(no subject)
Which faire did you join?
I’m about to get all philosophical here so bear with me. Sorry. It’s soapbox time!
In dealing with the arduous task of setting up a faire or festival, I am often called upon to attend various meetings for a vendor group here, a guild group there, or a face to face with a promoter. It comes with the territory if you are doing anything like this reenactment/carnival/circus we all call a ‘hobby.’
Last year, at the gathering of supporters for the Crossroads festival against the tyranny of the Corona city council, I ran into someone who had been doing Renaissance events for a number of years. He was a vendor at Corona and at that time was helping to organize the Vendor Council. To make a long story short, he was looking around at the assembled supporters and was having an issue with the amount of cleavage and cod pieces that were representing the show. His comment was that if we are trying to garner support for our event, as a family show, these kinds of things should not be shown to the City council.
He and I had a short discussion about how the Renaissance time period was neither pretty nor was it politically correct. The long and the short of the discussion was that he felt that Renaissance events SHOULD be more family oriented with a more Disney-esque type of feel; that we should all strive to show the good side of the renaissance and not the ugly parts; that we should somehow spin the renaissance into a wonderful fantasy like experience. Whoa! I’m sorry. This is not the faire I joined.
When I began going to faires some 25 years ago, it was to enjoy the bawdy, raunchy show that I was promised by all of the posters, commercials and word of mouth. It was a place where a bunch of like minded, attention-starved, wannabe actors could come together and show their stuff. We were the fringe people who got together to share in a feeling as well as an event.
As a guest, even in costume, you don’t really understand the whole magical quality of the renaissance event. Even when you become a participant or a boothie, you really don’t quite understand. But when you become a true Rennie, things change for you. YOU GET IT. You are recognized by fellow Rennies, even when you are not in costume or at an event. You can smell it in the air. Your whole body changes in anticipation of the weeks of build up before the event and the exhaustive hours that you will spend in character each weekend. And if you take time off from doing it, you will go through withdrawls.
The faire I joined is a community. And when you are recognized as a part of that community, you have a real sense of place. People recognize IT in you. It is not a place you can buy your way into. It is not a place you can legislate your way into. It is not a place that you can consider yourself entitled to just because you look the part and walk the walk. It is a place, a community that you are accepted into. And you know it when you are. And that community knows when you are not. And when things change, as they invariably will, the entire community shifts and changes and grows but some of the aspects still stay the same. The feeling stays the same.
Now I am seeing the community starting to die. Perhaps it’s because the times have changed. Perhaps it’s because the community was too exclusive instead of inclusive and the feeling wasn’t passed onto the next generation soon enough. Or perhaps it’s because the community has tried to deviate from its original bawdiness and mostly adult content. The politically correct mentality of the 90’s may have finally corrupted this last bastion of beer, boobs and battle. They want to make it more family friendly. No sex. No drugs. No violence. Heaven forbid that we should scowl at a guest as our characters or refuse to coddle their children that are not being watched as they climb into the arena or into someone’s tent. These are the very people who have come to US, our community, to be entertained, insulted, flirted with, intoxicated, shown something different than they can see on TV. They want this and yet they want to change it to be more acceptable to their palates.
The faire I joined may be dying a slow, politically correct, family-oriented sort of death but I’m not going to give it up without a fight. If there are those in our numbers, those non-Rennies, that are trying to take away that feeling, they need to be made to stand down or go away. That community I’m a part of needs to answer the wake up call. It needs to stand up and fight for that olde faire feeling lest we find ourselves in the midst of fairy wings and plastic swords being passed off as acceptable renaissance wares. And lest we find ourselves without an outlet for our bawdy, deviant, raunchy, non-politically correct, non family-oriented behaviors.
I’m about to get all philosophical here so bear with me. Sorry. It’s soapbox time!
In dealing with the arduous task of setting up a faire or festival, I am often called upon to attend various meetings for a vendor group here, a guild group there, or a face to face with a promoter. It comes with the territory if you are doing anything like this reenactment/carnival/circus we all call a ‘hobby.’
Last year, at the gathering of supporters for the Crossroads festival against the tyranny of the Corona city council, I ran into someone who had been doing Renaissance events for a number of years. He was a vendor at Corona and at that time was helping to organize the Vendor Council. To make a long story short, he was looking around at the assembled supporters and was having an issue with the amount of cleavage and cod pieces that were representing the show. His comment was that if we are trying to garner support for our event, as a family show, these kinds of things should not be shown to the City council.
He and I had a short discussion about how the Renaissance time period was neither pretty nor was it politically correct. The long and the short of the discussion was that he felt that Renaissance events SHOULD be more family oriented with a more Disney-esque type of feel; that we should all strive to show the good side of the renaissance and not the ugly parts; that we should somehow spin the renaissance into a wonderful fantasy like experience. Whoa! I’m sorry. This is not the faire I joined.
When I began going to faires some 25 years ago, it was to enjoy the bawdy, raunchy show that I was promised by all of the posters, commercials and word of mouth. It was a place where a bunch of like minded, attention-starved, wannabe actors could come together and show their stuff. We were the fringe people who got together to share in a feeling as well as an event.
As a guest, even in costume, you don’t really understand the whole magical quality of the renaissance event. Even when you become a participant or a boothie, you really don’t quite understand. But when you become a true Rennie, things change for you. YOU GET IT. You are recognized by fellow Rennies, even when you are not in costume or at an event. You can smell it in the air. Your whole body changes in anticipation of the weeks of build up before the event and the exhaustive hours that you will spend in character each weekend. And if you take time off from doing it, you will go through withdrawls.
The faire I joined is a community. And when you are recognized as a part of that community, you have a real sense of place. People recognize IT in you. It is not a place you can buy your way into. It is not a place you can legislate your way into. It is not a place that you can consider yourself entitled to just because you look the part and walk the walk. It is a place, a community that you are accepted into. And you know it when you are. And that community knows when you are not. And when things change, as they invariably will, the entire community shifts and changes and grows but some of the aspects still stay the same. The feeling stays the same.
Now I am seeing the community starting to die. Perhaps it’s because the times have changed. Perhaps it’s because the community was too exclusive instead of inclusive and the feeling wasn’t passed onto the next generation soon enough. Or perhaps it’s because the community has tried to deviate from its original bawdiness and mostly adult content. The politically correct mentality of the 90’s may have finally corrupted this last bastion of beer, boobs and battle. They want to make it more family friendly. No sex. No drugs. No violence. Heaven forbid that we should scowl at a guest as our characters or refuse to coddle their children that are not being watched as they climb into the arena or into someone’s tent. These are the very people who have come to US, our community, to be entertained, insulted, flirted with, intoxicated, shown something different than they can see on TV. They want this and yet they want to change it to be more acceptable to their palates.
The faire I joined may be dying a slow, politically correct, family-oriented sort of death but I’m not going to give it up without a fight. If there are those in our numbers, those non-Rennies, that are trying to take away that feeling, they need to be made to stand down or go away. That community I’m a part of needs to answer the wake up call. It needs to stand up and fight for that olde faire feeling lest we find ourselves in the midst of fairy wings and plastic swords being passed off as acceptable renaissance wares. And lest we find ourselves without an outlet for our bawdy, deviant, raunchy, non-politically correct, non family-oriented behaviors.