Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!
George Heymont, The Huffington Post, 08/27/2013 4:06 pm

For those lucky enough to be inside the Castro Theatre on Sunday, June 19, 1994, the final screening of the 18th Frameline LGBT Film Festival was very much a night to remember. Written and directed by Stephan Elliott (and starring Hugo Weaving, Guy Pearce, and Terence Stamp), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert earned a foot-stomping, 20-minute ovation which rocked the Australian filmmaker's world. As he explained from the stage, this was one of the first public screenings of his spectacularly rowdy drag spectacle.

Elliott may not have been aware of why San Francisco's audience was so enthusiastic that night. As most people know, his film has an abundance of flashy costumes, gay humor, disco hits, and a solid story line. But for a community that, over the past decade, had been decimated by disease, death, and depression, Priscilla performed a very special kind of magic -- making an audience of 1,400 feel as if they had been resurrected and given a new reason to celebrate their gayness.