Some things never change. This Associated Press story discusses whether there will be a Mardi Gras Carnival season in New Orleans this coming year. While I don’t think of Katrina as divine retribution like some do, I think that some people might take a step back and make some other priorities.
But what’s interesting about the article is what is not mentioned.
I saw people on the news over the weekend kind of parading around the FQ in hula skirts, etc. I didn’t see it as really moving that they were keeping the “spirit” of their city alive, it struck me instead as pretty sick that they’d be whoopin’ it up while dead bodies were still floating around w/in a mile radius of them and while others were risking life and limb to rescue the survivors. I don’t think the revelers were homosexual, though.
To be sure, the Southern Decadence festival is a largely gay event—although it also attracts a lot of Jimmy Buffett-style Parrotheads—and Mardi Gras has become a big-time party for gays, transvestites, etc., who either live in or are drawn to visit the French Quarter during High Carnival. But it’s not the gay community, in or beyond New Orleans, who have made Mardi Gras the center of the city’s social, economic, and civic calendar. Rather Carnival’s prominence in NO’s life has been traditionally been dictated by the priorities of the city’s white, predominately heterosexual, and ostensibly Catholic elite—the leaders of the legendary Carnival “krewes,” such as Comus, Momus and Rex. If Mardi Gras is celebrated next year at anything like its historical level, it won’t be because the gays or the blacks of NO desire it—because they don’t have the dough—but because the real powers that have always been in the city are determined tp carry out the parties and parades as usual.
Tony,
To be clear, my post wasn’t about Mardi Gras, but about the Southern Decadence event. And I certainly didn’t bring race into it at all.
Then there’s the 7th annual “Gay Easter Parade” to look forward to.
http://www.gayeasterparade.com/
Who is guiding these people?
Ironically, in the midst of death, destruction, and decay, those whose sexual relations are sterile and do not create life found cause to party. Is there a message in that?
That’s a great thought, Carrie! Sounds though like even before the flood NO was a place in which disordered sexuality flourished. 🙁
God bless –
On TV a few days back, I saw a weary police officer exclaim that she wondered if NO would now turn away from decadence and return to a more wholesome way of living – stark in that her words and tone implied possible divine intention (bringing to mind Sodom and Gomorrah of course).
Thanks, Tom
In Lafayette’s paper yesterday, an article stating that the “Southern Decadence Parade” will be held here. Oh, dear God, please prevent this from happening. We are undergoing enough changes to our city without this fiasco.
Thanks, Dom, for pointing out that you hadn’t mentioned race in your posting. I apologize if mine led you to think I fancied you had. The AP article to which you were responding raised the question of whether Mardi Gras would go on more or less as usual, so some of my remarks were addressed to that underlying question. But you’re quite right in emphasizing the question of the moment is the fate of the Southern Decadence “celebration.” I can well understand why JB and other good folks in Lafayette wouldn’t want the SD parade visited upon their town now or ever. As to Tom’s reference to Sodom and Gomorrah as a parallel to New Orleans, I would add that NO has long been notorious for its toleration of a plethora of vices, including the rampant prostitution of young boys as well as young girls. Despite this and the city’s heritage as a major slave port, I have great affection for this, our American Venice, and believe our country would be diminished if this terribly flawed but equally magical city does not rise again. In my view, to love America is to treasure its music, and that music simply would not be so rich without New Orleans.