Dir Margaret Brown. (STC) Doc Soup screening Nov 19, 6:30pm and 9:15pm at the Bloor Cinema (506 Bloor W).
It’s not the sort of hangover one usually associates with Mardi Gras: Margaret Brown’s documentary, queued up for this month’s Doc Soup, plainly examines how the legacy of slavery and segregation lives on in the carnival traditions of Mobile, Alabama. Mardi Gras festivities in Mobile predate those more famous ones in New Orleans — locals trace them back to 1703 — and its local establishment are nothing if not traditional in their approach: the annual parades remain segregated among white and black Mobilians. (According to old rules, blacks are allowed in the white parade only as torch or lighting bearers; the black parade is open to white participants, but there are apparently very few takers.)
It’s with a weird mixture of pride, denial, guilt and resignation that locals of all demographics — old-school bluebloods, educated white and black liberals, working-class people of both hues — show off their customs. The party line is that this is how folks want it — indeed, it’s tradition and not law that keeps whites and blacks apart for Fat Tuesday. Yet the legacy of Southern racism is never far from the surface as Brown, an omniscient presence, holds up these gauzy festivities to the light and shows a history that some well-meaning boosters, many of them direct descendants of slaves and their owners, must find rather grim.