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Producing and Consuming Gendered

Representations: An Interpretation of
the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
a
Steven M. Kates*
a
Harbour Centre , Simon Fraser University , #2400-515 West
Hastings Street, Vancouver, V6B 5K3, Canada
Published online: 15 Sep 2010.

To cite this article: Steven M. Kates* (2003) Producing and Consuming Gendered Representations: An
Interpretation of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, Consumption Markets & Culture, 6:1, 5-22,
DOI: 10.1080/10253860302699

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10253860302699

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 Consumption, Markets and Culture, 2003 VOL. 6(1), pp. 522

Producing and Consuming Gendered

Representations: An Interpretation of the
Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
STEVEN M. KATES*
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The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is considered to be one of Australias hallmark consumption events. This
paper draws from anthropological literature on carnivalesque festivals, postmodern streams of thought, and original
participant observation data in order to construct a new theoretical interpretation of the Mardi Gras. The festival is
a contested event with meanings associated with the carnivalesque and gay and lesbian politics, executed with an
attention to serious political issues. Findings include insights about contemporary manifestations and embodiments
of the carnivalesque, the frivolous approach to serious political issues and negotiating Australian-ness and the
perils and pitfalls of marketing an oppositional sensibility. Findings are discussed in light of advancing a spiral
model of appropriation and resistance with respect to oppositional gendered representations and meanings.

Keywords: Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras; Carnivalesque consumption; Consumer resistance

Public celebration rituals and their related consumption practices are common topics of
interest in the anthropological and consumer literatures (e.g. Belk 1990, 1994; Kates and
Belk 2001; Kugelmass 1993, 1994, 1995; Lawrence 1982; Murray 2000; Santino 1994a,
1994b, 1996). Carnivalesque celebrations such as the Lesbian and Gay Pride festivals
observed all over the world are opportunities for revellers to invoke and reaffirm cultural
meanings that appear to transcend the everyday. By doing so, these festivals create liminal
spaces that transform relationships among individuals, gay communities, and the
heterosexual mainstreamif only for a day (see Turner 1982). Previous research into the
carnivalesque has emphasized the subversive potential of the excluded other to renegotiate
conventional meanings of gender (see Bakhtin 1968). As some scholars have argued, by
parading the outrageous and mocking spectacle of the excluded queer other in the public
streets, the [often gendered] status hierarchies of high and low are inverted. Further, the
hidden dynamics of power embedded within mundane social relations are exposed, inverted,
and ultimately called into question (Abrahams and Bauman 1978; Babcock 1978; Bakhtin
1968; Belk 1994; Kates and Belk 2001; Gluckman 1954, 1959). In such a manner,
consumption practices may be experienced as liberating and emancipating (Firat and
Venkatesh 1995), as the Mardi Gras, a postmodern spectaclea signifier seemingly divorced
from any stabilizing, anchoring signifiedis communicated, diffused, and consumed by
both gays and heterosexuals alike.
Yet, in the celebratory, critical, and deconstructionist spirit of lesbian and gay pride
festivals, this paper seeks to call such an interpretation into question and further our

*Simon Fraser University at Harbour Centre, #2400-515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, V6B 5K3, Canada

ISSN 1025-3866 print/ISSN 1477-223X online 2003 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1025386032000077628
 6 STEVEN M. KATES

understanding of these public celebrations as complex sites of contestation. Recent work in

consumer research (e.g. Thompson and Haytko 1997; Thompson and Hirschman 1995;
Thompson and Tambyah 1999; Holt 1997, 1998) has emphasized the ideological, discursive
aspects of consumption and its relationships with identity and community. In another post-
structuralist vein, queer theorya relatively recent branch of critical thought from the
humanitiesconceptualizes sexual identity, parody, and performance (such as those
represented at Mardi Gras) as grounded and restrained within a complex matrix of social
constraint and agency (Butler 1990, 1991, 1993; Seidman 1996, 1997). Overall, the various
strands of postmodern literatures, integrated with the ethnographic analysis performed during
this study, suggest necessary theoretical revisions to our understandings of public display and
consumer performance in the context of these festivals.

AS QUEER AS IT GETS: BACKGROUND LITERATURE

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The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is considered one of Australias hallmark events
(Marsh and Levy 1998). Each year, it is estimated that the Mardi Gras makes a net economic
impact of tens of millions of dollars to the nations economy (Marsh and Levy 1998). Further,
it is now filmed and televised for mainstream audience consumption. As the 1998 Economic
Impact Statement claims, no other gay and lesbian cultural festival matches Mardi Gras
scale (Marsh and Levy 1998: 4). All self-promotion aside, the event is an important one to
Australian culture and society for its economic impact, grand scale, artistic accomplishment,
and endorsement of social tolerance (Carbery 1995).
Yet, one may make the observation that if the Mardi Gras looked back upon its past, it
might not know itself! In 1978, the Mardi Gras started as a street protest of approximately
1,500 people; during this protest, the Sydney police attacked the rioting mob and arrested
53 of them (Carbery 1995). In fewer than 20 years, however, the festival has developed into
one in which hundreds of thousands of consumers eat, drink, watch the parade, dress up,
shop, dance, and participate in many other consumption events such as such as film nights
and the infamous Mardi Gras party which follows the parade itself.
Given the extensive sociological and historical literature on the gay and lesbian social
movement, it is possible to ask certain questions of historical and empirical data for
purposes of comparison, social critique, theory development, and explanation. For example,
are past and current meanings in alignment with the original, radical gay pride ideology of
gender subversion and challenge to the status quo or has the festival become a
commercialized event and little more than this (cf. Kates and Belk 2001)? This ideological
formation is composed of a number of loosely related, historical discursive currents that may
be traced to the gay activism of the late 1960ssexual freedom, self-esteem, a sense of
proud collective identity, self-disclosure to gay and straight others, and gender malleability.
To paraphrase the words of Adam (1995), the gay and lesbian revolution was meant to free
the homosexuality in everyone by defeating sexual repression, homophobia, and sexism in
society (Altman 1982; DEmilio 1983; Kates 1998; Weeks 1985).
More recently, it appears that gay pride ideology has embraced other values and activities
such as protest against government inaction against AIDS, anti-racism, and a queer, fluid,
and playful sensibility toward sexuality (Browning 1993; Butler 1990; Jagose 1996). In this
deconstructive, indeterminate spirit, postmodern theory asserts that the boundaries between
traditional forms (e.g. such as high art and popular art) are becoming blurred (Brown 1995;
Featherstone 1991a). Thus, one might expect an analogous merging of the commercial, artistic
and political arenas and the Mardi Gras to develop as a polysemous and syncretic consumption
phenomenon that embraces meanings from the political, artistic, and commercial realms.
 PRODUCING AND CONSUMING GENDERED REPRESENTATIONS 7

The various literatures on celebration and the carnivalesque shed some light on this issue.
Festivals in general and carnivalesque celebrations in particular may be considered contested
ground for countervailing meanings. Different social collectivities arise, organize around,
and develop through common interests in consumption (e.g. Holt 1997; MacCannell 1989;
Manning 1983; Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Festival behaviour is no exception in this
regard. Public celebrations such as the Mardi Gras are highly visible, participatory, and
symbolic of an eclectic melange of cultural meanings. In his study of New Yorks Greenwich
Village Halloween parade, Kugelmass (1994) argues that in their efforts to shock, titillate,
and outrage, participants enact their own alternative, iconoclastic view of the world in front
of appreciative (and often angry) audiences. Kates and Belk (2001) also note the outrageous
and shocking character of the Toronto Lesbian and Gay Pride Day festival, a celebration that
combines the licentiousness of marching nudists au naturel and the commercial representa-
tions of beer companies and other mainstream businesses.
The central principle of the carnivalesque festival appears to be that of symbolic inversion
(Babcock 1978). Carnivalesque festivals such as Mardi Gras seek to contradict or negate
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aspects of the social status quo, challenging some orthodoxy, [and] the paradox is an oblique
criticism of absolute judgment or absolute convention (Babcock 1978: 17). Yet, as
Kugelmass (1994a) points out, it would be inaccurate to characterize these types of festivals
as a complete inversion of everyday life or conventions. More likely, these types of events
may reflect, reinforce, exploit, and help constitute existing oppositional tendencies and
meanings co-existing in the larger society.
This last point may be the most telling and important extension of Gluckmans (1954,
1959) work on traditional societies. In restricting his work to the harvest festivals of
traditional societies and the like, Gluckman was fair in his functionalist assertion that rituals
of rebellion acted strictly as cultural steam valves that reinforced a patriarchal status quo.
Yet, in more contemporary contexts in North America, Europe, and Australia, such an
interpretation is inappropriate, given the widespread challenge of gender, racial, and sexual
stereotypes and oppressions offered by various new social movements (Mueller 1992). More
likely, festivals such as the Mardi Gras are reflective and constitutive of social changes
outside their boundaries. Handelmans (1990) typology of public events is quite helpful in
this regard. Overall, he argues in various public occasions that cultural codesusually
diffused, attenuated, and submerged in the mundane order of thingslie closest to the
behavioral surface (p. 9), connecting the festival to the wider social world. Public events,
according to this framework, may be divided into the model event, the presentational event,
and the representational event.
Briefly, the model event is transformational and pre-views a future condition that may
be actualized. Events that presentsuch as military parades or the Macys Christmas
paradeattempt to performatively reinforce and reflect the ideologically dominant way of
life and communicate this is how things should be, this is the proper, ideal pattern of social
life (Handelman 1990: 44). Finally, events that representof which the carnivalesque is an
exemplardemonstrate multiple visions through contrast and comparison, inverting
hierarchies yet maintaining the accepted modes of discourse. The Doo Dah festival of
Pasadena, grounded in conflict between the elite and dominated factions, expresses symbolic
opposition to the Rose Parade and stands as a good example of this final category (Lawrence
1982). While the Rose parade presents order, structure, and the prevailing status quo, the Doo
Dah, by contrast, represents a different vision, challenging the power elite of Pasadena, but
paradoxically preserving the ideological principle of democratic and American
competition that underlies both the Rose Bowl and Rose Parade.
Butler (1990), from a dramatically different theoretical perspective, suggests another way
of understanding the Mardi Gras as either inspired gender transgression or as ordered
 8 STEVEN M. KATES

appropriation of an oppositional ethos. In her complex and subtle works on gender identities,
she argues that multiplicity does not necessarily imply cultural resistance, gender
transgression, or the subversion of heterosexist, patriarchal norms, particularly in considera-
tion of the widespread reinscription of hypermasculine norms in gay mens culture, a
phenomenon documented by critics and journalists who note the butch or clone style of
the 1970s or the circuit queens of the 1990s (Gough 1989; Halperin 1995; Harris 1997;
Levine 1998; Signorile 1997). Indeed, the masculine style of many gay communities may be
an excellent example of denaturalizing parodies that reidealize heterosexual norms without
calling them into question (Butler 1993: 231, original emphasis), the very antithesis of
subversive resistanceindeed its appropriation by patriarchal discourse. In other words,
from this critical, deconstructionist, and queer lens, the inspired frivolity, multiple
representations of genders, and seeming oppositional sensibility of Mardi Gras may be a
subtle reinforcement and appropriation of stereotypically masculinist discoursecompeti-
tion, violence, and dominancebut in progressive stylistic guise. If this is so, informed
ideological critique must indicate just what interests benefit from the enactment of these
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spectacles and what social inequities are allowed to go continued, unquestioned, and taken
for granted (see for example Seidman 1996, 1997; Thompson and Haytko 1997; Thompson
and Hirschman 1995).

The Spiral of Appropriation and Resistance

I propose another interpretation of the Mardi Gras problematic consumption ideology. Kates
and Belk (2001) interpret consumption-related resistances as various trajectories of meaning
embedded in the practices of Torontos Lesbian and Gay Pride Day. Given the data collected
during the present study and the rich historical data available, it is possible to further our
understanding of gendered representations and meaning in this carnivalesque consumption
context. Appropriation and cultural resistance to oppression may be viewed as a spiral of co-
optation of practices and meanings versus the emergence of new practices, manifestations,
and embodiments of politically charged resistance (see Penaloza and Price 1993). In this way,
the meanings of the festival evolve over time, sometimes politically charged and rebellious,
sometimes commercialized and corporate but usually existing in a dialectic tension,
reflecting the morass of social conditions and political agendas in which the festival itself is
embedded.
Using the spiral concept as a theoretical springboard, this paper seeks to address the
following questions: what functions (if any) does the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras
fulfil in challenging or reinforcing the gendered, sexual status quo in its own Australian
socioeconomic milieu? As an example of a carnivalesque public event, how does it fit into
the above typology, and how does it potentially refine and extend it?

METHOD

In preparation for this study, in February 1999, I visited the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi
Gras and collected extensive participant observation data, including tape-recorded field notes
and accounts of casual conversations of Mardi Gras consumers in situ (Jorgensen 1989).
Further, with their permission and co-operation, I followed a small clique of gay friends
around as they enjoyed the Mardi Gras, recording their activities, impressions, thoughts and
feelings. Field materials such as brochures, handbills, magazines, and other texts for further
analysis were also collected. In March 1999, I interviewed the Sponsorship and Business
Development Manager, the General Manager, and the Marketing Manager of the Mardi Gras
 PRODUCING AND CONSUMING GENDERED REPRESENTATIONS 9

organization about the ideals and purposes of the festival and about how it is organized.
Finally, the Mardi Gras 1998 Economic Impact Statement, the 1998 and 1999 Festival
Guides, and 19992002 Strategic Plan were all read and used as hermeneutic, interpretive
text. This method had the strength of offering at least two unique views of the Mardi Gras
those of consumers (myself, participants, and the clique of friends) and of the cultural
producers of the festival (see Gottdiener 1995). Finally, I revisited the parade in March 2000
and collected more fieldnotes. This time, rather than spending my ethnographic fieldwork on
the sidelines of the parade, I watched it from a very different perspectivefrom a hotel
apartment with a group of friends. This allowed me to obtain a very different perspective of
the parade and of the consumption activities of the approximately 20 gay men and lesbian
celebrants in the hotel room as they watched the parade from the two balconies, drank
alcohol, talked, laughed, and consumed illegal drugs during the evening.
I read the data generated from the above methods several times and sifted it (Spiggle
1994) for emergent insights into the structure and meanings of the festival. Essentially, the
data was transcribed and treated as text, illuminating the phenomenon of consumer behaviour
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connected to references to the Mardi Gras. All insights into the festival are grounded in the
data itself (Glaser and Strauss 1967). During the progress of the interviews and participant
observation, and particularly after the completion of the actual fieldwork, it was necessary for
me to read the transcribed interviews and field notes over and over, regarding the notes as text
to be interpreted. During the fieldwork, I relied upon my notes taken during the interviews
to direct further interviewing and questioning efforts.

AN INTERPRETATION OF THE SYDNEY GAY AND LESBIAN MARDI GRAS

The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is a festival that runs over a three-and-a-half-week
period in February and March. It includes a wide array of entertainment and cultural activities
including a film festival, a fair day of local merchants, community events, sporting events,
theatre productions, art exhibits, and dance parties. It customarily culminates and climaxes in
the nationally televised two-hour Mardi Gras Parade and an all-night dance party at the Old
Showgrounds at Moore Park. The Mardi Gras Festival is publicized by a bright and glossy
festival guide that lists all of the events and activities, their locations, times, and their prices.
This festival guide also features ads by commercial sponsors such as Absolut Vodka, Atlantis
holidays, Black Stallion energy drink, and Smirnoff Vodka.
It is important to emphasize the breadth and scope of the Mardi Gras. For the period that
it runs, it appears that Sydney becomes a gay city, indeed. Local, state, and federal politicians
acknowledge the celebrations and some even get involved with various events. There are
signs and banners proclaiming the event everywhere in the downtown neighbourhoods of
Darlinghurst, Surry Hills, and Kings Cross. Crowds of peoplegay men, lesbians, and even
some heterosexualsroam the streets, queue up for dance parties and nightclubs, and gather
socially to celebrate. The local mediagay and mainstreamreport the event weekly, and
the some of the various activitiesespecially the paradeare broadcast on local and
national television. Indeed, during 2000, gay and heterosexual viewers were able to view the
parade during the next day (Sunday) on Channel Ten, a national free-to-air network television
station based in Melbourne with stations across Australia. Celebrities (such as Molly
Ringwald in 2000) regularly attend this event and are interviewed by the network television
stations. Invariably, celebrities emphasize how wonderful such an event is and what an
excellent display of social tolerance and acceptance the Mardi Gras represents. In other
words, for the three weeks of the Mardi Gras and during the one night of full on
celebrations on the last Saturday night, the Mardi Gras occupies a significant place in
 10 STEVEN M. KATES

Australias physical, social, and cultural space. For this brief period every year, this fabulous
and colourful spectacle captures and holds much of the nations attention.

Embodiment and Manifestation of the Carnivalesque

At first blush, many of the festivals events and activities appear to offer playful and subversive
protest to conventional gender meanings and categories. In one featured play in the theatre
guide (in 1999), participants are invited to attend A Family Outing, a play about family
mores and quirks. The ad features a photo of three completely naked individualsan elderly
man and woman and a younger woman. The older individuals are saggy, bulgy, and
overweight, and the photo appears to exaggerate and revel in the spectacle of the gross,
indecent quality of the imperfect bodiesa sure sign of the carnivalesque (Bakhtin 1968).
Yet, those may be the only imperfect bodies on display during the Mardi Gras festival. The
festival guide is much more likely to feature the spectacle of toned, buff, and gym fit male
bodies, as featured in the advertisements for Skygarden shop or City Gym. The parade itself
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puts on display countless numbers of toned, tight, and muscular male flesh, an overwhelming
profusion and celebration of masculinity, sexuality, lust, and desire. The Melbourne
Marching Boys, one of the parade entries, features over 80 fit men, performing various dance
steps in almost flawless rhythm. The overwhelming and pervasive spectacle of the
hypermasculine body foregrounds the question of reinforcement versus subversion of gender
norms and conventions. I argue that the subversion of gender norms lies very much in the
amplification or hyperbole of this carnivalesque practice: the hyperbolic gesture is crucial
to the exposure of the homophobic law that can no longer control the terms of its own
abjecting strategies (Butler 1993: 232). More specifically, I interpret that the theatricality
and satire associated with these multiple representations of the male body inspire the
appreciation of irony. Subversive consumer practices may uncover and problematize
gendered norms by parodically accentuating them, humorously delegitimizing their claims to
authority. This is masculinity and male lust on display, but it may also be read as a passive
spectacle of mens bodies to be appreciated for their beauty and sexual desirability, in
contrast to their significations of power, competition, and domination. Yet, we may still ask
whether the representations of muscular, half-clad men are the culturally dominant ones,
given their prevalence throughout the festival, suggesting that the ideology of Mardi Gras is
masculinist and exclusivist (see Thompson and Tambyah 1999). The spiral of appropriation
and subversion would suggest that masculinist elements are but one element that struggles for
cultural dominance.
Significantly, in this respect, the other dominant Mardi Gras bodily icon is that of the drag
queen, such as Vanessa, host(ess) of the televised Mardi Gras telecast and video. At the other
pole of the gender spectrum, sequined, bejewelled, and gaudily dressed in bright neon
colours, the drag queen too embodies the playful, hyperbolic, and deconstructive zeitgeist of
the festival and of the parade. Drag queens add a unique air of inspired frivolity and fun, as
embodied by Vanessa who declared the streets to be dry and without cracks, and as such
drag friendly. In such mannersby embodying the untamed ethos of the day (see Bordo
1993; Featherstone 1991b; Finkelstein 1991) and through hyperbole and juxtaposition of
wildly contrasting gendered, cultural meaningsMardi Gras display playfully and slyly
muddies the gendered waters. (At the same time, it should be noted that the figure of the drag
queen may be interpreted as reinforcement of traditional gendered representations.)
The spirit of the festival is also embodied in costumes and displays that many might
consider socially risque, gross and disgusting. During the March 2000 parade, celebrants
were treated to the display of several marchers wearing large red costumes uncannily
resembling womens tampons called the Bloody Marys. The intertextual reference here is
 PRODUCING AND CONSUMING GENDERED REPRESENTATIONS 11

to the enactment of the Commonwealth governments Goods and Services Tax (GST) in July
2000. This new tax, widely considered unpopular, was acrimoniously debated during the
previous year. Womens groups vociferously denounced the tax as sexist because it would be
applied to all toiletry itemsincluding womens tampons! In a blatant satirization of the
Liberal governments tax, several gay men donned the red costumes in order to voice popular
sentiments against the tax. Such satirical efforts are typical fare for the Mardi Gras and
represent the tendency for it to engage in political protest against the government of the day.
Interestingly, interpretation of its messages requires consumers to hunt for appropriate social
contexts and local knowledge in order to get the joke or understand the mockery. In this
case, it is necessary for celebrants to know at least two things. First, they must understand
that Mary is a colloquial expression that gay men use to describe themselves. Second,
celebrants and onlookers must understand that the tax was denounced by many of Australias
public, including feminists, as unfair and even sexist. Thus, the full or proper enjoyment,
appreciation, and consumption of the Mardi Gras spectacle requires the previous acquisition
of a particularistic interpretive frame or lens, skilled in understanding visual metaphors.
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Thus, the subversive elements associated with one aspect of the spiral are institutionalized in
the consumption of the parade images. Spectators must know to look for subversive, clever
messages and are disappointed if fresh, amusing ones are not in evidence.
The consumption of the parade also inspires many festival consumersnot only the
marchers in the paradeto get caught up in the fun and the fantasy of inverting the mundane
and taken-for-granted categories and norms of quotidian life. Before the parade, the group of
friends I followed engaged in ritualistic grooming rituals, swept up in the spirit of Mardi Gras:
Jack is wearing very tight, blue lycra shorts with white stars and his . . . [shorts are] so tight you can tell his
religion by . . . or tell what his religion is not. Anyway, and hes wearing a purple tanktop with love muscle
on it. And hes wearing white socks and black boots. With his white hair, he looks like your typical fag
[humorous, frivolous tone to match the occasion]. Peter is wearing a black tanktop with leather shorts and
black boots. His hair is dyed white too. (Fieldnotes, February 27, 1999)

For many parade participants, such exotic suiting-up practices were very much part and
parcel of cultivating a special, queer presentation for the parade, emphasizing that for one
day at least, gender conventions and natural standards of decency, masculinity, and
femininity were fair game for exaggeration, profanation, and play. On this day, the figure of
the dark deviant homosexual other is celebrated and its virtues extolled. Finally, after the
parade, 20,000 consumers attended the post-parade party held at the showgrounds. The
rumours that circulated in 1999 were that either camp icons Cher or Shirley Bassey might
attend and sing at the show during the party. Such rumours are part of the fun of the
celebration. Cher and Shirley are both popular gay icons known for their sympathetic
attitudes toward gays and lesbians. Speculating on just who the special guest will be
reinforces among celebrants how fabulous and grandiose the Mardi Gras festival really is. In
fact, during 1999, Australian musician Jimmy Barnes proved to be the surprise entertainer.
During a wild collective ritual of techno music, dancing, drugs, drinking, and sex that serves
as the postmodern answer to the pagan festival of Beltane, partygoers signal the end of the
liminoid time and space.
The other dominant aspect of consumption associated with the festival is the sense of
freedom and licentiousness that many celebrants feel. As one informant told me during the
parade, this is the time that I feel free to do just about anything . . . I dont ordinarily do this
. . . it includes taking drugs, having lots of wild sex (laughs), and dancing til five in the
morning. Everyone . . . well, a lot of people do this, do drugs, party, its a really fun, wild time
and everyone gets involved. Licentiousness as a form of consumer agency includes many
forms. I noted that many of the men were suited up similarly to my clique of friends, dressed
in very tight shorts and tanktops (called singlets in Australia) that left little to the
 12 STEVEN M. KATES

imagination. The tightness of the shorts was embellished by the campy and glittering surfaces
of the material. Everyone seems to believe that drug use goes part-and-parcel with the
festival. Some of the revellers that I spoke to unhesitatingly confessed to ingesting various
drugs, speed (methamphetamine) and Ecstasy (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or
MDMA) being considered the most popular party drugs. A previous study of the Sydney
dance subculture claimed that drug use was widespread during large dance parties and found
that informants used other psychoactive substances such as hashish, marijuana, amyl nitrite
(a chemical that produces a short-lived euphoric sensation and that is snorted from a small
bottle), Quaaludes, LSD, alcohol, ketamine (a horse tranquillizer), and cocaine (Lewis and
Ross 1995).
Drugs such as speed, cocaine, and Ecstasy provide the energy for dancing to rhythmic
techno music until the early hours of the morning at the Mardi Gras party and connecting
with the bare-chested, sweating men there. Drugs are also used in other contexts at Mardi
Gras. During the year 2000 celebrations, I attended a hotel party. The host of the party
ingested a combination of alcohol and speed and spent much of his gathering in the bathroom
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vomiting. Other guests indulged in marijuana and alcohol. Previous research interprets this
widespread drug use as a collective response to cope with the AIDS crisis, emancipat[ing]
the person (or the group) from everyday reality where the source of their distress was
located (Lewis and Ross 1995: 43), affirming life and easing anxiety. A different
interpretation might be that drug use is a popular and widespread practice of ingesting and
embodying the wild, untamed spirit of the festival to produce pleasurable sensations and a
temporary communitas with others. Thus, with its flamboyant imagery, widespread drug use,
and the writhing bodies on the dance floor, Mardi Gras may be considered a tribal gathering
that harkens back to the pagan rites of Beltane, liberating the common folk from their dreary
and often dangerous everyday lives with a short period of revelry and uninhibited sexual
activity. On this last point, venues such as bars and the Mardi Gras party usually have dark
areas where men can engage in sexual activities (backrooms). Much concern has been
expressed in gay media, journalistic critiques, and academic publications that much unsafe
sex occurs there (e.g. Lewis and Ross 1995; Signorile 1997). Ironically and tragically, coping
with the anxiety and losses from AIDS by participating in Mardi Gras revelry may prove to
be a fatal strategy (see Baudrillard 1990) that compounds shared personal, medical and social
problems rather than alleviating them, and rendering AIDS an endless spiral that enervates
gay communities of their political energy and collective health. In this light, we may well
challenge Mardi Gras as an effective form of cultural resistance to the mainstream status quo.
In this critical aspect of the spiral dialectic, drugs and revelry represent a powerful pull to
overpower the political goals of the festival. On the one hand, Mardi Gras represents a
celebration and promotion of different gendered subjectivities and seeks to enlighten and
change the consciousness of those who participate. The Dionysian aspect of the festival that
represents numbness and altered mental states may complement challenge to the status quo.
Yet, is equally powerful in destabilizing not only the societal status quo, but the utopian ideal
of a new gendered consciousness that Mardi Gras also represents.

The Seemingly Frivolous Approach to the Serious/Negotiating

Australian-ness
The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras historically originated from gay and lesbian activism
of the late 1970s. In 1978, the first Mardi Gras was held during June and ended in the arrests of
several protesters. According to the history of the Mardi Gras (Carbery 1995) and the present
organizers of the festival, Mardi Gras was conceived as a fresh, fun, frivolous, and funny way
of approaching the very serious issues of social inequality, violence, and homophobia (see also
 PRODUCING AND CONSUMING GENDERED REPRESENTATIONS 13

Kates and Belk 2001). During our interview, the Sponsorship and Business Development
Manager of the Sydney Mardi Gras organization emphasized that Mardi Gras is a celebration
of ourselves, emphasizing the more liminoid and ludic quality of self-transformation (Turner
1982, 1984). Thus, Mardi Gras activities that the organization sponsors must present the lived
world in a particular interpretive frame that mocks and satirizes:
. . . my personal view of Mardi Gras[its] peculiarly down under Australian and a really Sydney response
to a very serious political and social issue. Were talking about freedom and pride and all of those and anti-
discrimination, taking serious turns overseas. The difference with Mardi Gras is that it turned it into a
celebration of ourselves. And build on that. Ive been to New York . . . Ive been to a number of gay pride
celebrations overseas. Marches, standing in New York. Its very earnest. In 1996. Its really serious. The
difference with Mardi Gras is that it has been turned into a celebration that enhances the message. The basis
of the celebration was the parade, and the parade remains the high point of the public celebration. A case in
point, I guess this year when the opera house refused to allow the Sisters of Indulgence to do their tours [of
the Sydney Opera House]. Now, Mardi Gras response, and to my mind, it was a particular Mardi Gras
response, particularly that our launch is on the opera houses decks . . . my instincts tell me that Americans
might have said, when faced with this dilemma, okay, were going to move our launch from that opera house,
were not going to have anything more to do with them, and well go somewhere else. Again, this is purely
personal observation. Mardi Gras decided no, well continue to have our launch at that opera house that has
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spurned our sisters, but we will use it to draw attention to the whole issue. So we had the absolutely amazing
sight of Mother Mary Mary Quite Contrary, the Mother Superior of the organization of Sydney, up on a forklift
in the air, casting demons out of the opera house, and calling in all the good spirits to replace them. And it
was a tongue-in-cheek but incredibly Mardi Gras response. To a serious issue that just got . . . that brought the
house down . . . beginning of February at the opening ceremony launch. It made all the news channels, all the
papers. Got huge coverage, and was just the most appropriate response and the most telling response to what
could have been a telling issue. She formed part of the opening ceremony a hundred feet in the air, casting
demons. Thats one example of what I feel is a Mardi Gras twist to things.

During January, under pressure from local Catholic churches, the board of the Sydney Opera
House cancelled the planned tours of the building that would have been hosted by the Sisters
of Indulgence, a Catholic Order of nuns (a group of gay men dressed in nuns habits).
Instead of cancelling the launch of the festival or changing the venue, the Mardi Gras itself
arranged for Mary Mary, Quite Contrary, the Mother Superior of the nuns order to cast out
demons from the opera house. In doing so, the organization itself embodied and formally
instituted norms of parody and satire of intolerant institutions.
The Mardi Gras twist is also a way of renegotiating Australian-ness. During his
interview, the sponsorship and development manager, a former resident of New Zealand,
noted that Mardi Gras is a quintessentially down under response to oppressiontaking
the piss out of sacred cows and serious institutions that had been thought previously
unmockable. Taking the piss out of something is considered a distinctly native cultural
expression, although it is also regularly used by British and New Zealand citizens. The
mixture of humour, shock, and satire that Mardi Gras attempts to provoke is also considered
a distinctly Australian quality, according to this informant. According to my discussions with
celebrants, deflating self-important sacred cows such as the Church, the State, and other
powerful institutions (such as the Mardi Gras itself!) is a distinctly Australian quality
known as cheek. In this way, informants formed the belief that Mardi Gras was a very
Australian kind of festival that fit in with the overall national spirit of rebelliousness and
challenge of authority.
Other Australian iconography and expression occur in the festival and the parade. During
my inspection of their prop room, I found tangible, material evidence of this Australian
style of mockery or taking the piss out of sacred cows. One prominent and memorable
example is the plaster bust of the Reverend Fred Nile, a local fundamentalist minister who
makes an annual practice of condemning the Mardi Gras and the sinful homosexual
lifestyle. This plaster bust was of Niles head being served on a silver platter, surrounded by
a profusion of colourful fruitgrapes, bananas, watermelons, and plums. Niles head
appears grotesquely shaped and his heavy eyebrows and double chin have been accentuated,
 14 STEVEN M. KATES

in typical Mardi Gras parody. Mockery of religious and political figures appears to be a
common theme. During the 1999 parade, the Temple More Men and the Tab of Acid Choir
float featured several men dressed in white starched shirts, short haircuts, glasses, and name
tags, all carrying what appeared to be the Bible or the Book of Mormon, spoofing the
uniformity of thought and presentation associated with the virulently homophobic Mormon
church. Even President Bill Clinton and the United States Congress were indirect targets in
the Memories of Monica presentation in 1999, featuring several women dressed in
strategically stained blue dresses. The accompanying music included the Fifth Dimensions
golden oldie Wedding Bell Blues (Will you marry me, Bi-i-i-ill?). Again, certain contexts
of meaning must be invoked for full appreciation of the festival. One must know that
President Bill Clinton was impeached by the American Congress in 1999 due to his lies and
sexual dalliances and the blue dress belonging to Ms Lewinsky was used as evidence (see
Lawrence 1982; Manning 1983). Mardi Gras representations are potent, metaphoric launch
pads that take consumers with certain cultural knowledge to pleasurable, delightful, and
humorous meanings.
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Such challenge of religious and political figures ties in with the playful, deconstructive
spirit of the festival. The flexible approach to gender conventions and norms is also
reproduced in the satire and inversion directed at the powerful and holy (or holier-than-thou),
for on this day, the low and the high swap places representationally. Yet, such lively
inversions and the trenchant, caustic, ironic ridicule they imply contrast sharply with the
traditionally liberal official theme of the 1999 paradea celebration of all things Aussie
including the concept of equality and fairness; all were asking for is a fair goaccording
to Mr Shane Jeffrey, designer of the lead parade float, quoted during the nationally televised
broadcast and official Mardi Gras video. The lead float featured a large effigy of New South
Wales Premier Bob Carr shown barbecuing equality, commenting satirically on the upcoming
state elections, noting that Carrs government had not legislated the recognition of same-sex
relationships, as promised during the 1995 state election. As such, the parade gives voice to
many messages, both liberal and radical, but consistently does so in a seemingly frivolous,
witty, and camp manner (see Kates 1998; Sinfield 1994; Sontag 1964). Further, the barbecue
is considered quintessentially Aussie, an additional spoof on the national culture,
employing national icons (such as the barbecue) to satirize and comment on government
inaction. In such a manner, style does not rule or take precedence over substance (cf. Sontag
1964). Rather, in this manifestation of the carnivalesque, potent visual style becomes the
vehicle by which metaphoric substance and hidden referents are most effectively and
vigorously leveraged. Thus, the one aspect of the dialectical spiralthe outrageous and
subversive tendency to criticize the social status quois institutionalized through regular
performance.

The Perils and Pitfalls of Marketing an Oppositional Sensibility

The multivocality and diversity of the festival is reflected in the wide variety of floats and
costumes on display during the parade and in the extensive festival activities. Yet, this
constant quest for diverse representation provides a very daunting task for the Mardi Gras
organization. The Marketing Manager describes the crisis of representation in which the
organization now finds itself. According to his account, the Mardi Gras is both an insight
into humanity and an attempt to explain ourselves to ourselves. That is, he views the
festival as an opportunity to depict representations of gay, bisexual, transgendered, and
lesbian life. Further, he emphasizes that insights into humanity must entail representations of
queer oppression and marginalization, expressed in clever, sharp rhetoric (the bloody Mary
in the 2000 parade is a good example of this). He describes the attempt to depict gay and
 PRODUCING AND CONSUMING GENDERED REPRESENTATIONS 15

lesbian (and bisexual, and transgendered, and Asian, and Drag Queens, and . . .) identity as
a difficult professional task in the context of a cell division of representation that goes on
and on. He illustrates his point with a discussion about the cover page for the festival guide.
The Mardi Gras organization had decided to move away from depictions of the body and
recent and future covers must define a sensibility. The last two years covers were abstract,
postmodern composites of shapes, colours, and slogans such as celebrate the future and
equality in diversity.
The marketing managers comments illustrate a very interesting theoretical point about
the marketing of Mardi Gras. Having studied political philosophy and social theory at
university (unsurprisingly), he and the organizations artists explicitly and reflexively apply
theoretical, postmodern knowledge to the management and marketing of the festival in
order to represent gay and lesbian identity in a postmodern era of identity politics and anti-
identity (queer) politics (see Seidman 1996, 1997). He noted that the organization was
trying to get away from the rainbow flag icon of gay liberation and in true Mardi Gras
deconstructionist spirit: wed do a toxic rainbow. In contrast to the more organic
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nature of the parade in the early years, the current festival must be consciously cultivated
and developed in order to promote flamboyant, oppositional meanings and sensibilities.
The toxic rainbow remark refers to the tendency of the parade to produce an
autocritique. The damning critique that the festival provides is not restricted to fields such
as culture, politics, and business. The Mardi Gras organization is also willing to criticize
itself and gay politics, in its efforts to produce fresh and fun images for public
consumption. Thus, critique comes not only from the grassroots level (i.e. participants
in the parade and spectators) but also from the organization.
Aside from the pulls of identity politics, there are other factors that place the festivals
ritual vitality and zeitgeist at risk, particularly its precarious financial situation (Carbery
1995). Financial matters have inspired the organization to actively seek out sponsors to
provide cash and other goods and services such as air travel, beer, soft drinks, and hotel
accommodation. The position of Development Manager was recently created for this
purpose. (Previous to his hiring, sponsorship and development matters had been performed
by the marketing department.) Current principal sponsors include Qantas Airlines, Telstra
(Australias largest telecommunications company), Coca-Cola, Hahn Ice Beer, South Sydney
Council, Killawara (makers of sparkling wine), Stolichnaya vodka, and ParkRoyal Centra
Travelodge hotels. Such recognition and acceptance of mainstream corporate sponsors,
seemingly reconciliatory gestures toward a heterosexual mainstream, have the potential to
compromise the festivals calculatedly oppositional positioning and open it up to charges of
losing its political, cutting-edge focus. Again, such concerns (those that impact on the Mardi
Gras image) are reflexively managed by members of the organization. According to the
development manager, principal sponsors are chosen selectively, must provide same-sex
domestic spousal benefits, and must include sexual orientation in their corporate anti-
discrimination statements.
Such activities open Mardi Gras to the criticism of the commercialization of same-sex
desire and subcultural expression (Ingebretsen 1999). Indeed, there have been those who
criticize Mardi Gras for sanitizing gay culture in order to make it palatable to mainstream
corporate advertisers (Kates 1998; see also Schouten and McAlexander 1995). Running
during the same time period as Mardi Gras, the Queer as Fuck Festival proposes to be The
alternative queerfest of rehearsed workshops and cabaret, according to its website:

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the theatre comes a cultural festival so makeshift, so thrown
together, so lacking in prestige and budget that theyre closing the theatre right after we finish! Its a cultural
festival that the queer community can call its own. No more assimilationist claptrap, no more lets make queer
mainstream, no more lets be respectable, no more trying to show that queers can present a festival as boring
 16 STEVEN M. KATES

and as arty farty as Leos Festival of fucking boredom or Robyns festival of insular inferiority. We Aussies
can write, produce, direct and act crap just as well as those overpaid, overpraised (Vietnamese Water Puppies
excepted) performance wankers from overseas. And this is the festival that proves it.

A whole mob of us ignored, overlooked, under-appreciated, barely respectable queers are fed up with the
establishment queers who think good reviews and pandering to the cultural elite will give them an entree to
the big bucks of corporate sponsorship, a more respectable arts profile, a job on an arts or literature board, or,
at the very least, a wanky weekly column that wallows in hippie crap about graffiti and trees in a newspaper
for geriatrics who pay lip service to equality and human rights.

So harken to SQUIRTZ! Cause its been thrown together in a hurry and the items on display are little
ejaculations of bile, spite, anger, disgust, and . . . well, okay, weve got more than our fair share of wankers
on board as well. Hey, the middle classes are very seductive. Anyone from the queer community was asked
to submitwe have no censorship, no selection committee, no pretence. And look what weve come up
with!!! Okay, so were a bit short on the music, sculpture, fine arts departments. Dykes, bis, tranys, the
disabled, racial minorities are vastly under-representedbut if you have a gripe then pull your fucking finger
out and come up with something for next year. (Yep, Im afraid we aint gonna go away!).

The above segment from SQUIRTZs website reflects the anger and criticism levelled at
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the Mardi Gras organization, at least by some. At the same time, Mardi Gras, as the more
dominant, influential cultural player, tries to ensure its position by providing fresh,
contemporary, and subversive images within its management. Its Strategic Plan 19992002
lists the following political, artistic, and financial priorities, among others:

 The best events of lesbian and gay cultural expression and celebration
 Produce an annual parade which maintains historical integrity, contemporary relevance
and high creative standards
 The economic base of the organization is broadened to increase sustainability
 Intellectual Property rights on Mardi Gras events and merchandise are protected (Strategic
Plan 1999: 2)

Despite the presence of several political activities and floats in the Mardi Gras festival and
parade, the commercialization and mainstreaming of the festival seems to have caught the
public imagination. The Australian newspaper ran a story entitled Even Mardi Gras Loses
Flamboyance (Southgate 1999). Perhaps the following comments by Jack, one of the
participants in the group of friends I followed, summarize the pitfalls of marketing an
oppositional sensibility: my [71-year-old] mother said the [televised] parade wasnt as good
as last years. Thus, there is a constant spiral dialectic between commercialization as
represented by sponsors products and messages and the grassroots efforts to participate and
have the festival reflect radical and offensive messages. As demonstrated by the creators of
SQUIRTZs response to their perception that the festival was both stale and self-serving, the
dialectic between commercialization and subversion is characterized by angry, critical
sentiments toward what is perceived as the dominant Mardi Gras festival. The festival then
responds with renewed vigour to these charges, as demonstrated by the marketing managers
remarks that the parade must remain fresh. He also expressed his anxiety that the Mardi
Gras would become obsolete, demonstrating an awareness of changing social conditions
and the need for the festival to remain current and relevant.

DISCUSSION: THE SPIRAL OF APPROPRIATION AND RESISTANCE

Almost anything goes at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. During the three and a half
weeks of festival activities and especially during the (paradoxically) managed yet wild
spectacle of the Saturday parade, a carnivalesque space is created by gay, lesbian, bisexual,
 PRODUCING AND CONSUMING GENDERED REPRESENTATIONS 17

and transgendered people. As Turner (1984: 21) vividly phrases it, taboos are lifted,
fantasies are enacted, the low are exalted and the mighty abased. To summarize the findings
of the present work, an important theoretical question in the festival literature will be
explored: is Mardi Gras a liminal affairtruly transformative of inequitable social
relationsor is it simply liminoida temporary, marginal, and constructed time and space
apart from mainstream time and space (see Turner 1982)? Such a question is related to an
important theoretical issue about the carnivalesque: are they rituals of rebellion with little
societal effect, or are they something more subversive of heterosexual norms and
conventions? (It should be noted that the two categories are not quite mutually exclusive (see
Belk and Costa 1998: 233). A related question is whether the purposes and energy of the
Mardi Gras have been appropriated by commercial interests, eliding the social inequities and
heterosexism that still exists in Australian society.
In Handelmans (1990) comparable typology, if Mardi Gras may be considered potentially
transformative of social relations, then it may be classed as a liminal-ish event that models
and potentially transforms a gendered status quo and gains some degree of acceptance for
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different gendered subjectivities. However, if it is only a dramatic acting out, then it may
be more properly considered a liminoid-ish, carnivalesque event that represents. However, in
either situation, Mardi Gras does have the potential effect of self-transformation (i.e.
participants developing and changing their sense of gay identity and affiliation with the gay
community). Etic typologies such as Handelmans are useful up to a point. Mardi Gras may
be considered a public event that is discursively constituted by social relations, meanings and
conflicts outside the time and space of the festival itself. As Turner (1984: 22) notes,
liminality is a time when societys deepest values in the form of sacred dramas and objects
are displayedor in Mardi Gras specific case, reflexively and creatively flouted in order to
make a political point. The Mardi Gras is effectively a hybrid in that it both models future
gendered and sexual possibilities and represents countervailing, conflicting, and often
outrageous cultural meanings in Australian society. As such, it may be considered a
subjunctive event in that it vividly and imagistically proposes alternative perspectives and
hypothetical ways of thinking about the phenomenally experienced world (see Turner 1984):
if things were different . . .. The spiral dialectic empowers this presentation of different
perspectives. In this way of thinking about Mardi Gras, both radical and more conventional
elements struggle and appropriate time, space, meanings, and attention until they are
challenged by another phase of the spiral.
Yet, the interpretation of the data and of the Mardi Gras relevant social contexts indicates
that social relations and conditions are indeed different! Informants acknowledged that
Sydney is a very gay-friendly city. The Premier of New South Wales, Bob Carr, had promised
reforms of discriminatory legislation in the 1995 election (undelivered), but during the past
three years, the states of Queensland, Victoria, and New South Wales debated or successfully
passed gay-friendly bills in state legislatures, removing state-sponsored discrimination. The
Mardi Gras festival guide was filled with friendly messages from the Premier of New South
Wales, Bob Carr; the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Frank Sartor; and the Leader of the Federal
Opposition, Kim Beazley. (A conspicuous absence was that of Prime Minister John Howard,
considered by some to be a homophobic, family values demagogue.) Tolerance of
homosexuality in Australia is also widespread and pervasive, according to public opinion
polls published by mainstream Australian newspapers (Sargent 1995).
Thus, it is perhaps unsurprising that Mardi Gras is sponsored by leading brands such as
Coca-Cola, Telstra, Hahn Ice Beer, and Qantas Airlines. As many Australians gain a view of
themselves as tolerant of many types of difference (and enjoy the spectacle of the Mardi Gras
on national television), the relationship between the gay collectivity and the heterosexual
mainstreamwhich includes large corporations, presumablyis renegotiated. The cultural
 18 STEVEN M. KATES

and economic critique of Mardi Gras is tangibly manifested by the challenge of the
SQUIRTZ! Festival and by some interviewees comments that the parade and events had
become expensive or too commercial. The darker possibility is that economic factors and
meanings involved in Mardi Gras production may come to dominate and effectively
constitute the festival, appropriating and resignificating seemingly progressive and even
deviant images to promote capitalist aims (see Ingebretsen (1999) for a summary of this
critique). This is done in the context of a global ordering, marketing, and consumption of
cultural differences for the benefit of multinational companies (see Lash and Urry 1994;
MacCannell 1992; Robertson 1992; Thompson and Tambyah 1999). Thus, economic
ideology may be another aspect of the spiral that participates in periodic appropriation of
representations and meanings previously considered radical.
As social tolerance of sexual difference becomes increasingly normative among many
segments of Australian society, Mardi Gras may evolve into a celebration that protests the
lingering stench of homophobic residual meanings (associated with the Reverend Fred Nile,
Prime Minister John Howard, etc.). Thus, it may eventually evolve into a ritualistic event-
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that-presents social toleranceand economic prosperityas two of Australias normative

ideals and salutary accomplishments. From an ideological, critical perspective, the Mardi
Gras may evolve into such a mainstream or well-accepted part of Australian culture and
may present social tolerance and justice as fait accompli, whilst those economic and social
inequities that provide part of the economic and cultural contexts of the festival itself remain
elided. However, the present dynamic of the spiral is always offset by the next move of
marketers or of the grassroots level.
The emergence of the SQUIRTZ! countercultural festival held during the Mardi Gras is a
good example of the spiral dynamic. In response to the growing sentiment that Mardi Gras
was becoming rather stale, commercially influenced, and politically enervated, the SQUIRTZ
festival developed. Interestingly, the next year, the Mardi Gras itself responded to these
criticisms and presented fresh, innovative, and provocative images such as the Bloody Marys,
viciously and offensively satirizing government policy (the new GST).
What might be particularly worrisome to gay and lesbian activists is the particular way that
appropriation works in this context. Large corporations and the Mardi Gras organization have
become particularly adept at packaging, commercializing, and marketing the campy, ironic
sensibility on which sharp critique rests (see Kates 1997; Sontag 1964). In a sense, we have
become ironically aware of our irony in consuming events such as the Mardi Gras. Sontag
(1964) notes that to talk about camp is to betray it. (Sontag refers to this type of camp as
the non-nave, impure kind.) As Klein (1999: 83) acutely and wryly observes,

. . . camp has been quantified, measured, weighed, focus-grouped and test-marketed. To say it has been
betrayed . . . is an understatement of colossal dimensions . . . Whats left is little more than a vaguely sarcastic
way to eat Pizza Pops. Camp cannot exist in an ironic commercial culture in which no one is fully participating
and everyone is an outsider . . .

In this view, appropriation works by democratizing the ironic sensibility of camp so that it
loses much of its political potency and capacity to identify and condemn social inequity. Yet,
there are at least two problems with this view that the more useful spiral perspective of
appropriation and resistance yields. First, camp is not a static sensibility to be debased and
liberally distributed to the masses. It is nothing if not dynamic, continually displacing
meanings as they become tired, and acting within the realm of human agency. Within the
space of 30 years, it has morphed from Judy Garland to Bloody Marys!
Second, perhaps as a result of the desire for the eradication of social inequities, there
is also an important dialogic processas well as a dialectic oneoccurring in this
context between commercial sponsors and the Mardi Gras festival. For example, the Mardi
 PRODUCING AND CONSUMING GENDERED REPRESENTATIONS 19

Gras organization insists that all corporate sponsors recognize same-sex relationships
through domestic spousal benefits, and according to the interview data, sponsors respond
to these conditions. Arguably, corporations influence the Mardi Gras which in turn
influences corporate sponsors through the criterion that major sponsors allow same-sex
benefits to employees and have discrimination policies in place, arguably achieving real
and strategic social progress in terms of material and discursive effects. Although much
of the Mardi Gras appears to be constituted by unbridled, hedonistic, and self-indulgent
consumption behaviours by celebrants, and sexual freedom is taken very much for granted,
there is also a politically charged, critical current that exists to damn the status quo
whenever possiblefor fun and for political purposes, the Mardi Gras signature.
The evolution of previously marginalized public celebrations into mainstream presenta-
tional and consumption ritualsperhaps ones that preserve a more traditional gendered status
quo and associated material inequalitiesis certainly one theoretical possibility that future
longitudinal research may productively explore. This article, nonetheless, demonstrates that
appropriation is much more complex and problematic than before conceptualized and exists in
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tandem with a vital, ever changing current of socially reflexive critique of society.

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