"There are two Australias, at least to Yanks who never get out of the house. There is the feel-good Australia, that sunny and rugged land where the party never stops. This is the continent of g'day mate and bush walking, of surfing at Bondi and sunning in Queensland, of singing by the billabong and dancing till the Sydney dawn at gay Mardi Gras.

Then there is the dark Australia, haunted by the karma of its criminal history. This is a mean-spirited, nasty place, where every cruel gesture seems suffused with the spite and agony of its long-dead transported prisoners. It is the Oz of Muriel's Wedding and Sweetie, of baby-stealing dingoes and gang-ridden futuristic societies protected by homophobic movie stars from Peekskill, N.Y.

As a reflecting image country, Welcome to Woop Woop is a mirror with both faces. Director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), takes us to a utopian community somewhere in the nether regions, where decapitated dolls are the going design statement and the classic Broadway show tune "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" is the daily reveille. Like its name, Woop Woop offers the surface lure of frolicsome days and boogie nights. Its soul, by contrast, is a living hell." Jan Stewart - film critic

Although disguised as a comedy, the R-rated Welcome to Woop was gay director Stephan Elliott's mean spirited attempt to portray the heart of Australian culture as racist, sexist, crass and revolving around excessive drinking. As he freely admitted, he was trying to depict an old Australia that, although disappearing, was still very real. Presumably, Elliot was hoping Australian luddites would open their eyes and develop a culture more like Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras where public anal fisting, men sitting in bathtubs being used as urinals, drug use, and high rates of HIV infection are defining features.

Elliot's story centers on Teddy, a fugitive con-artist who has fled New York and gone into the Australian outback. Teddy is seduced by Angie who then knocks him out cold. Teddy awakens to find himself in the dusty town of Woop Woop. The town, which was built near a now-defunct asbestos mine, is ruled by Angie's father Daddio; a stereotypical Australian ocker who sports an old Australian rules fooball jumper. Daddio runs Woop Woop in dictatorial fashion. No one may leave without his permission and that permission is never given. The town is supported by a kangaroo-meat dog-food factory. It is populated by beer-swilling rednecks, women who can't stop farting and people who find endless entertainment listening to Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals. Occasionally Woop Woop has festivals, such as dog day, in which the townsfolk have great fun shooting the town's pet dogs. For Elliot, it seems watching people smile covered in kangaroo blood, or shoot their pets is the ideal of modern humour.

Unwilling to remain captive or constantly service the sexually insatiable Angie, Teddy tries to escape. He repairs his VW van which has been vandalized by the locals. Daddio's tall poppy syndrome results in it being vandalized again.

Welcome to Woop Woop flopped. The violence was too foul to be funny, and the "jokes" were just stupid. Unfortunately, as it flopped, it brought down the Australian industry with it. Due to Elliot's high profile, it received a lot of coverage and a lot of press. For those Australians who identified with what Elliot was hoping to achieve, the movie undermined their very motivation for supporting the Australian industry over Hollywood. As Elliot would have known, there is no much point in being patriotic towards a movie industry that represents a culture defined by sexism, racism, and excessive alcohol use. If Elliot was holding himself as the new order that Australians should be proud of, there really wasn't much in his work worthy of admiration or to make Australians optimistic that the future would be better than the past.

For those Australians that found the movie offensive, Elliot's prejudices were seen as reflective of wider prejudices in the Australian movie industry. Again, the consequence was an erosion of support for the Australian industry. They retained their love of Australia, but reserved scorn for the subculture entrusted to tell Australian stories in film.

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