Many Fear Mardi Gras Out Of Hand

More than just a fling before the austere religious festival of Lent, Mardi Gras has become a happening, the dazzling celebration that helped save this city when the oil ran out and the economy ran down.

Now a lot of people fear the event has run out of control and become a caricature.

“Nationwide, the image is that of a drunken orgy,” said Arthur Hardy, who publishes a popular Mardi Gras guide. “There are at least four companies marketing nude Mardi Gras videos nationally.”

That anything-goes image attracts young tourists who care little about tradition, as resident Dave Johnson discovered a few years ago when he was host to several Florida State University classmates.

“Everybody wanted to get nude and lewd,” Johnson said. “They weren’t driving all that way to eat fried chicken and catch beads with my parents.”

Carnival, which began Jan. 6 and ends this week with Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, has always been a mixture of high society and street scene. The city’s blue bloods staged grand balls while the gay community held drag contests. Families held reunions along parade routes while college kids partied in the French Quarter.

After Louisiana’s oil-fired economy fizzled in the mid-1980s, the city was hungry to boost tourism even when it infringed on local customs and laws. Mardi Gras crowds have been estimated at more than 1 million people; there was a sharp decline last year with Fat Tuesday falling right after the Super Bowl, but hotel reservations jumped again this year.

Nudity, once a tantalizing possibility, became commonplace.

“There was always a wild side to Mardi Gras,” said French Quarter resident Tom Finney, 62. “But there was a lot more to it than that. It was always a family event too. Now I don’t see that very much, at least not in the Quarter.”

Carnival organizations changed as well. Some of the old-time, aristocratic “krewes,” as they are known, gave up their parades rather than sign recently required documents stating they did not discriminate in their membership.

In addition, parades grew more costly at the same time the krewes’ fund-raising efforts - especially bingo - waned in competition with legalized lottery and gambling.

According to the Mardi Gras Guide, 60 percent of the clubs that paraded in 1997 were founded since 1970. During that period 51 new krewes debuted and 52 folded.