Southern Decadence in New Orleans

by Howard Philips Smith, Frank Pérez

Founded in the summer of 1972 by a few friends as a modest celebration, the Southern Decadence festival has since grown into one of New Orleans’s largest annual tourist events.

The multiday extravaganza features street parties, drag contests, dancing, drinking, and bead tosses, culminating with a boisterous parade through the French Quarter. With over 200,000 participants―predominantly LGBT+―these unbridled, pre–Labor Day festivities now generate millions of dollars in revenue.

Howard Philips Smith and Frank Perez’s Southern Decadence in New Orleans brings together an astounding array of materials to provide the first comprehensive, historical look at Southern Decadence. In an engaging account spanning five decades, the authors combine a trove of rare memorabilia from the event’s founders, early photographs and film stills, newspaper and magazine articles, interviews with longtime participants, a list of all the parades and grand marshals, as well as reproductions of early Southern Decadence invitations. Throughout, the authors explore the pivotal moments and public perceptions related to the festival―including the myths and conjecture that often inaccurately characterized it―and provide an in-depth narrative detailing how a small party in the Faubourg Tremé grew into a worldwide destination predominantly for gay men.

Lauded by city leaders as the second-most profitable festival in New Orleans (outshone only by Mardi Gras), Southern Decadence emanates an air of frivolity that masks its enormous impact on the culture and economy of the Crescent City. But with such growth comes the challenge of maintaining the original spirit of camaraderie while managing expanding administrative and logistical responsibilities. Southern Decadence in New Orleans serves as a historical record that helps ensure the future of the celebration remains forever linked to the joyous impulse of its humble beginnings.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, LGBT

280 pages, Hardcover

Published August 2, 2018

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title of Howard Philips Smith and Frank Perez's engrossing, expansive book, "Southern Decadence in New Orleans," is not only arguably misleading but also a disservice to the meritorious effort of its authors.

For those not in the know, Southern Decadence is an annual New Orleans celebration that takes place over Labor Day weekend - a gay Mardi Gras, if you will. While the focal point of the book is the history and evolution of that renowned event, it also serves as a meticulously researched, detailed, comprehensive timeline of the Crescent City's French Quarter, as well as its gay community, pageantry, bar culture and political climate.

Having attended Southern Decadence myself, which now draws a crowd of more than 200,000 (making it the city's second most popular and profitable festival, after Mardi Gras) I was surprised and fascinated to learn that it started in 1972 as a pub crawl with just a few dozen folks in attendance. These participants were the maladjusted misfit residents of an infamous boarding house, Belle Reve, named after Blanche DuBois' plantation in "A Streetcar Named Desire."

This once-intimate gathering among friends soon grew in size and scope, with a parade, Grand Marshals, elaborate costumes and select French Quarter bars and clubs as host venues. The authors fastidiously and painstakingly review the theme and outcome of each Southern Decadence since its inception, calling attention to pivotal years when ensuing events inadvertently replaced the celebration's previous traditions.

The book also drops the names of well-known artists whose bodies of work were major influences on the city's gay community, like Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and John Waters. There is also discussion of activism and progress, despite the efforts of the region's conservative politicians and other vocal naysayers (e.g., Anita Bryant). I especially applaud the authors for specifically mentioning the fire at the Up Stairs Lounge in June 1973, a horrifying, tragic incident that deserves much more attention than it gets.

Although Southern Decadence today may not reflect what its originators intended, it is clearly here to stay, with its resounding themes of friendship and frivolity still very much intact. The interviews, photos and groundwork assembled here by Smith and Perez will help the reader truly honor and appreciate Southern Decadence rather than dismiss it as just another Pride knockoff.

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable read about the history of Southern Decadence with a wealth of information about the evolution and up and downs of what has come to be one of the largest LBGT events in the US. Among other facts, I was surprised to discover that SD wasn't originally a gay event (although some of the organizers were), but rather a end-of-summer party (there wasn't even a parade in the first year) centered around a group house and a couple of bars. The book is generally quite readable, although I have some issue with the organization: it starts with the founding, then jumps to a detailed account of SD events in 2016, then back to early SD, and the a more-or less chronological history of SD broken up with chapters going into more detail about specific aspects of the event. The end of the book includes multiple verbatim interviews, which, in many cases, end up repeating details from the rest of the book (since the interviews were, after all, a main part of the source material); I feel end-noting would have been more effective in that case. Solid 3 stars.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was definitely an academic book, but still very readable for the casual reader interested in Southern Decadence. I particularly enjoyed reading about the origins of the festival.