Pride Parade

The idea of Pride is not to treat being gay or straight as being some kind of accomplishment on our part. Instead, taking pride in being gay is a response to people who would like us to be anything but proud. There are some people out there who would like it if we were ashamed of ourselves. They'd prefer if we'd keep this a secret for our entire lives, or better yet that we didn't exist at all. To them, being gay should be seen as something unmentionable, and not suitable for polite conversation. And they certainly don't want us to be okay with who we are. Taking pride in being gay serves as a direct response to the people trying to shame us into silence. It means rejecting the idea that it should be some kind of terrible secret for us to hide. So we don't hide! We have a massive public celebration of our lives.

—Zinnia Jones, summarizing the concept in the episode Taking Pride In Pride

An LGBTQI Pride Parade^[1] is going on. Maybe it has little or nothing to do with the plot, being there simply there to spice up the background of whatever the protagonists are doing (any show with a Cast Full of Gay is bound to do a Pride episode at least once). Or maybe it's a major part of the plot. For example, one of the major characters could be helping organizing the whole thing or organize protests against it. Or there could be heated debates on what minorities and organizations should and shouldn't be included. Hilarity may very well ensue if one or both sides resort to Activist Fundamentalist Antics.

The parade may be portrayed as a stand-alone event or be given context as a part of a larger pride festival. In the later case it often include seminars on issues such as heteronormativity and consent as well as social events at places such as Gay Bars.

Compare Sex Is Good, Ethical Slut and Brains and Bondage. Contrast (or compare, depending on the tone of the work) Sex Is Evil, Depraved Homosexual, Bondage Is Bad, Straw Loser and Internalized Categorism.

Examples of Pride Parade include:

Comic Books

• Several issues of Dykes to Watch Out For have a foreground plot about the main character's personal lives and a background plot of them arranging various demonstrations including pride parade.
• Bitchy Butch tends to hate the parades because they are inclusive. (She's a bitter and hateful lesbian who resents bisexuals, transsexuals, men - including gay men, lesbians who don't hate men, and so on. All Played for Laughs.) And yet, even she grows to reluctantly enjoy them.
• Several Chick Tracts feature Pride Parades, portraying them as unholy armies of Satan laying siege to the world. The portrayal often use a combination of Manly Gay and Bondage Is Bad.
  • In one of them, there's a guy blocking the parade route, silently holding up a sign quoting a bible verse about homosexuality being an abomination. So a cop comes along and puts him under arrest, which you'd expect to happen in Real Life, since he was blocking the route after all. That's where any semblance of realism ends, however, as Chick's Straw Pro-LGBT Rights People proceed to beat the guy within an inch of his life while the cops, instead of trying to break it up, join in with their nightsticks. And then, after the guy confined to a hospital bed, a judge tells him that he's facing a prison sentence for the "hate crime" he committed. Read it here.
• DC One Million makes brief mention of a "Bizarro Pride Parade" in the Chronos issue.

Film

• My Fellow Americans has two former presidents trying to escape being killed under the orders of the current president (It Makes Sense in Context) taking cover in a Gay Pride parade. They aren't trying to get Lost in a Crowd in this case, but rather are trying to be as visible as possible - not even the bad guy in the film would try to have them killed on live television. Becomes a Brick Joke by the end of the film when one of the government agents later refuses to apprehend them because he ran into them while at the parade and thinks they're gay too.
  • Not quite, on the spoiler. He only thinks one of them (the played-for-laughs Strawman Conservative, natch) was coming out at the parade; he refuses to shoot because he's been told these are 'imposters' but sees the gay-pride rings one still happens to be carrying and realizes "Those are the Presidents!" The Brick Joke is more that the audience doesn't recognize him at first because at the parade, he was cross-dressing as a member of a marching Dorothy band. He tells the Presidents they met "Somewhere over the rainbow."

Literature

• The Bugarup Galah in The Last Continent, the Discworld version of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
• The Turner Diaries feature a Pride Parades and make a note of how they are getting more inclusive over time, now extending to include fetishists and such. Since the book is nazi propaganda, the narrative role of the Pride Parade is to serve as an example of how the jews control the world and weaken the aryan race through the power of perversion.

Live Action TV

• 3rd Rock from the Sun plays for confusion and inability to comprehend the nuances of local culture: The alien family was searching for their ethnic roots and Dick was fascinated by the concept when Nina told him she had gone to a black pride rally. So Dick took the family to a "white pride" rally.
• The characters in The L Word attend a Gay Pride parade in one episode.
• Briefly used in Married... with Children when Bud tries a cowboy look as a means of attracting a girl. He comes back several minutes later, having been beaten up by a Native American pride parade marching half a block from the Bundy house.
• The last episode of the 2nd season of Noah's Arc took place during one.

Web Original

• Zinnia Jones spend episodes such as Taking Pride In Pride and I don't care what you think of pride parades arguing that the parades are necessary and that those critics who don't have a gay-hating agenda are simply Completely Missing the Point.
• The Onion has done several things on pride, including "Gay Pride Week In Review" and Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years.

Western Animation

• The Simpsons: A gay pride parade goes through town.

Marchers: We're here, we're queer, get used to it!
Lisa: You do this every year. We are used to it!

• • There was also a float dedicated to those still in the closet.

We're gay, we're glad
But don't tell mom and dad

• • When there was a bear "attack" in Springfield Homer led an angry mob to the mayors office with this chant:

Crowd: We're here, we're queer, we don't want anymore bears.
Lenny: Hey, that's a pretty catchy chant. Where did you hear it?
Homer: Oh, I heard it at the mustache parade they have every year.

• In the South Park episode "South Park is Gay", all the males in town have turned metrosexual. Once the women of the town start getting fed up, the men put on a Metrosexual Pride Parade, which includes the chant, "We're here, we're not queer, but we're close, get used to it!"
• Gary And Mike are in San Fransisco for their roadtrip. A conveluted series of events leads them accidentaly driving their convertable at the lead of the Pride Parade, with Gary shirtless and flying the flag of his father's Marine unit behind him in front of television cameras.

1. ↑ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Queer, and Intersexed.