Would Mayor Gym kill the Mummers Parade?

If you are a Mummer or a fan of the Mummers, you might want to know that a Mayor Gym would likely spell the end of the 123-year-old parade, whose roots go back two centuries before that.

What makes me think so? This tweet that she shot out after the 2020 parade.

To be fair, it doesn’t say she will end the parade, but it doesn’t take much perception to read between the lines.

Try to decipher this passage: The parade “must be deserving of the thousands of residents who want a celebration of our city and its folk traditions.”

The parade is the oldest and largest folk celebration in the United States. Its very existence is a folk tradition. As such, it celebrates our city, which is its unique home. 

Maybe if Gym were an native Philadelphian, she would know that. 

Then, comes this: “The Mummers must change and evolve — or its parade on Broad St. should end.”

“Change?”

To what?

Does Gym not understand the medium is the message, that “changing” from banjos to electric guitars, as an example, would change the very nature of the Mummers sound? I’m not saying no tradition ever changes but change must be minimal and evolutionary, and not attack the root of the parade, which started as mimickry. The String Bands, which are now the heart of the parade came later, through evolution.

When Gym calls upon the Mummers to “evolve,” what does she mean?

To defend the Mummers of the 21st Century is not to deny some past practices that were racist, or exclusionary.

In the earlier parades in the 20th Century, there were African-American String Bands, but they did not get a fair shake from judges. In some divisions, notably the Comics, blackface was permitted, until it was banned in 1964 — almost 60 years ago. 

Despite it being prohibited, every few years one or two people would smudge their faces, and, when discovered, bring shame down upon the other  25,000 people involved in the parade. Critics would call the parade “racist.”

That makes as much sense as wanting to ban baseball because one or two players have bet on the game or tried to fix a game. 

The same thing for homophobia, a truly ridiculous charge because gay people have been involved in the parade forever, especially in music orchestration, choreography and costuming.

And for decades women were kept off the street, confined to support roles. But that ban melted in the ‘70s, if not earlier.

So the parade has changed, and it has evolved. So what is Gym talking about? 

Outside groups have long been welcome to march in the Comic Division, which has hosted everything from clog dancers to drag queens to drum lines to high steppers to calypso and Latino bands.

One thing I’m sure of — no change would satisfy Gym.

Jackass Kenney — himself once a Mummer — became the first mayor not to symbolically march at the head of the String Bands.

Mayor Gym would be the first mayor to cancel the parade.