NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Mardi Gras is a mirror. Politics and pop culture have always been invited to the big party. In that spirit, a new marching club parodies a privileged, high-handed character called Karen.
Before Danielle Wheeler founded the Krewe of Karens in 2019, she had never gone topical. She’d always been in the “cinched corset and glitter” camp of Carnival costumers. Though Wheeler admired clever people who dreamed up outfits that meshed with current events or social fads, such ideas didn’t pop into her head.
Until she had an epiphany.
“Karen” is a pop culture code name for a certain type of self-assured, SUV-driving, sunglass-wearing, suburban White woman who is often aggrieved about life’s inconveniences and imperfections.
“A woman is deemed a Karen for her repeated attempts to demand to see the manager of an establishment,” Wheeler said, “more often than not issuing a complaint that we might refer to as a ‘first-world problem.’”
A Karen, Wheeler realized, was the perfect antithesis to the anything goes, laissez-faire attitude of Carnival. The question was, would anyone understand the character?
“The concept of the Karen was still a relatively new term,” Wheeler said. “I hoped that enough friends knew exactly what I was talking about when I presented them with the idea of dressing as a Karen to help make the Krewe of Karens become a reality.”
Wheeler’s friends understood perfectly, and the costume was simple to produce. A reverse-bob wig, sweater, sunglasses, a Starbucks coffee cup and a Karen name tag was about all that was necessary to produce the look. There was a touch of performance as well. Instead of smiling, the Karens posed imperiously for photographs, and they developed a call and response chant: “What do we want? Managers! When do we want them? Now!”
No one appreciated the gag better than the bartenders and other service industry employees that the Karens encountered on their first march through the Marigny and French Quarter on Lundi Gras 2019. A few onlookers were confused by the Karen persona. A woman whose name was actually Karen felt she’d found her flock (though Wheeler said it was uncertain if she fully grasped the satire).
By the end of their inaugural procession, there may have been 50 Karens, including male Karens, plus followers.
When she is not founding subtly satirical Mardi Gras marching groups, Wheeler is a National Park Service ranger. In her 15 years in New Orleans, she has worked at the Chalmette Battlefield and Jean Lafitte National Historical Park as well as other sites. But recently, her career has come into conflict with Carnival.
Two years ago, she relocated to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Alaska, where she is helping excavate a rambling array of prospector encampments. She was able to return to New Orleans for the first march of the krewe she’d dreamt up. But last year, “plane cancellations, a series of avalanches on the main highway, and finally a blizzard” made her miss the Monday-before-Mardi Gras march of the Karens.
Via photographs of the event and accounts from friends, Wheeler was assured that the Karens’ sophomore parade was a success. The krewe even had a portable sound system from which they blared Karen-esque song selections. Wheeler said she recognized the jaunty character of the music, but can’t recall any specific songs … which may be the definition of the Karen audio aesthetic.
The second parade may have been even better than the first, according to krewe member Dr. Lua Walter. The term “Karen” had become more commonplace, the costumes had become more idiosyncratic and the performances more nuanced. The members now make it a point to boisterously complain when the service in a bar or restaurant is too good or too inexpensive.
Wheeler said the only downside was that “I looked so authentic that my friends felt uncomfortable.”
The term “Karen” has had a White privilege component for a while. In fact, Wheeler said that a Karen who infamously called the cops on Black men barbecuing in an Oakland public park in 2018 was one of the inspirations for the sardonic krewe. But as the term has become better known, its political edge may have become even sharper.
A few months after Mardi Gras 2020, a White woman walking her dog in New York’s Central Park quarreled with a Black man who was birdwatching. She subsequently called the police, claiming she was in danger. The woman was widely described as a Karen.
At about the same time, women who refused to wear coronavirus-suppressing masks were often referred to as Karens.
Wheeler thinks people will understand the subversive nature of the joke.
“Karen is tied to such a solid, visual image that a gaggle of them is still cause for laughter as a reaction, and not anger,” she said.
If the marching group is able to parade in 2021, Wheeler said, one member is planning to toss Krewe of Karen COVID-19 face masks. Walter, who is a family care physician, assures the public that if the Karens parade in 2021 they will be elaborately masked and socially distanced.
“Our egos need the 6-foot space,” she said.
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