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6 Mar 2009

We're here and we're still political

With the 31st annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade - the largest of its kind in the world - upon the city this weekend, Fridae's Sydney correspondent Justin Ellis finds the parade to still be relevant to LGBTs today.

Whether a pride parade is an accurate portrayal of the gay and lesbian community is a moot point. But, if the crowds, the paraders and the financial support from the NSW government are an indication, the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade is here to stay.

Above: Matthew Mitcham on the cover of Australia's DNA magazine (#105, Sept 2008 edition). Mitcham, who's the only openly gay man competing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, won a gold in the men's 10m platform event. The 21-year-old will be the Chief of Parade at Saturday's event.
And while some scream commercialisation, others yell legitimisation and welcome the position the parade has taken in the mainstream since the early 1990s.

Seventy-six-year-old Steve Ostrow, project officer for the Mature Aged Gays (MAG) Project at ACON says the Mardi Gras parade is MAG's opportunity to say, 'Hey, we're still here.' "It's a display of how far we've come," says Ostrow. "So MAG will be on our double-decker bus because some of us don't walk so well anymore, and we'll be saluting the world. We'll be there to say, 'we're not extinct, we're just old.'"

Ostrow, former employer of Bette Midler and Barry Manilow at the Continental Baths in New York City, says the LGBT community is not fighting for the same things anymore and that's why the debate continues over the supposed commercialisation of the parade. "We came from an era when if you danced with a man you could be arrested. We feared enticement as well, and entrapment." Ostrow, says that inevitably, older gay men have different concerns now to what they did in the 60s, 70s and 80s. He says the main question now is, "What's going to happen to us when we're old?'"

There are others in the gay and lesbian community who don't share Ostrow's view, and argue that the parade has lost its relevance. But it's still relevant to the individual - every day people are struggling with their sexual orientation and gender identity and it is a show of support for them.

"Mardi Gras has always blended campaigning and entertainment and people have different views on how that should be weighted," says New Mardi Gras chair David Imrie. "Although New Mardi Gras creates the theme and some of the content of the parade the vast majority of entries come from community groups and individuals and so we don't really determine the political content of the parade in any one year."

But if nothing else, the parade is a barometer of the times, from the stars who head the parade, such as openly gay Australian Olympic diving gold-medalist Matthew Mitcham this year, to the politicians, the NSW police force (in uniform), the armed forces (maybe in uniform this year), and members of the Highschoolers Against Homophobia, and the Jewish and Christian communities.

And as a barometer of the times, it's obvious that we're living in a conservative age where we cannot take our rights for granted and cannot assume that they're going to continue to grow in the direction we would like them to. Globally it's looking like one step forward and two steps back.

Even so, there is a palpable disregard for the parade in some quarters, even though it is one of our most visible avenues of consciousness raising, intra and extra community. A blas attitude perhaps due largely to ignorance on the part of the spectators, including many of the gay contingent, who aren't always aware of who is in the parade and why.

Imrie says this is why the theme Nations United was chosen for this year, namely to raise people's awareness of the issues that are effecting the LGBT community around the world, and which therefore impact on us all. Or do they?

We can champion civil unions in Ecuador on the South American float, but the two 'Uncle Sam's' on the North American float are dancing to a backdrop of California's Proposition 8.

Europe represents religious intolerance, as per the Pope's recent allusion to homosexuals being worse for the planet than climate change. Asia is in the bamboo closet, the symbolism for Africa is AIDS education or lack thereof, and Australia represents a youthful country and the inherent issues of alienation and isolation that confront gay and lesbian youth. Antarctica is the new frontier - a place where there is no legislation for or against us, or anyone else. True equality.

So the Mardi Gras, thankfully, continues to evolve and reflect the mood of the age, and also continues to entertain a whole lot of people in the process; tens of thousands of participants and hundreds of thousands of spectators who are channelling their inner exhibitionist.

The 2.4km parade will begin at 7.45pm on Saturday, Mar 7, at the corner of Elizabeth and Liverpool Streets, and continuing up Oxford Street and Flinders Street before ending at Moore Park Road intersection.

Australia

讀者回應

1. 2009-03-06 20:48  
Berlin's CSD is larger...
But maybe I just don't understand the specific nature of "this kind of" parade...
回應#2於被作者刪除。
回應#3於被作者刪除。
4. 2009-03-07 04:58  
Go the Gras! For the people who say "Mardi Gras is not me", go and fly a kite, its not all about YOU! ;-)
5. 2009-03-07 13:26  
wish I were there....would love to throw a KISS at Matthew Mitcham...yum, yum!!
6. 2009-03-07 19:06  
YOU GO SYDNEY! And a big BRAVO for your INTERGENERATIONAL INCLUSIVITY! Young, old and in-between...room at the table for everyone.
7. 2009-03-07 20:52  
You guys did very well and did a really good job in parade, as I have seen you guys there...


Cheers

JJ
8. 2009-03-08 15:40  
True gratitude to those heroes who contribute to the gay rights in whatever ways. Tribute!!
9. 2009-03-08 23:15  
I`m brazilian and live in Sydney now. I went to Sao Paulo`s gay Parade last year and Sydney`s Gay Parade yesterday (working as volunteer). Sao Paulo`s Gay parade is larger (3,5 million people celebrating together) but, as the german friend said, "maybe I just don't understand the specific nature of "this kind of" parade"...
10. 2009-03-09 01:49  
I found the crowd drunk, intolerant & racist. It looked a lot more fun on the other side of the barrier!
11. 2009-03-09 05:03  
They're saying three hundred thousand this year which must be significantly down from the five hundred thousand of last year. So a lot of other people are over it too... And, honestly, readers, a lot of it was crap. Drunken straights everywhere, too much political stuff (what place has the vile Communist Party in these proceedings? how dare they show their banners at all after years of killing and repressing gays?) Who gives a stuff about the ANZ bank with an hundred twirling turquoise umbrellas? Will I get a loan there because I'm gay?
And who gives a flying fox's freckle about the numbers of straight women in the police force (still thuggish here) or the State Emergency Services? Feminist is not the same as pro gay male.
There was very little in it for gay men at all ,despite what you might read. And the lighting on Matthew Mitcham made him virtually unrecognisable. Next year I won't waste my time looking for a milk crate. And do it on the other side of Lent, please, if it is going to be a genuine Mardi Gras. We don't want to be told by the thought police that we cannot be Christian and gay together.
12. 2009-03-09 09:12  
re Ferribal post #9 What a whingy, whiney, bitter little post that was. On a previous forum on "gay pride,Gay shame" you complained about the Mardis Gras and how you wanted to see it "go up in smoke"
But you couldnt help going there could you. ? Why I wonder? So you could critisize it ? You could have just watched in on TV.
You take a fraction of the participating entrants, and trash them as if it was representative of the whole Mardis Gras.

Hypocritical, bitter little words. Propaganda at its best.
13. 2009-03-09 10:07  
lol Jupiter 101, yr words are so very true!
whingey, whiney,bitter little posts by hypocritical, bitter little people are a more-than-frequent occurance here on fridae unfortunately :p
Anyway i've been to the Sydney Mardi Gras & usually the ppl making trouble there are the drunken hetero frat boys & college girls lookg to waste away yet another Sat night.
Typical common joe-average LOL.
14. 2009-03-09 11:31  
its just a parade, fun, balloons, dont take it so seriously . . .

there are bigger issues to think about like if Lady Gaga is really the new Cher

or where I am going find another gay Polo player in Shanghai to round out my team so we can play that She Lady Polo team in Thailand this fall . . .:)

or why did my friend Bryan have to get laid off and go back to the States due to a slumping economy

for crying out loud I need a go celebration right now and only wish a gay parade would go by here in Shanghai to make me chuckle and grin:)
15. 2009-03-09 13:05  
Drunken str8s everywhere? Too much political stuff? Twirling turquoise umbrellas? Only 300,000 people? Sounds a lot like the last time I went to the Sydney MardiGras in 1996 with 3 friends and my bf and we had a BLAST!!!!! Still wish I were there so I could have blown a kiss at Matthew!!! ha ha ha maybe, hopefully, in 2010.....
16. 2009-03-09 14:51  
right-on ! 'girlongirl' , 'lagunabro' , & 'caesar' .
Im sure that more than 95% of those who went to Mardis Gras enjoyed themselves. The deafening cheers heard blocks away would be testament to that.
There is not much to celebrate in this world today. Bad news everywhere it seems.
A bright light shining on a couple of streets of Sydney, with hundreds of thousands of revellers for a couple of hours celebrating and accepting all that is gay, is NOT such a bad thing.
Any bad behaviour was unfortunate and minimal, (actually I didnt read or hear any negative reports in the media) but if it did that would happen anywhere where there are crowds.

What a shame if the tired old voices eventually win, and celebration of life ( in whatever persausion) in a joyous happy way is taken away because some just dont like it.

Long live freedom of public expression, parades, and safe, happy fun!

Heaven knows, we need it.









17. 2009-03-09 17:45  
We need more positivity in a world getting more troubled, negative & uglier by the day.
I completely agree with Jupiter101, parades are just a place to let yr hair down & have fun, so
wet-blankets...kindly keep away!!!

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