Parade: Here for It, #336

Hi! It's R. Eric Thomas. From the internet?
Hi!

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is the greatest gift of American straight culture and I say that with absolutely no shade whatsoever. What a delight! I have never been a regular parade watcher. I don't even watch most Pride parades. Why would I want to watch a bunch of people walking early in the morning? What am I, a mall security guard?

I made Thanksgiving dinner for my family this year, so I had the opportunity to watch the entire parade broadcast twice while cooking (because they play it again right after it ends) and now I am an expert. And my expert opinion is that American straight culture really boots the house down when they came up with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Do I understand the parade? Not in the least. Do I think that it is a coherent set of ideas and traditions? Absolutely not. Did I spend my entire Thanksgiving morning muttering "now what do you mean by that?" while elbow deep in a vat of Patti Labelle's mac and cheese recipe? You bet your sweet bippy.

But when you watch 1,000 of the nation's best cheerleaders flipping and dancing to a sped up megamix of Chappell Roan songs and then get chased off the screen by the cast of Bluey driving 25 miles per hour through Midtown Manhattan you don't really have any choice but to nod and say "Yeah, I guess so, girl!"

Now, you may look at the parade--with its succession of bad lip-syncs, its melange of Broadway stars performing ballads on corporate floats hawking laundry detergent, its frenetic, everyone-is-on-Adderall, end of a rave energy--and think "Baby, I have been to a drag brunch hosted by the ghost of Paul Lynde and six men who once played Bok in Wicked and this is gayer." But to that I say, "Just hold on, cast of Heartstopper riding on the Container Store float! Slow your roll, Indigo Girls featuring special guest Smokey the Bear!"

The parade is peak American straight culture because it is blithely, unblinkingly, aggressively "for everyone" despite the fact that it opened with Billy Porter singing "Ease on Down the Road" while dressed like the Mad Hatter and ended with Jennifer Hudson belting in the rain with a phalanx of dancers doing umbrella choreography like Tom Holland on Lip Sync Battle.

The parade is like Thanksgiving stuffing--a whole bunch of ingredients, some purposefully stale, some zesty and exciting, all thrown together to make a new, strange creation that, like Frankenstein's monster, those gigantic Stanley cups, or the reboot of Will & Grace, has absolutely no reason for existing besides hubris. And everybody likes it!

(Well, people famously did not like Frankenstein's monster, but genius is never recognized in its time, much like the goth dancers of the Wednesday float.)

The top three gifts of American straight culture are the Macy's Parade, Nancy Meyers movies, and the moon landing.

Each of those has something deeply, screamingly gay at the heart of it, but somehow the end result is a multi-generational, family viewing experience.

The parade had Cole Escola, star of the campy Broadway show Oh, Mary! riding a pink flamingo. Queer culture! But the flamingo was sponsored by Kohl's!

Nancy Meyers movies are about straight, middle-aged white people falling in love. But, my god, those kitchens!

The moon landing was one giant step for mankind, supposedly. But everyone knows the moon itself is canonically lesbian!

At one point during the parade, a singer was performing some vaguely country-esque song (straight!), which I Shazaam'd to add to my elliptical playlist (gay!), muttering about how I have no idea who singers are anymore (old!), while my father loudly complained about how sexy the dancing is (American!).

I love that the entire parade took place in the pouring rain like the best scene in Pride & Prejudice (straight but gay!)

I love that Hoda Kotb had to get up at 2 in the morning to make small talk about 5-story balloon floats of Goku while they made poor Al Roker interview soaking wet children wearing his hurricane-reporting gear.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Fallon danced down the street in sunglasses looking like American Psycho's murderous capitalist Patrick Bateman after a bender. (Too on the nose!)

What's great about American straight culture is that when you go hard enough on it, it loops back around and becomes gay. How else do you explain Liza Colon-Zayas, an Emmy-winner for playing the formerly mean, now sympathetic Tina on The Bear (an objectively not family-friendly show, but another triumph of straight culture!) strapping on a grey wig and a poncho and rolling down the street as Mrs. Claus at the end of the parade? "Look kids, it's your favorite actress, the foul-mouthed line cook from the comedy show about grief and addiction where Jamie Lee Curtis drives a car through her house on Christmas Eve!" (Gay.)

This is the nation I voted for: Aggressively inscrutable! Four quadrant! And most of all, deeply, glitteringly, death-droppingly, obliviously, Angels in America-ly camp. Let the great work begin! I guess!

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Slow your roll, Indigo Girls featuring special guest Smokey the Bear!,
Eric