New Orleans may pop up on national news coverage for select occasions, but the city is typically left to its own southern devices, for better or worse. When the city does make headlines, the usual culprits are often sports, crime, hurricanes, festivities, political corruption or some comically absurd combination of the six. Per usual, the city’s extended media debut coincided with one of the worst natural disasters in history, Hurricane Katrina. In typical New Orleans fashion, the absurdity stretched far beyond the mythical flood levels that literally turned a major American city into Atlantis. The lack of government response, poor city planning, and shady political dealings in the storm’s aftermath are well documented. Countless media reports, books, and eyewitness accounts expose the mélange of emotions citizens experienced, but one oft-overlooked medium perfectly summarizes the population’s general consensus in a sharp, lively, fashionable way – t-shirts. Cotton blanks always evolve into a viable form of commentary and protest following a major event. (How many pro or anti-Trump shirts have you seen since his inaguration?) The items typically boast crude, outlandish graphics exaggerating or making light of the occurrence in a childish but admirably clever way. The shirts made in response to Katrina definitely follow that vague outline, but I honestly find them even more amusing and over the top. It could be my bias as a lifelong Louisiana resident, but I wholeheartedly admire the shirts’ eccentric, unpolished graphics and all-encompassing reach – fingers were pointed at FEMA, looters, police officers and government officials. It has to be the most tongue-in-cheek/mock serious form of protest. After losing their homes, loved ones and careers, residents are still eager to wear a giant middle finger across their chests. (Another perfect example being the "Free Sean Payton" shirts created as a response to his Bounty Gate suspension.) It’s the quintessential New Orleans attitude, it’s beautiful. There’s has to be a million different iterations of shirts assaulting NOPD, FEMA, the federal government and Ray Nagin – the Chocolate City incident spawned insane “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” rip-offs – but, due to the recency of Katrina’s 2005 landfall a large number were documented on the internet. (Much love to the mid-2000s blog scene for snapping countless photos of Bourbon Street’s hilarious products.) Of all the ludicrous themes, the Katrina Blue Roof Christmas reigns as the clear winner. In a pretty eloquent approach the shirt encapsulates a reference to the lack of government aid after the storm – damaged homes sat with blue tarps serving as improvised roofing as a result of FEMA’s hilariously inept Blue Roof initiative – coupled with a classic Elvis Presley holiday song and prominent officials displayed as "The Three Stooges" for their administration’s collective failure surrounding the event. Katrina was a cataclysmic event that logistically could have only hit a select number of locations, New Orleans obviously being one. A catastrophe unique enough to be famously labeled as a “100-year” storm struck one of the most bizarre, unorthodox cities on the globe. And in typical New Orleanian fashion, the response to the unparalleled destruction, government shortcomings and mental anguish was fashionably delivered with a slight grin and a not-so-sly “Fuck You. “
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AuthorMax Theriot Archives
November 2019
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