Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I never heard of the Mummers thing. Googled it, and the first article was about blackface. So yes, I can see it can be controversial. That aside, and interesting parade that I knew nothing about.
Yes, it can be.
The brigades known as "wenches" - those are the men in dresses I referred to upthread; they carry parasols and strut and dance to old-timey tunes, the best-known being "O Dem Golden Slippers" (you will find many Mummers wearing them - actually, usually work boots or regular shoes spray-painted gold) - used to march in blackface all the time. Black civil-rights groups protested the practice in the 1960s, and parade organizers* banned it soon afterwards, but you still hear occasional reports of it being used, including by one wench brigade this year. Mayor Jim Kenney issued a swift condemnation and said the brigade would be disqualified from competition for the cash prizes awarded at the parade's end.
There are some, including one of my Phillymag colleagues, who consider the entire parade racist because of things like this and the general absence of African-Americans from it. The actual history is a little more complex: during the 1920s, one of the leading string bands that performed in the parade was a black group, the Octavius Catto String Band, named for a 19th-century civil rights activist and early baseball pioneer in Philadelphia, for instance, and the parade now includes black drumlines and multiethnic costume displays.
I'd still recommend the event in spite of all this.
*The event grew out of spontaneous celebrations in the city's working-class neighborhoods; the city turned them into an organized parade in 1902 in order to better maintain order on the streets. Each of the groups that march in it - fancy costumes, comics, wenches, string bands, fancy brigades - organize the march themselves, and the city Department of Parks and Recreation sets up the reviewing and spectator stands, arranges for Police Department security, and awards cash prizes to the best performers in each division.
I just described the parade the OP would see in Philadelphia at some length in an attempt to answer this question:
And so far, everyone else says that the reason to be in Pasadena is because it has better weather.
Nothing about any of the attributes the OP queried.
I already know that I go against the grain in welcoming everything about winter save the early sunsets, but it seems to me that endless summer alone doesn't make a place "more fun, interesting, [or] livelier."
(I didn't even touch on the general party atmosphere that surrounds the Mummers Parade.)
What's Pasadena bring to that table, other than proximity to LA?
Lol. So being 10 miles from Los Angeles doesn’t matter? I can think of one thing the city of Pasadena brings to the table New Year’s Day, the Rose Bowl. Heck of a game yesterday.
Lol. So being 10 miles from Los Angeles doesn’t matter? I can think of one thing the city of Pasadena brings to the table New Year’s Day, the Rose Bowl. Heck of a game yesterday.
The Rose Bowl ain't beanbag, and yes, the weather is better, but you're in a large suburban downtown, while that other parade takes place right in the heart of Center City Philadelphia.
And I can tell you from attending past Mummers Parades that the bars on and near the parade route jump on New Year's Day. Much shorter commute to the party.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
41,937 posts, read 36,948,491 times
Reputation: 40635
Quote:
Originally Posted by TacoSoup
Lol. So being 10 miles from Los Angeles doesn’t matter? I can think of one thing the city of Pasadena brings to the table New Year’s Day, the Rose Bowl. Heck of a game yesterday.
I easily would have voted for Pasadena having had such a wonderful Rose Parade/Rose Bowl experience there a few years about... But now? Raise that to the 10th power.
I've had it with the friggin' Mummers. When I arrived here in Philly nearly 20 years ago, I was warned the bigoted incidents involving a number of the string bands/brigades. But to usher in a new decade -- 2020 no less -- with some fool/idiots in blackface was the last straw for me, personally... Yes, I am aware of the participation of the much more recent O.V. Catto String Band. But still, African-American participation and sensitivities have still largely been ignored, and to have such an incident during these hot-button times...?
Mayor Kenney absolutely said the right things in slamming the racist band hard. But several things need to happen. This "Froggy Carr" brigade needs to be permanently banned, period. Barring them from prize money for one year doesn't go nearly far enough imho. Secondly, the Philadelphia Flyers, who these morons apparently were honoring, need to come out and make a statement distancing themselves from this racism... And three, personally I would cancel next year's parade entirely. Yeah thousands of families, and especially little kids (not to mention tourism) would be severely hurt by such a move; but the city needs to make a statement... a seriously STRONG one, at that, that this nonsense absolutely and positively will no longer be tolerated. Apparently that message, through all the decades, hasn't sifted through, so in cases like this, strong medicine is prescribed.
I'd say that if you can handle the colder weather, the answer depends on what kind of parade experience you want.
The Tournament of Roses Parade is gorgeous. Loads of professionally designed floats bursting with flowers, phalanxes of high school marching bands.
The Mummers Parade is like no other I know of in the United States - it's a 110-plus-year-old homegrown folk tradition. Everything about it is handmade and very much amateur, but the participants put on quite a show and it's a riot of color, especially when the string bands (the most popular part of the all-day parade) perform. And they perform numbers with the polish of professional musical theater.
It's also the only parade I know of where there's an entire section devoted to satirical and humorous commentary on current events. The comic brigades occasionally get into hot water for some of their portrayals (like one the year before last in which one brigade made fun of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner's sex change with a performance using the song "Dude Looks Like a Lady"), but when they hit the mark, they can be scathingly funny, like the brigade that made fun of the city's erratic property tax assessments with a "The Price is Right" wheel-spin sendup this year.
That last also tells you something: this is a truly local celebration. It's a way to experience Philadelphians at once putting on a show for themselves and letting their hair down. It's not all roses - after this happened to me one New Year's Day about a decade ago, I said to friends, "You haven't lived until you've been called a 'f**king f*gg*t' by a man in a dress" [a drunken wench yelled that as I passed by him] - but the parade has cleaned up its act since those years and made itself more suitable for television.
I'd recommend you put on layers and make your way to South Broad Street on one New Year's Day, even if you spend all the others in sunny Pasadena. You won't have to stand out in the cold for the entire parade - most of the bars on or near the parade route have the TV broadcast of it on, and you can warm yourself with some whiskey, a hot toddy or Irish coffee. And the final part of the parade - the fancy brigades - has gotten so elaborate that the performances take place inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center at 8 p.m. (You have to buy a ticket to get in.)
MarketStEl nails it here. If the criteria are "fun, interesting and lively", the Mummer's parade wins hands down. The Rose Parade has beautiful floats and good weather but is a real snoozer compared with mummery.
I easily would have voted for Pasadena having had such a wonderful Rose Parade/Rose Bowl experience there a few years about... But now? Raise that to the 10th power.
I've had it with the friggin' Mummers. When I arrived here in Philly nearly 20 years ago, I was warned the bigoted incidents involving a number of the string bands/brigades. But to usher in a new decade -- 2020 no less -- with some fool/idiots in blackface was the last straw for me, personally... Yes, I am aware of the participation of the much more recent O.V. Catto String Band. But still, African-American participation and sensitivities have still largely been ignored, and to have such an incident during these hot-button times...?
Mayor Kenney absolutely said the right things in slamming the racist band hard. But several things need to happen. This "Froggy Carr" brigade needs to be permanently banned, period. Barring them from prize money for one year doesn't go nearly far enough imho. Secondly, the Philadelphia Flyers, who these morons apparently were honoring, need to come out and make a statement distancing themselves from this racism... And three, personally I would cancel next year's parade entirely. Yeah thousands of families, and especially little kids (not to mention tourism) would be severely hurt by such a move; but the city needs to make a statement... a seriously STRONG one, at that, that this nonsense absolutely and positively will no longer be tolerated. Apparently that message, through all the decades, hasn't sifted through, so in cases like this, strong medicine is prescribed.
I too think the that group should be banned. But I mean come on, cancel the whole thing because 10 people did it out of thousands?
The “Zulu” club in New Orleans is 1500 strong and they do blackface every year and refuse to change.
MarketStEl nails it here. If the criteria are "fun, interesting and lively", the Mummer's parade wins hands down. The Rose Parade has beautiful floats and good weather but is a real snoozer compared with mummery.
The Tournament Of Roses Parade is older at 131 years old. A Mardi Gras type parade is nothing new. Does everything have to be that type of atmosphere to be more enjoyable? I enjoy the Rose Parade year after year. Beautiful flots, great marching bands and Pasadena alone is a beautiful city to visit. Take the Gold Line from DTLA and you're there in minutes. If I want a Mardi Gras type atmosphere I can go to many other places besides Philadelphia. I'll take the Tournament Of Roses Parade. To each his own.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
