Reviving the Mummers

There's a growing sense of alarm among loyalist Philadelphians that the Mummer's Parade may be in decline, possibly a fatal spiral of decline. Only 10,000 people participate in this folk ritual, when a few decades ago 25,000 people were some sort of participant. A great many people who don't participate, and don't attend, are having a lot to say about whose fault it is.

Much of the commentary is contradictory. The consensus among participants is that moving the parade from Broad to Market Streets, and then back again to Broad Street, broke the vital strands of tradition. On the contrary, say some former viewers, the problem is that once you have seen the Mummers, you have seen them; there's no variety. If you take either argument seriously, you have to conclude that what seems appealing to the participants - continuity and stability - unfortunately turns the spectators off. If that's the situation it's hard to know how the parade ever got popular in the first place. So one or the other of these comments is wrong, unless both are wrong. Or unless both are right, but insignificant, not the root of the issue.

What everyone agrees on is that the parade on New Year's Day is too doggone cold. Years ago it was tried to move the parade to the Fourth of July, and in fact it may have originally begun as an Independence Day celebration. What we now call "comics" were then called "shooters", because they carried and shot off guns. Since alcohol has always been an important attraction for these parades, it is easy to imagine the concern of the Quaker City about drunks lurching around the streets, firing real weapons. With the coming and going of Prohibition, sales of liquor on the street has vanished. But somehow it is possible to sell beer at baseball games, and while it is almost politically inconceivable to sell beer, or hot toddies, on Broad Street, there can be little doubt it would be traditional.

As for that doggone cold, it isn't any colder today than it was when the Mummers parade was thronged, is it? Well, yes, it's a lot colder. Skyscrapers cast dark shadows at the end of short winter days. And tall buildings block the wind at their tops, with the wind then scooting down the side of the building to the sidewalk. That's the "Marilyn Monroe effect," and it's plenty real. So, it has to be noticed that the parade has migrated up from South Philadelphia to center city, at the same time that center city has become climatically inhospitable. To get a little technical, there's also the "sundown wind." As the shadow of nightfall moves from East to West, the warm air in the sunlit area rises up over the cold air in the darker region, creating a sundown wind. Add to this the early sunset of winter, throw the sundown wind against skyscrapers, and it's time to go home. To television.

It's my view that television, which I never watch by the way, has a lot to answer for in the deterioration of the Mummers parade. If people who never watch the Mummers parade are allowed to criticize it, surely people who never watch television are entitled to surly opinions too. Back in the fifties and sixties, getting featured on television was a big thrill for the mummers. If the cameramen wanted a performance in one place so they needn't move their equipment, that was eagerly agreed to. There might even have been the prospect of big bucks, since everyone knows show biz commands top dollar. Let 'em perform at City Hall, where the judges can keep warm on elevated benches, and politicians can accidentally walk in front of the cameras. But notice that all of the successors in the parade line are backed up from City Hall to Locust street, not performing for the sidewalks. And all of the performers, having strutted their stuff at City Hall will then disband, instead of continuing up to Vine Street, as they once did. It's no longer a parade, it's a performance at City Hall. For television, you might say, except that television has used up the material and is abandoning it.

For completeness, we should mention the bad luck of snow and rain for a few years in a row. And the discomfort with black face, but the absence of black people. The absence of Jewish and Oriental brigades in an ethnic extravaganza. You will occasionally see people at Philadelphia upper-crust dances showing off the Mummers Strut, but you aren't likely to see that on Chinese New Years. Whether newer ethnic groups were excluded from participation by the hard-core South Philadelphia Italian, Polish and Irish groups is not immediately obvious. It could well be the reverse, a rejection by the newer arrivals or their leaders. But these sullen opinions are somehow unsatisfying, particularly when the parade has such a noticeable tolerance for transvestite behavior.

But my suspect for culprit of the parade's decline is television. It was sure a nice parade before that thing came along. The leaders of the mummers parade must either find a way to cope with the monster, or - fawgeddaboutit.

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