Intersections

Yonge & Bloor
Where rich and poor,
Prig and boor,
Turk and Moor
Hunt for lucre,
Sniff its spoor

Trashing Pride

One tale to tell from lux_apollo's visit this last weekend. We went out to Church Street for Pride events twice; once on Saturday night and once Sunday afternoon. The experiences couldn't have been more different: it was dark Saturday night and sunny Sunday afternoon.

Both times were underwhelming and ultimately maddening. Public events soften as they grow (unlike other things) and by 2007, Pride consists of 1,000,000 people shuffling aimlessly up and down past merchandise. The parade has virtually no imaginative floats (where's your fabulous pride, queers?!!) and there doesn't seem to have been an original idea in drag in 20 years.

I'm terribly embarrassed by what happened on Sunday after the parade. I completely, out-of-the-blue lost it at some security people. Post-parade, Lux and I were pushing through the heat and the crowds looking for something worthwhile. I noted in the program that there was an alterna-queer music stage and we headed for it. After the previous evening's fiasco seeing Kids on TV (who are entirely hype and nothing else), I was pleased to hear some decent music being played by real musicians as we approached the parkette.

There we found at most three dozen audience members in a fenced-in area and FIVE security guards. We lined up, turned down the proferred pink arm-bands that would have allowed us to purchase alcoholic drinks and proceeded forward to the bag-check station. I was told I could not bring in my water bottle. She said, "You can leave it on the table here if you like." I replied, "I'm supposed to leave a $20 Nalgene bottle on an open table?"

I then began to scream "THIS IS BULLSHIT" at each of the five guards in turn and turned to storm away, ranting incoherently for at least five minutes. To his credit, Lux didn't freak out at what must have been my scarily bizarre behaviour. I've been analyzing it since then.

I'm furious that Pride has devolved into a meaningless, by the numbers, neutered EVENT. The very fact that it is called PRIDE with no sexuality or gender markers is entirely for corporate comfort. The festival is now about Molson's and Air Canada and Rainbow Tours. Like television, like Disney World, this shift in focus from activism to corporate sponsorship breeds a passivity and people react by not bringing their energy. They wander like a herd of cattle into beer gardens where they line up for 35 minutes to buy a $7 ticket so they can line up to receive a singe-serving cup of Molson Dry Ice.

I'm furious that an "alterna-queer" stage is a licensed venue when clearly it should be an all-ages area. The fact that the Pride organizers have made all the cultural experiences at the event into oppportunities to sell alcohol is itself maddening. They are, in that way, emulating an insufficient and potentially destructive side of queer life: commercial venues selling intoxicants are the primary meeting places for people seeking others of their sexuality.

I'm furious that art is again reduced from a primary vector for cultural change into background music for the sale of beer. No, I'm more than furious about that one; I'm torn to the core by it. It is not when we have a Dry Ice at a bar that we are faced with new ways of thinking of gender and identity -- it is when artists and intellectuals show us through their work and invite us to question our assumptions.

The misuse of art as entertainment at Pride is emblematic of everything that is wrong with it. That I was unable to access art because I wasn't willing to part with an environmentally safe way of drinking potable tap water is madness. The Pride Committee is effectively telling me: "If you aren't willing to play by our corporate rules, we have no place for you at our event." I'm just a paying customer at Disney Pride now.

At the same time as we were listlessly partying, the Anglican synod was rejecting gay unions within its churches nationally. Why was it not one of the primary efforts of the organizers on the weekend to mobilize 1,000,000 voices in Toronto to scream about this issue? To call it the blatant homophobia that it is? Why weren't we wearing banners and singing chants, saying, "We have experienced the alienation and pain and neglect that such policies create! You are hurting your children, your neighbours, your community!"

Instead, with our only leadership a twirling beer logo writ in laserlight, we were left shuffling aimlessly through the burning streets, looking for something to quench our thirst.

Last Pride Note: Personality

I am awaiting rational response to my rant. I can clearly hear the voices of snowmit and mentalmakeup pointing out how I could have walked around the barriers and made the meaning of the music my own.

I keep hearing from people who had a great time. I make my own world dark sometimes, I know.

I still believe most of what I wrote.

Unconscious

From the current arc of Carla Speed MacNeil's Finder:

Jaeger is confronting doctors on Brigg's condition, suggesting they are not completely competent:

Doctor: The four of us are doing our best with the damage that has already been done... Do you know how much unconscious hostility you are exhibiting towards me right now?

Jaeger: What part of it do you imagine is 'unconscious'?