Gender Trouble Down Under: Australian Masculinities

By David Coad, Presses Universitaires de Valenciennes: 2003, , 200 pages, paperback, $39.95. Reviewed by Dean Durber in the October 2003 issue.

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David Coad's journey into the cultural phenomenon of gender 'Down Under' traces the existence of a 'homosexuality' from convict days, through the bush, on to the back of iconic larrikins, right into the bloody trenches of Gallipoli and, finally, into the heart of the outback where Crocodile Dundee is seen to be fighting it out with Priscilla. At the centre of the author's argument is the suggestion that Australian masculinity (read: heterosexuality) relies upon the exclusion of a homosexuality that is always knocking at the back door (pun? yes, loud and proud!). His attempt to 'queer' the widely promoted solidity of the Aussie male takes on board the suggestion that an interior identity is constructed through that which is paradoxically believed to exist on the outside. Coad's effort to deconstruct Australian masculinity adheres to the suggestion that heterosexuality is formed through a constant expulsion of, and therefore reliance upon, that which it does not wish to be: a homosexual.

In his discussion of the popular myth of Ned Kelly, Coad avoids labelling Kelly and his gang as 'homosexuals'. In asserting rather that 'there was a homoerotic side to the strong links of mateship evident in the Kelly gang' (68), Coad is able to make a distinction between homoerotic desire and homosexuality, and thus does not fall into the trap of deploying recent understandings of sexuality to interpret relationships of the past. Here, Coad's desire to 'queer' hints at successful consideration of same-sex attraction outside of normalised understandings. However, he then proceeds to re-establish the very binary of heterosexuality-homosexuality that is said to be so intrinsic to the construction of normative masculinity but which 'queer' finds to be problematic, offensive and, more importantly, a blatantly normalised perpetrator of the hegemonic debate that looks into these so-called gender troubles.

The Aussie male is proven to be reliant upon that which he seeks to eradicate, and thus Coad's investigation is brought to a coherent conclusion. But this is achieved only by leaving normative binaries intact. The heterosexual man can resort to violence to deflect the homosexual threat (138) because these definitions of sexuality survive. The 'Marlboro Man' can fall for a transsexual (140) because normative definitions of gender are not destroyed in the battle for the heart of Australia. Thus, because his understanding of 'queer' implies a simplistic non-heterosexuality, Coad does not so much reveal a 'queer' view of Australia, as present an argument to explain the importance of Euro-centric notions of gender and sexuality binaries in the construction of the 'trouble', and this has increasingly become an object of study in the past few decades of a narrative of liberation of woman from man, of homosexual from heterosexual. And so it is that a 'group of adventurous Australians' leave 'the urban periphery' and travel 'to the centre of the country' (141)--as if to offer a metaphor of what Coad himself attempts. In the process we see the reaffirmation of the normality of these Euro-centric systems of classification in a land whose very heart is once again all but forgotten. Given this approach, it is not surprising that Coad offers only fleeting reference to 'Aboriginals', and does so only to suggest their acceptance of his queerings (How nice it must be for us to now believe that these once (?) marginalised peoples now sit so comfortably at our tables).

At times, this narrative of the emergence of a queer identity within the Australian nation hints at the promise of new enlightenment into this debate. But it falters, and offers much of what has already been said, without challenge. Connections that could have been made to strengthen the work have been avoided, perhaps missed. Perhaps the title of the book itself reveals the level to which the standard Euro-centric ideas will ultimately prevail. After all, one only has to rotate the map to get Australia out from 'down under'. But, as is exemplified in this country's promotion of itself, the fear of being queer has once again managed to come out on top.

Citation

• Dean Durber. 'Review: Gender Trouble Down Under: Australian Masculinities by David Coad' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), October 2003. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 24 May 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

• Australia has always been a queer sort of place full of big, butch, beefy bootmen, skipping kangaroos and blow flies. It still is...
  
  Gender Trouble Down Under takes up the 'Oz bloke' hypermasculine, heterosexual fantasy and shows to what extent this sexual, gender and national stereotype is odd, partial and exclusionary, in a word, queer.
  
  This re-reading of the Great Australian Legend demonstrates that Down Under is a paradise of perversion: buggery in the barracks between male convicts, cross dressing bushrangers, bushmen as bent as a dog's hind leg, randy jackaroos ready for anything. And that is without counting the sportsmen in frocks, the queens of the desert, or Dame Edna Everage.
  
  In Gender Trouble Down Under the outback is outed.

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