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| New York City's Gay Pride Parade 2016 |
I just got back
from New York City’s Gay Pride Parade and, I’m sorry to report, it was the
worst thing you could possibly say about a gay event.
It was boring.
Maybe I’m just
jaded, or maybe my feelings are being colored by my current financial/job
situation or the recent mass shooting at a gay disco in Orlando, but I feel
like I’ve reached a tipping point this year.
At first, I
thought the reason I didn’t see any floats or hear any music for the first hour
after I arrived was because it was a deliberate security measure. After all,
there had just been the aforementioned mass shooting and, for the first time,
police were patrolling the parade armed with machine guns.
Then, when the
first float with music arrived shortly afterward, I realized it was because the
parade’s organizers had just decided to front-load the parade with all the most
boring groups first. I mean, I was happy to see Gays Against Guns (at least
that’s political) and I love gay cops and firemen as much as the next guy, but—boring!
Maybe they
figured that, since the floats are bigger and more cumbersome to move, they
should place them at the end.
Note to Heritage
of Pride (the parade’s organizers): this makes for a very boring parade.
This year’s
parade was about as exciting as watching traffic try to pile into the Holland
Tunnel (and it moved just as slowly).
Now, mind you, I
have a very long history with New York’s Pride Parade. I attended my first
parade in 1981, back when it used to start at Columbus Circle. I used to join
in at the end of the parade—the place reserved for those unaffiliated with any
official group—and march until the end of the parade route.
In the years
since then (as the parade route got shorter and shorter), I was there every
year (except for one year when I went to Los Angeles and missed both LA’s and
New York’s parade), watching from the sidelines and lending my support.
I would be there
(usually by myself), cheering people on and occasionally tearing up at the
thought of all my friends and lovers who were no longer alive to witness this
event.
In fact, I had
gotten Gay Pride Day down to a science. I would watch the parade from the
southeastern-most point at Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street, run home to take a
disco nap and then go to the Dance on the Pier (which I can no longer afford),
thereby avoiding the entire West Village.
Speaking of the
Dance on the Pier: It took me years to build up the courage to go to this event
(because it’s so crowded and I’m claustrophobic) and I only went because, when
it began, it was a relative bargain.
But after years
of price increases and not knowing who was performing until they went onstage
(and then finding out it was some D-list disco diva from the ’90s), I stopped
going. (OK, I went back a
few years ago when Cher performed, but it was Cher!)
Now, the
Christopher Street Pier (where the dance started) has been transformed into a
yuppified park and the 14th Street Pier (where it moved) has been
torn down to make way for an even more
yuppified park, (ironically) financed by gay show business mogul Barry Diller.
But back to the
parade.
From a purely
aesthetic point of view, I feel like the parade’s production values have gone
down in the last few years.
I can remember
when every gay bar in New York—back when gay bars were still a central part of
gay life—had their own float in the parade. I particularly remember Splash’s
float one year, when they had a bunch of hot guys holding cardboard cutouts of
palm trees. I don’t even remember what the rest of the float consisted of, the
guys were so hot.
I also remember
how gay designer David Spada (who died of AIDS) would have a float every year
featuring his “freedom ring” costumes of rainbow-colored metal rings and how
one year his float was preceded by an elaborate paper dragon. For years, I had
a Stanley Stellar photograph (that appeared on the cover of the New York
Native) on my refrigerator of some cute guy
in one of his outfits.
Another thing
that’s changed about the parade is its demographics.
While it’s always
been the case that a lot of the most “fabulous” (i.e., wealthy and
predominantly white) gays leave town for Fire Island or the Hamptons on Gay
Pride Weekend (as they do on most summer
weekends), there would usually be at least a smattering of fabulous gays left
in town to both participate in and watch the parade.
Now the parade
has become the province of predominantly young minority gays. I realize that
sounds incredibly racist (and ageist) but it also makes sense, because these are the people for whom it’s still most necessary to
march in a gay pride parade. White gays (and, primarily, white gay men) have gotten to the point where they can “pass” in
straight society, whereas for a lot of minority gays, that’s still not
possible. (It’s worth noting that a majority of the victims in Orlando’s mass
shooting were Hispanic.)
Also, the parade
has been almost entirely taken over by corporate sponsors. Their floats tend to
feature a bland assortment of people dressed in T-shits bearing their company’s
logo.
Is this a
deliberate attempt to make the parade more “family-friendly” (like the Brooklyn
Pride event I recently performed at where my material was deemed too “vulgar”)?
It makes one long
for the days when you’d see some leather man sprawled across the hood of a car
being whipped by another leather man.
Or that old guy
who’d dye his poodle in rainbow colors and prance around with it.
Or, God help me,
the Dykes on Bikes, with that old woman whose droopy bare breasts wouldn’t even
appeal to a lesbian.
Surely, that
would be preferable to floats dedicated to Diet Coke, Delta Airlines and Wells
Fargo Bank.
But maybe that’s
just me.
Maybe these are
just the ravings of an over-the-hill gay white guy, and the young minority gays
who are marching in the parade now think it’s great because they don’t know any
better.
Yeah, and I won’t
come in your mouth.
