A Beautiful Apocalyptic Mardis Gras

The latest ABC promotion for the Mardis Gras event in Sydney this weekend is indeed a thing of beauty.  And that’s a promotion on the ABC ME site, not the adult site.  ME is for young adults, though the ABC would have to admit that most of the kids in this promotional video are still watching ABC For Kids, and haven’t quite graduated to the big kids’ station yet.   But nevertheless, this one’s for the kids people, so get over it.  And since it’s for the kids, it’s a thing of great beauty, with more sparkles in it than a My Little Pony five year old party.

Great, deep, disturbing beauty.

In a world in which aesthetics is the new ethics and the more beautiful your campaign, the more convincing, this knocks it out of the park.  Ethics in the Sexular Age is governed by colour and movement and tone.  Any link to what may or may not be right; what does or does not work well; what accords with long held frameworks is not simply to be jettisoned, but to be scorned.

And what could be more beautiful than young primary school aged children dressed in rainbow colours espousing the virtues of Mardis Gras and the recent same sex marriage debate?

Look, I actually get the original Mardi Gras protest movement.  Oppression and illegalities and bashings and murders – all quite dreadful.  This is no longer protest.  This is a something different altogether.

I’ve always said that the ethical debate will be about taking language hostage, refusing its use by opponents, and then refilling those words with other meaning.  Language is, first and foremost, theological, and taking language and using it for one’s own means, not the means for which it was intended, is a theological act, a rebellious theological act.

But hey, don’t worry about that! Look! Mardi Gras is loud, sparkly and equal!

Just like those kids’ parties I used to go to when I was eight where everyone got to win at pass-the-parcel and the dad of the kid whose birthday it was cavorted down the hallway in butt-less leather chaps.

Here’s what else I learned and what your kids can learn too:

Oh, and that nice young social media commentator Benjamin Law features in it too.  You know the one who talked about “hate “f..ing” people and suggested Government MP Andrew Hastie be raped for speaking up for traditional marriage.

Here he is on his best behaviour chatting to the kids:

I’m sure Law’s nasty comment to Hastie was about as moving to Andrew and his family would have expected.  Just hope the kids don’t accidentally sign up to his Twitter feed.

It’s all intoxicating and lovely and a reminder that the Zombie Apocalypse is a long way off, held at bay by the Beautiful Apocalypse of the new Sexular Age.

And as we know, if we can get to the mind of a child before the age of seven, then we’ve got them for good. We’ve got to influence them early and often, except for those crazy Christians who need to leave their kids alone to make up their own minds, and who certainly can’t be seen influencing anyone else’s kids with their toxic ideas.

Not that long ago we might have called that grooming.  Soon it will be a school excursion.  I can see the permission slip now. No seriously, I can see it, the school went all out and printed it on multi-coloured paper rather than the bland white they used for the trip to the museum.

And speaking of museums, anyone who publicly holds a position other than the above, or attempts to tell a six year old any different, is bound for the museum via the tribunal.

And there’s that “P” word again – Progress.  And quite significantly too:

Happy 40th Mardi Gras:

The next forty years just got interesting.

(You can watch the entire video on the ABC Facebook page)