Mardi Gras + a Playlist
Words by: Maggie Laubscher | Music by: Abby Yemm
Photo credit: Monty Marsh @weguap / Courtesy of Dawn Richard for Vogue
Decadence. Debauchery. Music. Color. Feasts. Avante Garde Extraness. It’s easy to forget that Mardi Gras (also called Carnaval and Fat Tuesday) is a Christian holiday. It’s often thought of as a decadent feast of extraness, which doesn’t line up with typical ideas of Christian holidays.
But while it’s true that it’s a Christian holiday, its original roots lie deep in pagan spring and fertility rites. Pagan rituals like the rowdy Roman festivals of Saturnalia and Lupercalia. When Christianity took off in Rome way back when, the leaders found it easier to incorporate Mardi Gras into the religion instead of forbidding it. Without that decision, the holiday likely wouldn’t have grown as massively as it did. Thank you, religious leaders!
Mardi Gras is now celebrated around the world, especially where Catholicism is popular - think New Orleans, Brazil, Italy. In fact, in Louisiana Mardi Gras is a legal holiday - the only state where it is.
Mardi Gras always lands on the day before Lent begins. It’s a last blowout before the chillness of Lent. Lent is a Christian season of reflection before Easter. It’s 40 days where Christians mimic Jesus Christ's 40 days in the desert, fasting from food and festivities. So, in the days leading up to Lent, people historically would binge all the rich foods in their homes to prep for Lent. Hence the ‘Fat Tuesday’ moniker for Mardi Gras -- Mardi means Tuesday in French, while Gras means fat.
While Fat Tuesday is just one day, Mardi Gras now refers to a celebration lasting weeks. The Mardi Gras season technically begins with Twelfth Night in January, also called Epiphany - a day when Christians toast the wise men’s visit to newborn Jesus. The festivities that ensue are varied and over-the-top.
Below, we’ve rounded up some Mardi Gras traditions and themes. Enjoy, Nellies! Get yourself some King Cake and dig in...
Krewes
Image credit: The Krewe of Zulu marching through the French Quarter, by JonesVMac
Krewes are Mardi Gras-themed social clubs who are responsible for most of the Mardi Gras parades. The very first krewe is from the 1800s, when a group of white businessmen organized a torch-lit procession with marching bands and rolling floats. Another historical krewe -- a group called Rex -- created the purple, gold, and green color scheme for Mardi Gras. Like the original krewe from the 1800s, many of the older Krewes were all-white -- New Orleans didn’t pass a Krewes integration law until 1992. The Zulu krewe was started by a group of African Americans who threw the Zulu parade to mock the (at the time) all-white Carnival traditions. We’ll come back to the Zulu parade below.
WOMEN + MARDI GRAS
Image credit: A Krewe of Muses parade in New Orleans, by Kathleen Flynn for CNN
In pop culture, women are often seen as objects in Mardi Gras. Let’s take the idea of flashing our boobs to get beads tossed at us. But contrary to popular belief, most parades don’t include boobs on display. That tradition is pretty specific to the Bourbon Street festivities in New Orleans, given that area’s proximity to strip clubs. And it’s declining in popularity due to more female representation at Mardi Gras festivities. Women weren’t part of parades in New Orleans until 1941, according to a Vogue article. And even then, women were not part of the biggest festivities. Members of one all-female krewe recalls men throwing rotten tomatoes and eggs at them, for example. In recent years, there’s been headway to make Mardi Gras more inclusive. The Krewe of Muses is an all-female krewe that throws a popular all-female parade. There are also size-positive, female dance troupes today. Things are happening and the holiday is moving forward, albeit slowly.
Throws
Image credit: Thomas Park
The tossing of beads - called ‘throws’ in New Orleans - is a lasting custom of Mardi Gras. It’s thought to have started in the 19th century, according to Time Magazine, when a carnival king threw fake strands of gems and rings to the parade watchers below. Later during Mardi Gras festivities, the krewes took on this tradition. One downside: during a recent clean-up project, New Orleans collected more than 45 tons of beads from storm drains. The good news is that some krewes today are moving away from beads and opting for more sustainable throws.
Masks
Image credit: Lloyd Blunk
Masks are iconic during mardi gras. The history is darker, however, as it began as a way for people to join the festivities who couldn’t normally. Namely, Black people. The popularity of masks and costumes during Mardi Gras became wildly popular during the Jim Crow era, so the large Black population of New Orleans could enjoy Mardi Gras.
King Cake
Image credit: Gambino’s Bakery King Cake via Goldbelly
The eating of king cake is likely a tradition brought from the French. King cake is a round puff pastry cake with green, gold, and purple icing. It has a baby Jesus figurine baked inside, which is equal parts weird, symbolic of the Epiphany celebration we explained earlier, and a result of a surplus of dollhouse supplies in the 1940s. This last reason we find hilarious - read the full story on it at NPR.
Skull + Bone Gangs
Image credit: Max Becherer for NOLA.com
Skull and Bone gangs are made up of men dressed as skeletons. They originated in the 1800s as a way to scare children away from bad behavior. Traditionally, the members roam the streets of New Orleans in the early morning of Fat Tuesday.
Baby Dolls
Image credit: The Baby Doll Ladies, by Skip Bolen for Getty Images, via NPR
The baby dolls tradition refers to adult women dressed like sexualized Victorian-era dolls. It started with sex workers as a way to bring in work for themselves. And like the masks, the tradition was first popular during the Jim Crow era. In New Orleans' red-light district, Black and white sex workers were segregated rivals. When the Black sex workers heard that their white counterparts were dressing up for Mardi Gras, they opted to compete with their own costumes. Since the men often called them baby dolls, they chose to dress the part. ‘At that time, baby dolls were very rare and very hard to get,’ says Kim Marie Vaz, author of The 'Baby Dolls': Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition. ‘So it had all that double meaning in it because African-American women weren't considered precious and doll-like.’ The baby dolls tradition faded for a while. Then, several years ago, a choreographer put on a costumed dance to celebrate New Orleans culture and centered it around the baby doll vibe.
Race + Mardi Gras
Image credit: Nathan Dumlao
Race and Mardi Gras is a complicated topic. Part of this is due to New Orleans being such an epicenter for Mardi Gras. And New Orleans’s history is deeply embedded with Black culture. Free Africans existed in New Orleans from as early as the 1700s and infused the city’s culture with African music and food. And yet, during Mardi Gras you’ll still see confederate flags along parade routes and costumes reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan. Some bead throws have Confederate monuments dangling from them. It goes on and on. And then you have the Zulu parade -- one of the biggest Mardi Gras parades. It’s known for its members donning black face and grass skirts and throwing hand-painted coconuts into the crowd. The parade was started by Black members and today, both its Black members and members of other races were blackface. Activist groups have challenged this tradition, such as Take Them Down NOLA. But others stand up for the group. Another historically Black tradition: Indian gangs. It’s an odd name, but it’s when Black men and women wear intricate costumes and pay tribute to Native Americans’ support to Africans escaping slavery.
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