As the top Australian film in 2004 reaping a measly $4.8 million from Australian cinema audiences, Strange Bedfellows presents not only an interesting shift in audience reception to gay themes, it also reveals the typical Australian film goer’s retrospective appreciation for tastes in the same vein as the ‘Strictly Priscilla’s Wedding’ genre popular back in the early 90s. Australian cinema audiences don’t appear to engage much with Australian productions of the social realist or arthouse vein, relating more to a film like Strange Bedfellows which provides light comedy while delivering a gawky social commentary about same-sex discrimination and relationship equality.

Vince (Paul Hogan), who has inherited a hefty tax debt after carelessly signing a document provided by his ex-wife’s solicitors, conceives a plan to ameliorate these debts through new laws. It’s an election year and a new law affording many financial and legal rights to same-sex couples has been passed allowing such couples to claim many tax benefits retrospectively for five years. Vince persuades Ralph (Michael Caton), a long-time friend struggling with his auto-mechanic business, to register with him as a same-sex couple, thus potentially delivering a range of advantageous financial concessions to the two men as long as they can demonstrate that their same-sex relationship is bona fide.

Unfortunately, the tax office selects their application for a random audit and they are visited by a ‘homosexual expert’ played by Pete Postlethwaite. The pair then hastily seek training on effeminate behaviour from the local hairdresser who though straight, but has treaded the same path by feigning gayness for repute in his profession. Strange Bedfellows raises issues about pretensions, in particular, pretensions of a queer identity and the benefits this identity may bring to those who want to play gay for whatever purpose. The issue is deceptively complex, to some audience members this fraud may be laughable since many queer people still claim that the deprivations of having a queer identity outweigh the liberations, though doubtless others would say ‘visibility at any cost’ and find it flattering that a straight person may want to exploit a gay identity.

Vince, Ralph and the hairdresser are all playing gay for financial benefit. The film, however, raises the above complexities and then fails to make a moral judgement about the appropriateness of a ‘faux-mo’ choice. It downplays this exploitation through the voice of the local town gossip who says that ‘everyone hates the tax office anyway.’ Yet the film does make an unashamed social commentary especially through Ralph’s stirring address at the local B&S ball declaring his love for Vince (as a mate) and implicitly supporting the equalisation and legal recognition of same-sex relationships through legislation (particularly since the revelation that evening that his daughter was in a lesbian relationship).

Strange Bedfellows represents a fictional Australia. At the present (August 2007), the possibility of such legal changes actually becoming reality in Australia remain only a possibility. The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission in Australia has recently prepared a report for the Federal Attorney-General after nationwide submissions for its ‘Same Sex: Same Entitlements’ Inquiry. The Commission identifies some 60 separate Federal Acts, including the Marriage Act undoubtedly, that exclude same-sex couples from accessing financial and work-related entitlements. Tasmania, the last state in Australia to abolish homosexuality from the state’s Criminal Code, is ironically the only state that allows for registration of partnerships, same-sex or not. The ACT which also pushed for such equality was not so successful after the Federal Government intervened and overrode the territory’s bill. Following suit were a few local Councils such as Sydney and Melbourne City Councils that provide services to document relationship declarations for their constituents.

Three years after the release of Strange Bedfellows, the film seems quite prophetic. In an election year, even factions of the current Government led by Warren Entsch and Malcolm Turnbull amongst others are calling for the equalisation of same-sex relationships. If politicians keep their word, then the Australian film audience will be able to realise what they wanted to see three years ago.