Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters GABRIELLE O’BRIEN
Documentary offered itself as the form par excellence for affirmation film, partly because it is cheaper and easier to do tolerably than fiction, partly because of its historical association with progressive movements, and especially for its supposed special relationship to reality.
—Richard Dyer1
The police didn’t like seeing a lot of homosexuals together being happy, and they wanted to put us away for that and that seemed to be our crime. From being like an outsider in society, a deviant or what society sort of chooses to call us, we didn’t have any legal protection then. We were outside of the law.
—unnamed lesbian 78er2
‘Fearless’ was the theme for the 2019 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. This upbeat festival branding nods to the courage required to live an authentic identity, particularly one that jars with the heteronormative mainstream. The cultural bubble of cosmopolitan, urbane Sydney seems a fitting place for this extravagant celebration of LGBTQIA+ experience; after all, there is insulation to be found in an international city, a kind of social buffer that fends off prejudice, stigma and judgement. Sydney’s Oxford and Flinders streets are pedestrianised for one night to make way for the Mardi Gras centrepiece event; this year, the annual parade drew around 500,000 spectators who spilled out onto balconies and rooftops, and jostled for position at street level. More than 12,500 marchers from diverse groups took part.3 After the First Nations representatives, Dykes on Bikes, Rainbow Families and Trans Pride floats, the NSW Police Force rolled in. A female officer belted out a Whitney Houston number from the float, while a cohort of officers marched in front of the vehicle. Their appearance was greeted by appreciative whoops from the crowd.
Amid all of the high-octane beats, the costumes and the general air of revelry, it was easy to miss the comparatively low-key appearance of the original Mardi Gras participants – or ‘the 78ers’, as they are now widely known. They are well past middle age now, and their truck arrived sans the glittery festive accoutrements that have become synonymous with the modern Mardi Gras (or ‘gay Christmas’,4 as one attendee called it). While the shift in tone was subtle – the music still played, and the pride flags were still held aloft – here was a kind of distillation of the intent that underpinned that first gathering forty-one years ago: that of individuals standing together in simple solidarity. Back then, they embodied a collective oppositional force, a rebuke to a society that sentenced them to life at its very fringes.
In 1978, the NSW Police Force, now so neatly integrated into the modern parade, were the harbingers of that hatred of the Other that blindly oppresses. Their brutal interventions helped focus the cultural dialogue; questions were asked about the role of the police as arbiters of the people’s will. As journalist and commentator David Marr has pointed out, ‘When the police overstep the mark, they make reform inescapable.’5 In a recent ABC News article, protester Sandi Banks recalls her treatment by the police on the fateful night of 24 June that year, soon to become the precursor to Mardi Gras:
They came racing down Darlinghurst Road, sirens going, lights galore and they jumped out, lots of them. Very huge men at the time and no form of identification. And they started grabbing, thumping, bashing, pulling hair. They picked me up and threw me towards the paddy wagon … my chest was black and blue from having hit the truck.6
It’s clear that the 78ers are powerfully emblematic of the strides Australia has made socially, politically, culturally and judicially; their courage truly embodies the notion of ‘fearless’. In 1978, their street-festival-turned-protest initiated a turning point in the landscape of LGBTQIA+ rights in Australia. It’s almost impossible to overstate the significance of their
