Dame Edna Everage
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Dame Edna Everage is a character played by Barry Humphries. She claims to be the most popular and gifted woman in the world today: investigative journalist, social anthropologist, talk show host, swami, children's book illustrator, spin doctor, icon, housewife, superstar, megastar and more recently, gigastar. She is also a noted actress, including a rather large role in the series Ally McBeal.
Everage consistently denies being a fictional character or drag act. In 1979, she was the subject of a BBC Arena mockumentary: "La Dame aux Gladiolas", in which she described Humphries as her "entrepreneur" or manager. She has frequently said that the thought of a man dressing up as a woman for entertainment purposes, is to her, physically repulsive and makes her sick to her stomach. Humphries, on the other hand (despite the occasional pretence that it was silly for anyone to suggest he had any relation to her beyond that of a very dedicated admirer) freely states that she is a character he plays. His tone nevertheless suggests he feels a slight dissatisfaction with her continued denial that they are one person.
Supposedly born Edna May Beazley, in the (then) small rural town of Wagga Wagga, Dame Edna started her stage career on December 19 1955, as Mrs Norm Everage, an average Australian housewife from Moonee Ponds, a Melbourne suburb.
Everage spends her time visiting world leaders and jet-setting between her homes in Los Angeles, London, Sydney, Switzerland and Martha's Vineyard. She is the Founder and Governor of Friends of the Prostate and the creator of The World Prostate Olympics. She is a friend and confidante of the Queen.
- "I was born in Melbourne with a precious gift. Dame Nature stooped over my cot and gave me this gift. It was the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others."
She was on Broadway around the turn of the millennium, and again four years later ostensibly not performing, but seemingly holding court for the benefit of her many admirers. On these occasions, she would interact with several people seated in the audience (who showed no evidence of being anything other than ordinary theatre goers), subjecting them to left-handed compliments and embarrassing supposed advice "meant in the most loving way possible". One activity was phoning the home of such a person, in order to question the family's foreign-born baby-sitter.
Madge Allsop, her supposed friend and "bridesmaid", is often present when she meets the public, but never speaks a word. Madge, a New Zealander from Palmerston North, suffers through insults and callous treatment with the air of a servant who is unable to leave her employer.
Dame Edna also made an apperance at the Closing Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games 2006 in Melbourne, Australia. During her act she sang a song containing her thoughts on Melbourne and Australia in general.
Her family, never seen, are:
- Norman Stoddard Everage (Norm), her late husband and long term sufferer of a "rumbling prostate".
- her daughter Valmai (currently in shoplifters rehab.)
- sons Bruce and Kenneth (described in various terms that suggest they may be gay men who are partly in the closet, though she shows no awareness of the possibility)
She also has a mother who was incarcerated in a "maximum-security twilight home".
Controversy
Edna's new-found success in America led to many media opportunities, including a cameo appearance in the hit TV series Ally McBeal. Vanity Fair magazine then invited Dame Edna to write a satirical advice column but she unwittingly created a storm of controversy with a piece published in the February 2003 issue. Replying to a reader who asked if she should learn Spanish, she replied:
- "Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth reading except Don Quixote, and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La Mancha will take care of that ... Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to? The help? Your leaf blower?"
Edna's satirical intent -- poking fun at the haughty attitudes of wealthy Americans who hire low-waged Hispanic domestic workers -- evidently went over the heads of some readers. Many who subsequently complained appeared not to realise that Dame Edna was merely a character and that 'she' was not really a woman. Members of the Hispanic community took the joke out of context, reading it as a deliberately racist remark, and complaints flooded in to the magazine. Hollywood actress Salma Hayek responded angrily, penning a furious letter in which she denounced Dame Edna. Death threats were even received and Vanity Fair was eventually forced to publish a full-page apology to the Hispanic community.
Humphries commented later. "If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up." When questioned about the controversy (as Dame Edna) on the eve of her 2003 Australian tour, she retorted that Hayek's denunciation was due to "professional jealousy", and that Hayek was envious because the role of painter Frida Kahlo (for which Hayek received an Oscar nomination) had originally been offered to Edna:
- "When I was offered the part of Frida I turned it down, and she was the second choice. I said 'I'm not playing the role of a woman with a moustache and a monobrow, and I'm not having same-sex relations on the screen' ... I'm not racist. I love all races, particularly white people. You know, I even like Roman Catholics."