{niftybox background=#8FBC8F, width=360px} In order to render the story more readable and acceptable for mass audience, the film employs, in the first place, a set of stereotyped codes whose meanings have been pre-established in the long process of naturalisation of sex/gender binary opposition: the pink Mini Morris; gays as sissies; gays as artsy people etc. Secondly, the lack of gay histories and cultural capital is surmounted by borrowing readable codes from other hegemonic discourses: the straight virile man; the war conflicts, transition and the corrupt state.{/niftybox}

In this fashion, Mirko's desperate attempt to enter the realm of the visible reverberates the voices of his Western "brothers and sisters" who struggled with the strategies of the re-presentation politics. It should be noted that Mirko admits to assuming the person status only with/through the liberating act of a walk on the Pride Parade. So the parade is not just an expression of celebration of the achieved rights and obtained freedom, but rather it becomes an instrument imbued with political power needed to gain greater visibility. In contrast to the development of gay rights in the Western countries from the late 1960s onwards, the Belgrade Pride Parade is now an indispensable constituent of gay identity. The Pride Parade comes to be a conceptual map for understanding what gayness is really about, not just for straight audience, but for gays as well. While in the Western countries parades are carried out in a way to represent a cultural form which celebrates difference, the Belgrade Pride Parade is caught up in a kind of paradox between the demands of democracy and the lack of (sub)cultural capital which would allow for such an event to become something more than just an opportunity for greater visibility¹. The Parade film forecloses the possibility to conceive gayness as anything else but an instance of an inauthentic political correctness and tolerance. Moreover, the voices of gay people are mediated though the human rights discourses which have been imported from "the outside". The question is, then, what kind of truth does this 'outside-ness' speak about the 'inside-ness' of lives of Serbian gays and lesbians? Can The Parade/Parade authentically re-present Serbian gay community given its diversity within the group which is caught up in a specific historic and political moment?

Much of the fight for equality of LGBT persons in the West from the end of the 1960s onwards has been driven by the assumption of sharing the same identity. In large cities gay areas appeared with the effect of creating a community which shared the same culture. "Gay" was used to designate the unified alternative otherness and it became possible to write a history of gay culture. As gay politics grew stronger, it became clearer that (sub)divisions would create politics on their own and demand recognition within the gay community. By virtue of presuming the sameness, identity conceals the exclusion of other identities and hierarchises them. So a white, middle class gay man differs from a black working class gay men; a female-to-male transsexual differs from lesbians in the possibility to make offspring, etc. This is probably why Sasha reads as authentic and The Parade doesn't. While Sasha's story is depicted though multiple identifications which permeates his idiosyncratic situation, The Parade is fixated on a singular identity politics deprived of any personal peculiarities.

Gay activism today is faced with the difficulty to base its action on anything other than identity politics. This is not to say that gay activism should be dispensed with; rather it calls for a more attentive analysis of the form and means with/though which equality is achieved. By setting the story of the necessity to accept sexual minorities around the struggles to organise a gay parade, the film does very little in the sense of challenging the viewers' opinions about gays and lesbians. Those who are supportive are expected to continue to be gay friendly; and those who frown upon the public expression of gay love will continue to disapprove it. In order to render the story more readable and acceptable for mass audience, the film employs, in the first place, a set of stereotyped codes whose meanings have been pre-established in the long process of naturalisation of sex/gender binary opposition: the pink Mini Morris; gays as sissies; gays as artsy people etc.

Secondly, the lack of gay histories and cultural capital is surmounted by borrowing readable codes from other hegemonic discourses: the straight virile man; the war conflicts, transition and the corrupt state.

What stands out in this gay-themed film is the fact that there has never been a kiss between Mirko and Radmilo, even in the moments of utmost intimacy. There is an attempt at a kiss upon Radmilo's return home; the two of them lean towards one another to kiss, but they swiftly change their minds and become aware they're being watched by a straight (homophobic?) crowd. This crowd is not just a crowd in the film, but it is also the crowd that watches the film. A part of it might not feel comfortable with seeing a man-on-man kiss on the big theatre screen. Of course, this discomfort in the text is mediated through the characters who are, from the very beginning, expected to disapprove of expressions of intimacy between gays, most notably the character played by Nikola Kojo. What's more, the authors' choice of Nikola Kojo to play the Lemon character, a violent and homophobic war veteran, is another way of relaxing the audience from the gravity of the theme. By recognising Nikola, who is famous for his role of disrespectful womaniser from We're Not Angels (1992), the audience can feel safe about the actor's sexual orientation , and be assured that Lemon's acceptance of gay people is really just a phantasy. Indeed, in the scene when Lemon finally admits to Radmilo that he's doing the right thing supporting the Parade, the audience is faced with another intervention from the 'fictional', meta-filmic reality. Namely, after realising that his most favourite film, Ben-Hur (1959), contains homoerotic connotations, Lemon proceeds to say to Radmilo that "you (faggots) are normal people after all". It is not the point of his speech that is troublesome; rather it is the performance that is unconvincing. It seems as if Lemon, the film character, is reading the lines from a script which has re-written the film script. Simultaneously, Radmilo naturally (authentically) takes a glass holding it like a real man without even having to think about it. His way of holding a glass with the little finger pointed out is a bad habit that Radmilo has to get rid of prior to his journey with Lemon. It is striking that Radmilo's authentic performance of the real manly behaviour coincides with Lemon's authentically inauthentic transformation, almost as if the latter cannot effectuate without the former. 

{niftybox background=#8FBC8F, width=360px} The Parade film forecloses the possibility to conceive gayness as anything else but an instance of an inauthentic political correctness and tolerance. Moreover, the voices of gay people are mediated though the human rights discourses which have been imported from "the outside". The question is, then, what kind of truth does this 'outside-ness' speak about the 'inside-ness' of lives of Serbian gays and lesbians?{/niftybox}

It seems for a moment that Lemon's transformation comes with a high price. During the film, we learn that he is not just a war veteran and fearsome criminal, but he's also a father of a young rebellious man who is the leader of a neo-Nazi gang.