Transgression and Scandal at the 1979 Seville Carnival
“Seville should have a proper Carnival, but not a bacchanal. A dignifying Carnival, not a vulgar queer celebration”. ABC de Sevilla editorial, February 15 th 1979 The long-standing Carnival tradition in Seville came to an abrupt end after the fascist coup-d’état against the democratically-elected Republican regime in 1936. For the next 40 years, Seville was banned from organizing its traditional Carnival festival. Around the mid 1970s, a number of locals promoted setting up a flea market every Sunday at the Alameda de Hércules boulevard. Among them, Julián Gamito, painter José Luis Aguado, and the Pepes (also known as the Joses), a couple who dealt in antiques. That Sunday “sorority” took upon themselves the initiative to bring back the long-lost Carnival, this time to the Alameda, a bohemian area which, at that time, had not been devastated by heroin traffic yet, as was the case in the 1980s. There was a first attempt to bring back the Carnival in 1978, but with no succes...