Abstract
There has been a dramatic increase in the release of queer Australian feature films since 2006, more than half of which have drawn on the conventions of the coming-of-age film. This chapter focuses on Tan Lines (2006), Newcastle (2009), Monster Pies (2013) and 52 Tuesdays (2013) to explore how these films enunciate the genre and negotiate questions of gender and sexuality in a genre often organised around the exploration of heterosexual romance. Ultimately, this chapter argues that these films negotiate a place for the representation of queer youth in Australian film culture, in addition to broadening and complicating a popular and enduring genre of the Australian film canon.
Michael Kitson, “From Gidget to Surf Nazis to Newcastle: The Genre of the Surfing Film,” Metro Magazine 158 (2008): 28. Kitson describes the coming-of-age genre as follows: “It’s any movie that begins with a voice-over: ‘It was the summer when everything changed …’”.
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McWilliam, K. (2017). ‘It Was the Summer When Everything Changed …’: Coming of Age Queer in Australian Cinema. In: Ryan, M., Goldsmith, B. (eds) Australian Screen in the 2000s. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48299-6_9
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