Hasn’t the Sydney Mardi Gras overhaul caused a stir? New logo, new name and a new direction that celebrates diversity and opens up the street party to, dare I say it, straight people.
On one hand I have hetero pals angry on my behalf that that “my” festival isn’t “mine” any more, while on the other hand curious high school kids totally brained out by the LGBTIQ alphabet soup see an opportunity to be part of something — even if they’re not quite sure how they fit in.
Even though this move has pissed off a lot of gays and lesbians, I think Mardi Gras just got cool. As a queer who can’t stand house music or even the Indigo Girls, I’ve often felt excluded from events like Mardi Gras because they seem to celebrate clichéd gay culture. I joined the board of Melbourne’s Midsumma Festival a few years back for this very reason.
Every summer I’d whinge that it was a big, mainstream “poof fest” that had nothing for my friends and me — so I stopped complaining and got involved.
That year we had hot lezzos and gay boys, trannies, indie-queers and a diverse mix of LGBTIQRSTUVXYZs on the cover of the festival guide and the line-up of events reflected this. The following year, Midsumma replaced the gay and lesbian festival tagline with ‘Celebrating Queer Culture’ to reflect the diversity of the community.
In my eyes, Mardi Gras has just taken it one step further. While critics see the festival’s broader scope as a way of appealing to corporate sponsors, and there’s probably some truth in that, I see it as a brave attempt to keep in touch with the community.
Our community is a mixed lolly bag of sexualities, genders, scene queens, scene haters, queers, normals and folks who change their minds as often as they change their undies. The Sydney Mardi Gras has a place for all of us, our friends, families and those of us whose lives aren’t defined by our sexual preference.
A definite positive that’s come from the festival announcement is how it’s got people talking about the history of Mardi Gras. I’ve learnt more about the ’78ers these past few days than ever before — the 52 arrests and the horrible brutality those pioneers endured to give me the freedoms I have today — and it’s important we never forget this.
We’ve come a long way, we’ve got a long way to go, but as a young queer I think we’re on the right track.
By MONIQUE SCHAFTER
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Yawn.
God I’m sick of people defending the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Board. They blindsided the entire community including its very own members and those who had already signed on to make the event possible and nobody is even indignant about that. They have successfuly directed the conversation to discussing the merits of the move. Perhaps best to have hashed that out beforehand. That is the actual zinger that tells you that they have abandoned their consituents. It tells you Mardi Gras are no longer consider themselves to be engaged in securing equality or promoting issues of importance but rather as party promoters. Very predictable in my opinion but somehow unnerving how little respect they showed for so many invested in Mardi Gras and its festival.
I see this as a mature step. Identity politics has its time, but ultimately human rights can only be fully supported in their true context of universal diversity. I believe that the ultimate value of courageous struggles of the ’78ers and other 20th century civil rights activists has been their championing of respect for diversity and inclusiveness, not the replacement of one old set of separatist walls with a new set.
The name Mardi Gras embodies that universalist respect for individual identity, while retaining its irreverent campness and historical links. Having said that, I’d happily support sticking the word “Queer” in front to ensure that that association is continually reinforced through the years.
So, they change the name of the festival to make it more inclusive – because the Gay & Lesbian terms were putting some people off?
But then in the very same breath, they reclaim these 2 words and add them to the organisation name.
So now if the festival is all inclusive, can one assume that the organisation running it isn’t?
Are they excluding Bi, Trans and Intersex at an organisational level?
There are so many contradictory messages coming out of SGLMG HQ that they really need resolve.
“I’ve often felt excluded from events like Mardi Gras because they seem to celebrate clichéd gay culture.”
Ah yes, ‘Cliched Gay culture’ the very thing many younger GLBTIQ’s recoil from because they don’t wish to be ‘labeled’, newsflash!!, we have been labeled, and we’ll continue to be labeled, but the labeling from our own community is the least of our worries, it’s the labeling and branding we recieve from the haters, the zealots, the nut cases, and those who work to deny us human rights and equality that we must fear and work to address.
Monique, i long for the day when we don’t have to grasp at our pride, where we can all be equal, relax and just ‘be’, but that day is not here yet, it’s in sight, it’s almost within our reach, but we ‘can’t’ relax yet.
This isn’t about denying change, it’s about not dropping the ball before the finish line because we don’t want to struggle anymore.
Great strides have been made, lives have been sacrificed, massive inroads cut, and a lot (most i’d dare to say) of that has come from folks having a healthy dose of Gay and Lesbian (GLBTIQ) ‘Pride’.
‘Maybe’ a lot of the concern from people (myself included) comes from having lived through a bit of history and seeing, and experiencing how easily gains can be lost, rights repealed, momentum fall away.
I long for the day Monique when i can dance down the street with you in true freedom, but we have a lot of ugly fighting to do yet, and until then, i’m maintaining my pride, and not letting my guard down.
If there is one word in the Gay vocabulary that I find offensive more than any other (apart from “Fag”) it is “queer”. The word’s real meaning is “strange” or “wrong” and I do not consider myself either. Call yourself in private any name you like but do not categorise me with another hateful word. I am a Homosexual. If you could even remotely comprehend how difficult that was for Men of my Generation to admit that fact then you would understand the anger we feel to the labels people sneeringly called us.
The Sydney Mardi Gras that I once knew and loved has changed beyond all recognition to the original and not by any way for the better. Everything started going downhill when the word “lesbian” was include in the title, before that it was the GAY Mardi Gras in recognition of all Homosexuals no matter what gender and in my view should still be that and nothing else.
Lesbians, whist suffering from some of the prejudice that Men invariably did, never faced imprisonment or the regular bashings by the Police back in the bad old days, in fact as a boy growing up in the country I was aware of many Women who co-habited in small towns and whilst there was always the gossip that is endemic in every small community there was seldom the outright hatred that was directed to men who were known to be Gay.
I spent many, many years – including an Army career and a ten year marriage – terrified of ever being found out. Yet no-one ever realised that my feelings to some other Men were more than just good old Aussie “Mate-ship”.
Whilst this all may sound like an old fuddyduddy being all bitter towards the freedoms that newer Generations now take for granted, I can assure you it is not. I admire young Men and Women who have the guts to come out at very early ages and wish it could have been so in my youth.
I would however, remind those Generations that the freedoms they possess today came from the bravery of the “78’s” and the real threat to life and limb they exhibited in confronting the brutal Police Force that (at that time) enjoyed nothing more than a good old Poofter bashing.
It took me a whole ten years after the march of ’78 to come out to my Family and friends and leave my Wife such was the fear instilled by Centuries of hate and I, for one, will be eternally grateful for that first march and the brave Homosexuals and their supporters who confronted the instruments of a repressive State.
Mardi Gras was and always should be all about basic Human rights and the right for people to love whomever they want. The Organisation should remain true to this core belief and exist to remind all people of the past injustices perpetrated on our community or abolished. It has become nothing but a money making freak show and in no way resembles the great and binding celebration it once was.
@Non-compliant. Hear! Hear! I’m sure not all 78ers agree on the developments at Mardi Gras, but one thing I can be sure of is that we’d all agree that being ‘cool’ and having street cred had very little to do with why we protested.
And, might I say, a very large proportion of those 78ers and a lot of the 53 who were arrested, were in fact straight. Our true straight allies have NEVER had a problem participating in a celebration of gay and lesbian pride. If the current Mardi Gras had any real understanding of this then they would have been re-emphasising its sexual diversity not hiding it behind some namby-pamby ‘we love everybody’ crap.
Yes Monique because the only problem with us being accorded those rights that the 78ers fought for was the fact that our GLBTIQ Human Rights weren’t cool.
What were they thinking?
You say that you have learned a lot about the 78ers in the last few days. Can I suggest that you actually speak to some of them and ask them what they were marching for.
It wasn’t street cred, it was the right to live their lives as they saw fit.
Eliminating the very words Gay & Lesbian along with the initials GLBTIQ are in my opinion exactly what they DIDN’T want, but you might actually want to speak to them to find out what they wanted.
I somehow think that you will find that it wasn’t so that they could see the Indigo Girls in concert.
Why not just call it the Sydney Marriage Mardi Gras? I mean, that’s all we want nowadays isn’t it – marriage, two kids, a white picket fence? And there’s the two little love hearts illustrating beautifully that being gay/lesbian/what-the-fuck ever is ALL about marriage. Anyone who doesn’t want to get married is not even really gay. As long as you’re married the new Mardi Gras is for you. If not, and you don’t even want to get married, well, start your own Mardi Gras….