Members of the Miss Fancy Brigade, an LGBT group of local drag performers, had finished marching at the head of the annual Mummers Parade by early afternoon on New Year’s Day. They were sitting in Tabu watching the rest of the marchers on television when the Finnegan New Year Brigade appeared.
“Everybody got kind of silent for a minute,” said Ian Morrison, who performs as Brittany Lynn and helped form the Miss Fancy Brigade.
In the parade, one member of Finnegan was dressed as Bruce Jenner during the Olympic victory. As the Aerosmith song “Dude (Looks like a Lady)” began playing, a marcher dressed as a woman emerged. A sign compared Jenner’s Wheaties cereal box with a box of Froot Loops featuring Jenner from the cover of the Vanity Fair magazine, which announced her coming out.
“There’s always been satire,” Morrison said. “There was no intelligence whatsoever behind this.”
“You had an LGBT group leading the parade and then they’re being made fun of in the parade,” he continued. “When the Caitlyn Jenner portion got paraded through the Gayborhood, it was a slap in the face. But I think this had to happen, so it could be talked about in the open and dealt with.”
Morrison’s brigade marched with black and Latino brigades in the Philadelphia Division, which debuted this year in an attempt to showcase the diversity of the city.
“With every step forward, there’s sometimes a step or two back,” he said. “There were some setbacks, but I try to focus on the positives.”
Morrison said Mummers leaders called him soon after the parade to apologize. He said his brigade has been invited to march since 2013 and will continue to do so.
The Mummers released a statement Jan. 2 in relation to the anti-LGBT incidents at the parade. A man from Finnegan also chanted “f— the gays” while holding the cereal box sign mocking Jenner.
The man was banned from Goodtimers Comic Club, of which Finnegan forms part, according to the release.
“The person will not be allowed to march with any other clubs,” the statement continued. “As of this time, he is no longer considered a Mummer.”
Mike Inemer of Finnegan and Joe D’Urso of Goodtimers signed off on the release, adding Finnegan would be “reaching out to the LGBT community and offering its services to help with an LGBT fundraiser or equality awareness, and to learn more about LGBT concerns.”
A further statement, signed by the presidents of the five traditional Mummers divisions, said they “categorically reject expressions of hate and bigotry.”
The division presidents said they “pledge full cooperation with legal or government authorities looking into these areas of concern,” and “on the matter of the Mummer Comic tradition of satire and poking fun at pop culture, we will continue dialogue with Mummers about sensitivity and with non-Mummers about the Mummer tradition of humor and what can be accepted as freedom of expression and what is over the line.”
To “guarantee respect” going forward, the Mummers presidents said they will require that any club with an ethnically-themed performance have advisors or participants that belong to that ethnic group.
“We hope that people realize that the vast majority of thousands of Mummers put forth entertaining and family-oriented productions,” the statement said.
Social media buzzed throughout the weekend with reports of the anti-transgender and anti-gay actions.
Elicia Gonzales, executive director of GALAEI: A Queer [email protected] Social Justice Organization, was among the social media posters who were unhappy about the displays at the parade. She told PGN she and her wife turned on the television shortly before 2 p.m. and saw Finnegan using Jenner as a way to mock the transgender community as a whole.
“Unfortunately it’s completely consistent with the history of the Mummers,” Gonzales said, noting marchers in past years who participated in blackface or acted as immigration officers rounding up people to deport.
“The thing about it was, the announcers were completely silent,” she continued. “They were commenting about how the Mummers are all about family and friends. It’s conditioning kids to think transphobia is acceptable.”
“We want to have more conversations about how this kind of mockery goes very much hand-in-hand with the violence we see in our communities.”
Over 20 transgender women were killed in 2015, according to multiple reports.
Despite this year’s debut of the new diversity division, Gonzales said she doesn’t see much hope for change in the Mummers. She noted children in brownface marching in the 2016 parade.
“I don’t think there’s any sort of real desire to combat any of these —isms,” Gonzales said. “It still celebrates and potentially awards brigades that perpetrate racist and homophobic themes.”
Finnegan brigade tweeted Jan. 2 that “one bad apple” caused the situation. “THAT individual has been dealt with in house #LoveGays #HappyNewYear,” the tweet said.
Some Twitter users responded that the hashtag #LoveGays missed the larger point of the distasteful presentation of Jenner.
A Twitter user who identifies as a South Philadelphia resident tweeted a video of the Jenner incident the day of the parade to Mayor Jim Kenney. Kenney responded within hours, “It was bad. Hurtful [to many] Philadelphians. Our Trans Citizens do not deserve this type of satire/insult. #Berespectful”
“If someone says something derogatory, they’re wrong,” said Rick Porco, one of the heads of the comics division. “I’m not going to defend it. It’s not worthy of it. It’s a parade.”
He noted the goal is not to be rude to anyone, but to poke fun at events from the past year.
“It’s getting out of hand as far as all these complaints,” said Porco, who has received angry voicemails in response to the parade. He said the comedy variety show “Saturday Night Life” has also mocked Jenner, but nobody called for a boycott of the show.
Porco said comic brigades don’t have to get approval for their performances in advance.
“A lot of them wait until the last minute to see what’s going on politically and in the world,” he said. “They have freedom of speech to express themselves.”
George Badey, a Mummers spokesman, appeared this week on Fox 29 News with Nellie Fitzpatrick, director of the Philadelphia Office of LGBT Affairs. Fitzpatrick said, in speaking with Kenney, the decision was made to have every group submit its planned performances to be evaluated against rules and protocols. Groups who perpetrate biased performances will face disciplinary actions, she said. Badey said educating the Mummers about the nuances of the LGBT community would help them.
Besides unfavorable responses to the brigades’ performances, a gay man was assaulted during the parade. Multiple outlets have reported that John Holtz, 28, of Philadelphia, was walking a dog with friends on New Year’s Day when he crossed paths with a group of four or five drunk Mummers wearing patriotic colors and face paint. Holtz said one man called him a faggot while another punched him in the face. The attack happened near Broad Street about 2 p.m.
Holtz could not be reached for comment.
Officer Christine O’Brien, Philadelphia police spokeswoman, told PGN she had heard of the incident, but the individual did not file a police report, which is necessary for an investigation to begin.
