Australia has made many contributions to the world. Some of them are even good: Nicole Kidman, the hot dad in Bluey, the word “naur”. Others less so: Mel Gibson, the film Australia, describing cartoon dogs as hot. Lately, though, the scales have swung firmly in the former direction. There has been something in the air on this little island country. And by something, I mean gayness.
We are – in the words of one astute tweet – in the throes of an Aussiesance. But this isn’t your dad’s Aussiesance, unless your dad is a flaming queen. Australia is in its gay era: a time when all the arcane and fruity machinations of the country unite to discharge a torrent of queerness upon the world.
I'm not hearing enough "Thank you Australia" from the global Queer community despite the fact we have been GIVING this year. Just saying pic.twitter.com/AKdHzSgwKc
— Mitch Feltscheer (@mitchfel) July 13, 2023
The clearest harbinger of this era is the double whammy of gay pop that Australia has produced in recent months. Rush – the new single by famous Melbourne-via-Perth resident Troye Sivan – is the latest entry into the canon. It is pure gay smut: a paean to poppers inspired, per his own admission, by the sweaty clubs of Melbourne’s Smith Street. “I feel the rush / addicted to your touch,” goes the incantation in its chorus, courtesy of a choir of men that lands halfway between satanic ritual and football chant. The video is practically bacchanalian, composed mostly of waifish queers twirling. Rush brims with ludicrous sexuality and bawdy bravado. It is, perhaps, the best defence of twink rights.
But Rush is merely a chaser to that other tentpole of gay Australiana: Kylie Minogue, whose single Padam Padam skyrocketed to the top 10 of the UK charts last month and has (mostly) stayed there since. Named after the dubiously onomatopoeic thump of a heartbeat (and bearing no relation to the Edith Piaf standard of the same name), it is a track so ubiquitous that it has unleashed a Padam-ic. All its elements – its relentless eurodance overtures, its surrender to infatuation – provide the ideal brainless soundtrack for a feral queer summer. The northern hemisphere should be thanking us as we languish in our freezing wintry homes.
Of course, Australia has long exported groundbreaking queer fare. Much of our screen culture is defined by campness: Priscilla, Number 96 and the entire cinema of Baz Luhrmann except for the film Australia. But hear me out: this current era is by far Australia’s gayest. It begins, arguably, in 2021 – with Murray Bartlett’s appearance in season one of the series du jour, The White Lotus. Lest we forget Barlett’s turn as Armond, a moustachioed hunk of a resort manager armed with a twinklingly ocker accent and a duplicitous smile plastered to his face. Also plastered to his face: his male employee’s [redacted], which he [redacted] in an instantly viral scene. (Call it the slurp heard around the world.)
Since Bartlett, the gay Australian agenda has been in full swing. In May 2022, Australian musician G Flip and US reality star Chrishell Stause hard-launch their relationship. Queer joy! Five months later, Tár premieres – starring Cate Blanchett as the titular lesbian conductor: flinty, icy and eventually disgraced. Queer villainy! How lucky we are to be living through the entire spectrum of queer life.
It all, inevitably, serves as a precursor to Sydney WorldPride – that 17-day party earlier this year responsible for the destruction of every gay person’s sleeping habits. With our last brain cell, we might recall that most Australian of queer icons that emerged over the two-week blow-out: Progress Shark, the inflatable mascot of the Australian museum.
For week after week in February, Progress Shark gazed over the public with a perfectly placid mien, casting a thousand-yard stare as it hung in the air, its outsized body draped in a queer and trans flag. Progress Shark’s anatomically correct visage spread across the internet and still it stood – unwavering, loyal, forlorn. Progress Shark was terrible and absurd; Progress Shark was beautiful and venerated. It is one of the greatest contributions that Australia has ever given the world. This current gay era may live and die, but Progress Shark is forever.
Michael Sun is Guardian Australia’s culture producer. Twitter @mlchaelsun
