Unveiling the Muse: The Lost History of Gay Carnival in New Orleans

Unveiling the Muse: The Lost History of Gay Carnival in New Orleans
ISBN-10
1496814029
ISBN-13
9781496814029
Category
Social Science
Pages
364
Language
English
Published
2017-12-18
Publisher
Univ. Press of Mississippi
Author
Howard Philips Smith

Description

Traditional Carnival has been well documented with a vast array of books published on the subject. However, few of them, if any, mention gay Carnival krewes or the role of gay Carnival within the larger context of the season. Howard Philips Smith corrects this oversight with a beautiful, vibrant, and exciting account of gay Carnival. Gay krewes were first formed in the late 1950s, growing out of costume parties held by members of the gay community. Their tableau balls were often held in clandestine locations to avoid harassment. Even by the new millennium, gay Carnival remained a hidden and almost lost history. Much of the history and the krewes themselves were devastated by the AIDS crisis. Whether facing police raids in the 1960s or AIDS in the 1980s, the Carnival krewes always came back each season. A culmination of two decades of research, Unveiling the Muse positions this incredible story within its proper place as an amazing and important facet of traditional Carnival. Based on years of detailed interviews, each of the major gay krewes is represented by an in-depth historical sketch, outlining the founders, moments of brilliance on stage, and a list of all the balls, themes, and royalty. Of critical importance to this history are the colorful ephemera associated with the gay tableau balls. Reproductions of never-before-published brilliantly designed invitations, large-scale commemorative posters, admit cards, and programs add dimension and life to this history. Sketches of elaborate stage sets and costumes as well as photographs of ball costumes and rare memorabilia further enhance descriptions of these tableau balls.

Similar books

  • Unveiling Desire: Fallen Women in Literature, Culture, and Films of the East
    By Colette Morrow, Devaleena Das

    In Unveiling Desire, Devaleena Das and Colette Morrow show that the duality of the fallen/saved woman is as prevalent in Eastern culture as it is in the West, specifically in literature and films.

  • Southern Decadence in New Orleans
    By Frank Perez, Howard Philips Smith

    Ferguson: The Fight against Legal Segregation (Gretna, La.: Pelican, 2003). 9. Crutcher, Tremé. 10. James T. Sears, Rebels, Rubyfruit, and Rhinestones: Queering Space in the Stonewall South (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press ...

  • Transforming Gender and Emotion: The Butterfly Lovers Story in China and Korea
    By Sookja Cho

    In Transforming Gender and Emotion, Sookja Cho demonstrates why the Butterfly Lovers Story is more than just a popular love story.

  • The Wounded Muse: A Novel
    By Robert F Delaney

    Based on real events, Robert F. Delaney's The Wounded Muse takes readers to a city and country undergoing a transformation on a scale previously unseen, where in the shadowed wreckage of forgotten communities people are pushed to ...

  • A Sojourn in Paradise: Jack Robinson in 1950s New Orleans
    By Howard Philips Smith

    A Sojourn in Paradise: Jack Robinson in 1950s New Orleans features more than one hundred photographs taken by the artist, accompanied by detailed commentary about Robinson’s life in New Orleans and excerpts from interviews with the people ...

  • Unveiling Eve: Reading Gender in Medieval Hebrew Literature
    By Tova Rosen

    The idolization and demonization of women present in these texts is read here against the background of scripture and rabbinic literature as well as the traditions of chivalry and misogyny in the hosting Islamic and Christian cultures.

  • Four Fools in the Age of Reason: Laughter, Cruelty, and Power in Early Modern Germany
    By Dorinda Outram

    A sharp salesman and hero of the Meissen factories, he was deeply attached to the folk life of fooling. The book ends by tying the growth of Enlightenment skepticism to the demise of court foolery around 1800.

  • The Muse in Bronzeville: African American Creative Expression in Chicago, 1932-1950
    By Robert Bone, Richard A. Courage

    The Muse in Bronzeville, a dynamic reappraisal of a neglected period in African American cultural history, is the first comprehensive critical study of the creative awakening that occurred on Chicago's South Side from the early 1930s to the ...

  • A Future without Walls: Confronting Our Divisions
    By T. Richard Snyder

    In A Future without Walls, T. Richard Snyder draws upon his half-century of activism in the struggle for justice and weaves analysis, prescription, and personal story throughout.

  • The Obama Portraits
    By Richard Powell, Dorothy Moss, Taína Caragol

    ... Josef Vascovitz and Lisa Goodman; Eileen Baird; Dennis and Joyce Black Family Charitable Foundation; Shelley Brazier; Aryn Drake-Lee; Andy and Teri Goodman; Randi Charno Levine and Jeffrey E. Levine; Fred M. Levin and Nancy ...