Dispatch from Southern Decadence

In a nondescript cottage house at 2110 Barracks Street, just outside of the French Quarter in New Orleans, a group of persona non grata sat in and around a bathtub and planned a going-away party for their friend David. It was 1972, and these misfits shared both a dilapidated living space and a love for Tennessee Williams, even naming their humble abode ‘Belle Reve’, after Blanche Dubois’ Southern home from “A Streetcar Named Desire”. The group jokingly decided to bill the party as “Southern Decadence,” with a call to “come as your favorite Southern decadent” in the hopes that attendants would show up and show out as their favorite Southern icon. They threw Southern Decadence again the following year, this time with a few dozen folks at Matassa’s bar on St. Philip and Dauphine St. in the French Quarter.

From there, New Orleans’ Southern Decadence party became something bigger, gayer, and more monumental than the organizers could have ever envisioned. Though COVID-19 put the festival on a two-year hiatus, 2023’s festival broke all conceivable records, with something upwards of 275,000 people in attendance.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Southern Decadence (@officialsoutherndecadence)

There are many definitions of decadence, though I prefer New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s definition of the term as indicating “economic stagnation, institutional decay and cultural and intellectual exhaustion at a high level of material prosperity and technological development.”

Culture, unfiltered

Twice a week, our newsletter will bring you the pulse of queer culture, from the tastemakers to the groundbreakers.

Donning a certain drag, one at a Southern Decadence party might hope to emulate the Queen of Versailles, a campy, riches-to-rags energy that only a decadent could embody. Think of Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine in Blue Jasmine (which was based – or rather, ripped off – from “Streetcar”). Each year, hundreds of thousands of New Orleans residents and tourists alike flood the streets of the French quarter, each representing their own niche of queer Southern culture beyond, referencing or performing many different types of drag as they march down Bourbon street for the Sunday parade.

One can…bounce back and forth between Good Friends and Oz, stopping in to Cafe Lafitte in Exile on Bourbon and Dumaine for the napkin toss, a homosexual moment of the highest order, when bartenders and patrons alike toss napkins to Sondheim’s ‘Love Is In The Air’.

Matt Hershowitz

I purposely had no expectations for my trip to New Orleans. I stayed in the gorgeous (and newly renovated) Hotel Monteleone and the Western edge of the French Quarter, a literary landmark that at a time housed Tennessee Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote and William Faulkner, amongst other titans. 

The weekend commenced with a trip to the historic Bywater neighborhood at The Country Club, a palatial, tropical, LGBTQ+-owned restaurant with a stunning pool and drag brunch every Sunday. Though I am not and do not claim to be a tour guide, I would recommend stopping by Turkey and the Wolf for a collard greens sandwich, slurping up raw (not grilled) oysters at Felix’s, and smashing a few Hurricanes before making any other decisions.

Related

This vintage video shows the true extent of Liz Taylor’s gay allyship

She showed up when it mattered most.

The Sunday parade begins in Marigny and continue throughout the French quarter. The extreme humidity stopped no one from showing out, including some brave soul who donned horns and full body makeup to live their full Jar Jar Bings fantasy in their Intergalactic Krewe Chewbaccha collective. The “groups”, or “collectives” – whatever you may call them – are as essential to the festival as they are typical to the gay community, and they’re all on the fullest, most decadent display during the Sunday parade.

The going out scene at Decadence is, for lack of a better term, navigable. One can saddle up with a group of locals and bounce back and forth between Good Friends and Oz, at some point stopping in to Cafe Lafitte in Exile on Bourbon and Dumaine St for the napkin toss, a homosexual moment of the highest order, when bartenders and patrons alike toss napkins to Sondheim’s “Love Is In The Air”. New Orleans is a city of many traditions both gay and esoteric (they had a “queer ghost tour” available to us journalists this weekend). To read about them is one thing; to participate is another. 

Though my experience at Southern Decadence was exceptional, it was by no means comprehensive, and crucial to understanding why it’s so special requires a true authority on the subject. Enter Mark Romig. Romig is, perhaps, the most quality New Orleans resident to opine on New Orleans events. After all, he was born and raised in the city, and now serves as the Chief Marketing Officer of New Orleans & Co., the city’s premier PR and tourism organization. What’s more, he serves as the stadium announcer for the New Orleans Saints, succeeding his father, Jerry, who held the position for nearly five decades. Romig’s goal is to help people understand why New Orleans is such a magnetic place: he’s been in the hospitality industry his whole life, and after a brief stint on the Hill, came back to dedicate much of his life to the city he loves.

Though in his sixties, Mark has his finger on the pulse of the city’s goings-on more than any Tulane student or tour guide, and has a great deal of perspective on how the city has changed and, more importantly, stayed the same over the past few decades. Both of us are gay, and we spoke at length about the similarities and differences between the gay communities in New Orleans and New York, where I currently live. New Orleans is a bastion of queer inclusivity in the South, a region where orientation discrimination is historically high. “I’d like to think it’s something in the water”, Romig notes. While denizens in both cities tout their tap water as having magical properties, the idea of New Orleans as a community of societal rejects abiding by a wholly different colonial and cultural framework may also have lent itself to a more inclusive environment than most places in the South. It’s no surprise, then, that New Orleans ranks highly on the HRC Equality Index, and has been a safe haven for many fleeing persecution in Southern small towns.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by River Beats New Orleans (@riverbeatsnola)

It hasn’t always been this way. Queer inclusivity in New Orleans has been and still is a work in progress. When Mark Romig’s firm enlisted LGBTQ+ consultant Dustin Woehrmann in 2015, Woehrmann shook up Romig’s long held assumptions about how to market events like Decadence to LGBTQ+ people nationwide. “I thought I knew all the answers. But, obviously, I didn’t, because the first thing he said was, ‘Okay, first off, you don’t need a pride flag on every page. It’s not like some sort of stamp of approval that you and then you’ve done the right thing. You need to actively show members of the community that they can see themselves in New Orleans, tell their story, and show them how they can enjoy themselves during their stay.” Romig embodies the hospitable spirit of New Orleans, and even got me excited about the upcoming National Fried Chicken Festival being held there.

Decadence is about being one’s fullest self, and not being ashamed of the excess that comes out as a result. So, what would I do differently when I inevitably fly down for the next Decadence? Probably nothing. My advice to newcomers: you shouldn’t plan anything out. Follow the crowd – gay people love herd mentality – and let it take you through the streets of the French Quarter, Bywater, Lower Market District, and try to party like the locals, if you can keep up.♦