Approximately 10,000 people participate in the 1 January parade and yesterday a group called the Finnegan New Year’s Brigade focused their skit on Caitlyn Jenner.
Advertisement
The parade – one of the oldest in America – featured a Bruce Jenner lookalike in his Olympic glory with a Wheaties box in the background. Mummers engulfed him before he reemerged to the tune “Dude Looks Like a Lady” and frolicked about dressed in a white outfit mimicking Caitlyn Jenner’s dress on the July 2015 cover of Vanity Fair.
Mayor-elect Jim Kenney condemned the display in a tweet.
Meanwhile, a New York Daily News editor videotaped a member of the Finnegan NYB shouting “F– the gays!” as he marched along Broad Street.
Finnegan NYB itself provoked concerns by focusing its act on Jenner, the former Olympian Bruce Jenner, who came out as transgender past year as she transitioned to a woman.
“We understand and take full responsibility since we are Finnegan, but this deeply is sickening someone could say that”.
In another incident, a spectator filmed one of the parade’s members screaming “Fuck the gays!”
‘They start giving me some kind of crap, because I’m a big guy and I have this little fluffy dog, ‘ Holtz said to local news station NBC 10, according to The Root.
One man taunted him, according to Holtz.
The group also defended its choice to focus its act on Jenner’s transition, saying the “satirical” act was voted upon by members of the Brigade. Some of them were wearing sombreros and ponchos, while others reportedly wore taco costumes.
WCAU also reports that a select few Mummers, who call themselves “wenches”, carried signs reading “Mummers Lives Matter” and “Wenches Lives Matter”, mocking the Black Lives Matter movement protesting police and vigilante violence against black people. ‘Hurtful to many Philadelphians.
But during Friday’s parade, a gay man walking his family dog through Philadelphia’s City Center was allegedly punched in the face, after several assailants hurled antigay slurs at the man and his dog.
Dan McQuade, a writer for Philadelphia Magazine, posted images on Twitter showing a group of children dressed up in brownface to simulate Mexicans and also a “Pirates Lives Matter” sign in one of marching groups.
Advertisement
The incidents during this year’s parade occurred even after organizers created the “Philadelphia Division”, which was meant to diversify the parade with two new Hispanic performance groups, a black drill team and the LGBT Miss Fancy Brigade.
