Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Aussie Park Boys (hereafter APB) is how the inexperience of writer/director Nunzio La Bianca, and his lack of knowledge about making action films and the finer points of representing gender on screen, has unintentionally manifested a gay porn aesthetic. Homoeroticism and homosexual tension in tough guy action films is a mainstay. Obvious examples include 'Tango & Cash'; 'Bad Boys'; 'Point Break'; and 'Lethal Weapon'. Normally filmmakers introduce such narrative devices as heterosexual romance, active homophobia (mudslinging and homosexual panic), or other devices that attempt to legitimate male intimacy on screen (death scenes are one such device that permit men to be emotionally and physically intimate) while simultaneously disavowing the homoerotic elements of men's bodies on display to one another and to male cinema audiences. The absence of devices of disavowal in APB indicates an underdeveloped awareness on the part of La Bianca about the unwritten, unacknowledged "rules" of action cinema. Consequently, APB displays flagrant homoeroticism that is never disavowed. Between fight sequences, dialogue is scant and the silences between words are occupied by lengthy drawn-out shots of men's bodies: walking, posturing, waiting, climbing stairs, riding trains, working out, gazing at themselves and each other. Indeed, there is so much on screen male- gazing that the film inadvertently implies that these normative homosocial relationships are homosexual.
In addition, the long shots, tight close ups, tilts, shot-reverse-shots of men staring at one another, and tight shots of muscles and eyes creates a porn aesthetic. Lots of bloggers find this film hilarious, and some describe it as gay. I argue that it is because of the film's porn aesthetic, together with its male homosocial relations that audiences find it so humorous. There may not be any erect penises or explicit sexual contact on screen (despite an extreme close-up crotch grab during the opening titles sequence), but there is certainly an abundance of man-on-man physical action, as well as displays of semi-naked men (especially the leather-clad skinheads in their black B&D costumes) and men violently penetrating each other with phallic knives, fists and fingers.
APBs porn aesthetic is further suggested through the use of muted electronic music that underscores most of the film. It is the muted and repetitive quality of APBs music in particular that suggests the porn aesthetic. As a rule, music in porn is generally written and recorded as cheaply as possible. Typically it is muted so that the sounds of sex (slaps, grunts, moans, sighs) are not drowned out by a throbbing score. The monotony of such scores also means that they can be looped and repeated without drawing attention to themselves, or distracting viewers from the action on screen. The music used in APB has much in common with porn. For instance, rather than build character, highlight on screen action or create suspense, the music in APB simply plays over the top of the action as an accompaniment in much the same way as porn. On a different point, some reviewers have suggested that the music used in APB is like that used in gay nightclubs. However, I would like to point out that the music played in nightclubs (gay or otherwise) is usually a rousing combination of pop anthems, infectious musical motifs, throbbing bass and driving beats that shift and overlap in order to create and sustain various states of excitement and arousal. The music in APB is achingly dull in comparison. It appears that those reviewers who claim that the music in APB resembles nightclub music must have noticed the electronic score and conflate this with gay nightclub culture. While this is rather simplistic (and naive), it does however reinforce the point that the homosocial action in APB constitutes homoerotic imagery. How else would this conflation otherwise be made?
Finally (although one could rant endlessly about the porn aesthetics of APB) the narrative of the film - commented on and criticized by a great many bloggers - lacks the linear causality one usually sees in action films. There is a clear absence of causality between scenes in the film. Certainly within scenes themselves, their is hermetic causality, but this is rarely carried from scene to scene. Characters thus wander in and out without clear motivation or explanation for their presence, and what little narrative exists is there to simply connect one sequence of violence to the next. This again resembles an aesthetic particular to porn films. Porn is infamously less concerned with story that it is with jumping from one sex sequence to the next. Likewise, APB makes a number of inexplicable narrative jumps that - like porn - allows it to move from one sequence of fisticuffs to the next.
If ever you get the opportunity to see Aussie Park Boyz again (or if you're an APB virgin), do take the time to look twice and see what happens when a budding action filmmaker gets it really wrong. It's nothing short of mesmerising and, as others have noted, jolly funny. I would go so far as to argue that this film's lack of attention to issues of gender performativity actually increases its significance.
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