to change. However, as Pamela Robertson (1997: 271) has pointed out, the road movie is 'a genre obsessed with home'. The closure of all four films involves establishing a new form of home, and in doing so demonstrates how difficult it is to reintegrate credibly the changes experienced on the road into a domestic unit that is fulfilling for all its members.