Loading ...- Category:
- Soap Box
- Author:
- Phil Scott
- Posted:
- Wednesday, 18 February 2009
Mardi Gras is in full swing, and the conflicting opinions are out in force.
I have read that the institution has a new lease of life, with more young members joining up and increased numbers of visitors from OS. I also read a Herald piece saying it’s all too comfortable and G-rated, and that perhaps it should move out west where it’s less likely to be tolerated.
Then there was last week’s correspondent who wrote: If I see one more dyke on a bike or one more marching boy, I’ll move to Homebush -” just in time to attend the funeral.
I had an instant reaction. No, I thought. I adore the marching boys! And the dykes on bikes create such a buzz in the crowd! But thinking about it, I started to get his point.
The thrill of those moments is a fond memory. There’s nothing really new or fresh about them for those of us who’ve been around. It’s a bit like a favourite movie on DVD: you know it so well, you don’t feel the urge to watch it any more.
That attitude doesn’t apply to the newcomers. They are creating their fond memories right now. They need 10 years’ perspective before they can say the parade and party were so much better in 2009.
But where does that leave the rest of us? Is Mardi Gras to be an unchanging icon like the Opera House, while we come and go like a tour group who cross it off our list and move on?
Last year was MG’s 30th anniversary. It was a big success. Yet-¦ there is something about anniversaries, best-ofs and retrospectives. They suggest an era is over. They are the summing up of the main stories at the end of a news bulletin. The implication is: what’s important today will be history tomorrow.
The board would argue that they are adapting to suit the times. Sure, they are doing a good job in getting the institution up on its feet and back to its glory days. But are they creating new glory days? This year’s events don’t seem noticeably innovative.
The bureaucratic structure still comes across as a friend described it: a mixture of rigidity and knee-jerk reaction. Nothing unique there.
I am only posing questions, and they’re the same ones people have been asking for years. I don’t have answers.
I’ve often argued that the queer arts and film festivals should be at a separate time of the year from the other events, to give them more focus. Hardly a radical suggestion, though it begs the old question of fragmentation.
So what’s your take on all this? Is Mardi Gras a little too familiar, or am I just too jaded?
Tags: future, Mardi Gras, memories
February 23rd, 2009 @ 2:37 pm
Aside from taking on commercial sponsers ( a wise move ), MG hasn’t evolved, in fact I think it’s gone backwards. I’ve been going on and off since 1989 and I’ve seen a steady decline of the mixture of politics, humour and awareness-raising that made parades so fresh and exciting when I was in my teens.
Now we just get endless dancing boys and drag queens, a good show for the tourists but little in the way of education, information or humour. The parade has become a vehicle for those who want to dress up, with little or no connection to gay and lesbian rights. Kylie dancers or sad old drag queens aren’t educating anyone, just reinforcing the same restrictive and misogynist stereotypes about gay men.
There is, I still believe, so much potential and talent out there to make the parade a strong, positive, political and fun event. Then again, it’s chicken or the egg – if MG is now a glorifed fancy dress party with no political message, is that a reflection of the organisers or an apathetic, surface-driven community?