Queer Mateship

Muriel's Wedding has been a favorite film for years. I own it and every once in a while pop it in for a good laugh/cry. In the context of this class, I have been able to appreciate it in a new way. Related to this film, I better understand that oh-so-macho concept of mateship.

Muriel's Wedding is, first and foremost, offering biting social commentary about machismo. It turns on its head the concept of mateship that we've been discussing by exploring the same bond between women who ultimately choose to live life together, and without husbands. Although not surprising or controversial, I found the classroom discussion regarding homoerotic tensions in the film interesting. Before this discussion, it would never have occurred to me that Rhonda and Muriel's relationship is homosexual in nature. However, in the narrative as presented I can certainly see how and why the relationship is easily seen as homosexual, even if not in action but spirit alone. There is a sense of dramatic camp to the film (which is closely tied to queer expression.) Greg Taylor is quoted: http://salymanderfilmaslit.blogspot.com/2007/01/camp-campy-campiness.html "camp is fundamentally an aesthetic declaration of the spectator’s ability to choose and manipulate the cultural meaning surrounding her. Camp has been appealing to dominated cultures […] precisely because it asserts control over one’s own symbolic identity." ABBA has long been described as campy, and Hogan's use of their music must have been fertile soil to create the story.

So, what is it that the film critiques? I think it is the very essence of mateship as an understood extension of the concept of 'a man's country'. By deconstructing the patriarchal figure-head of the Helsop family and reconstructing mateship in the context of female relationship, Hogan takes a postmodern swipe at the heart of what can be seen as misogynistic national ideals. And what better choice than a campy production fueled by camp music to make his point. Essentially, this is what camp has attempted to illuminate (Sorry Susan Sontag, I do take some exception to your thesis.)

I suppose, in the end, I do not think that the movie is homosexual, necessarily. I do believe that it is an example of queer expression, which has grown to illustrate and give voice to heterosexual lifestyles operating outside of and rejecting the artifice of the 'norm'.