Size Matters: ’tit Rǝx

Abstract

This chapter focuses on a parade that through its name and practice presents an inversion of traditional Mardi Gras’s emphasis on excess. The ’tit Rəx parade offers an ironic twist on the gigantic, expensive, and traditional krewe and parade, Rex, whose king is THE King of Carnival, and whose parade runs the traditional Uptown route. Using interviews and images, this chapter analyzes ’tit Rəx through representative participants and floats. ’tit Rəx provides an example of how parades can be read as resisting and revising traditional Carnival. Like the other new parades, ’tit Rəx raises issues of gender and class. ’tit Rəx also accords with Errol Laborde’s observation that “downtowns are inherently adult” (55), as this Downtown parade is salacious in aspect. While ’tit Rəx floats are tiny, evoking schoolchildren’s Mardi Gras floats made from shoeboxes, they are political and often sexually explicit.