If you want to learn a lot in a short time about Mobile and Mardi Gras, watch this movie. Netflix has it. Its focal point is the fact that there are two Mardi Gras organizations and celebrations, one white and one black. This is often a bit startling to newcomers to the area—it was to me. The movie is extremely well done. It’s both unsensational and unsentimental, generous but unsparing, about the racial situation. And it also provides a really accurate and vivid glimpse of the culture here.
One note of caution, though: don’t assume that the white people who are shown running the Mardi Gras show are typical—this is definitely the upper crust, the top 5% or so of the white population in wealth. As my wife said, we would not be any more at home among them than most black people would, we just wouldn’t be as noticeable.
Now that I think about it, this would be a useful movie for anyone who doesn’t know the U.S.—much of what it reveals about the racial situation is applicable to the whole country. One of the reviewers quoted on the film’s web site gets it right: “As big and richly complex as the United States itself.”
(Yes, while other people partied, we watched a movie about partying. Put that way, it’s kind of sad.)
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