Naked prom: A personal story

Prom night. Nothing changes. Image by Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr

If John Hughes were still alive and making teen films, the story of Constance McMillen and her partner might figure into one somehow: A teen lesbian couple told not only that they could not attend prom wearing tuxedos, but subsequently cited as the cause for the whole prom being cancelled. It sounds like fiction, but as most of us know by now, it’s totally true.

The prom. In Canada, we call the whole thing ‘grad’, and much of the same tried and tested social rules that are ubiquitous to the teen experience in the US are present: The rampant hallway speculation on who was bringing whom; the endless re-arranging of possible limo groups as dates were found or dropped; the nervous this-is-it anticipation that, it being such a cultural milestone, (and because we’d seen it played out so many times at the movies), anything might happen. The only thing missing from a lot of ‘grads’ in Canada is the annointing of the prom king and queen, which, considering the nation’s history and its current head of state seems a bit odd.

As one of the official vidoegraphers for my graduating class (nerd alert!), I was fully exhausted by the very idea of the grad/prom ceremony by the time it rolled around. Most of my anticipation was wrapped up in the nervous knowledge that our year-long attempt to capture The Last Year Of School was going to be viewed publically. Worse still, thanks to our tech teammate’s late emergence as a pathalogical liar (he’d claimed to have edited and stored hours of tape, but as it turned out, had actually only managed to delete it all), my final hours before grad were spent sleeping on a floor in a Calgary editing suite as my friend Mark took his turn at recovering scraps of footage and editing them into various musical montages.

By the time we arrived, fully gowned, at the graduation ceremony the next morning, the pressure was on. It’s one thing to expect a Hollywood film to cultivate your nostalgia for lost youth, but it’s entirely another to be responsible for curating that very thing for your peers. But I digress.

In yesterday’s Guardian, (former prom queen) Hadley Freeman humorously discussed the fact that, even as it comes to be a bit of dismissed nostalgia, the prom is actually important. She argues that McMillen ought to be able to experience it. Fair enough. And certainly, nobody should be denied a prom simply because they’re gay. To cancel the event for everyone else for the same reason is even more ridiculous.

But is prom, as Freeman suggests, an important contrivance?

If we listen to popular culture, then the answer is a resounding yes; the pangful chords of Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” certainly try to put things into that kind of warped perspective. And it will always be the case that cultures mark certain milestones as a group (birthdays, funerals, etc.), so why not one more? Another excuse to party can’t be that bad, right?

I suppose that depends on if you’re an accepted part of the group.

Which is probably why, as Freeman also points out, we love prom movies so much: they’re better than reality, because we’re invited to all the best parts. The accepted cultural narrative of prom it that everyone’s finally accepted for who they are, and not alienated because of a label. That was effectively the video we delivered the evening of my grad – an ode to the good times, when we were all young and together. It was total bullshit from start to finish, of course – a rough pastiche of meaningless clips, constructed into a familiar, expected narrative of community and happiness.

Maybe some of us danced with the It Girl or It Guy at prom, but then again most of us probably didn’t. Instead, chances are we used that final night to solidify our own sub-groups of the school’s society: we arrived with our friends, and we left with them. That McMillen has taken the school to court over their decision to cancel the prom (and limit her choice of attire) is fantastic if for no other reason than it exposes the real world behind the fairytale – a world of alienation, cliques, and yes, lesbians.

It also exposes the fact that much of the hoopla surrounding the codified world of prom comes not from inside, but out. Would any of the students have cared if McMillen and her date had worn tuxedos? Maybe. But by that time, the prom would be in full swing, and it would’ve been too late. This pre-emptive cancellation is a cry for control from the parents and administration – a last ditch effort to shield their children.

It sort of reminds me of the girl in my graduating class who attempted to take off all her clothes on stage at the student-only after party. As much as prom marks a milestone or reinforces our own place in high school society, it’s partly a perennial ruse to convince the rest of the world that all is as it should be. For the record, our video went over best with the parents.

For most of us, prom’s a party. For others, it’s the final piece of evidence that points to our inevitable escape from a place where we don’t belong. As for me, perpetuating the cultural myth for another year was a lot of work.