Was Granny a ‘Hot Gial’? Today’s Carnival is nothing like the original road march

By Adam Flowers: Belize Carnival has changed dramatically since the modern September version first took to the streets of Belize City in 1975. What began largely as a community celebration involving children, handmade costumes, choreographed dancing and patriotic expression has developed into one of the country’s biggest spectacles—and one with an increasingly adult side that is difficult to separate from an event in which children continue to participate.

Carnival itself was not invented in Belize. Across the Caribbean, carnival developed from older European pre-Lenten celebrations that were transformed over centuries through African, Creole and other cultural influences. Belize itself also has much older pre-Lenten Carnaval traditions among Mestizo communities in the north and in San Pedro. What emerged in Belize City in 1975, however, was something different: a Carnival deliberately incorporated into the September Celebrations rather than the Christian calendar of Lent.

And while the idea was borrowed from a broader tradition, there is little question that over the following half-century Belizeans made September Carnival their own. Local costume designers, dancers, musicians, mas bands, families and communities transformed it into a distinctly Belizean institution and one of the most anticipated events on the national September calendar.

The modern Carnival’s beginnings have been traced to efforts to inject new life into the September 10 celebrations. Henry Young of the Committee of Forty is credited with helping promote street dancing, while Crystal Vernon, June Singh, Alice Williams, Myrtle Flowers and Maud Williams—who formed Belizean Women for Cultural Preservation—helped pioneer the movement by creating costumes for their children and neighborhood youngsters. Dance instructor Solie Arguelles also brought students from her dance school into the early parade.

Those early accounts paint a very different picture from Carnival today. Costumes were handmade from whatever materials could be found. Children practiced choreographed routines. Music was comparatively modest, sometimes provided by small groups of drummers rather than giant speaker trucks, and organizers spoke openly about patriotism, creativity, discipline and giving children something positive to remember.

As Carnival expanded, however, so did its exposure to the wider Caribbean carnival culture. Belizean groups participated in Miami Carnival during the late 1980s, bringing home new approaches to costumes, music and movement. Trinidadian influence also became more pronounced, including through costume-design workshops and the later introduction of two-piece outfits and elaborate backpack-style pieces.

The result has been a more spectacular Carnival—but also, critics argue, a more sexualized one.

That criticism is hardly new. More than a decade ago, original organizer Solie Arguelles publicly lamented the direction Carnival had taken, particularly where children were concerned, telling News Five, “This is not what we wanted.” The Carnival Association itself had already moved years earlier to require junior participants to be more fully clothed and to discourage dance moves considered appropriate for adults rather than children.

Today, adult Carnival costumes can range from elaborate full-body creations to extremely revealing bikini-style designs, while wining, grinding and close-contact dancing have become common features of the road experience. For consenting adults, such behaviour may simply represent freedom, celebration and Caribbean-style revelry. But Carnival does not take place inside an adults-only venue. Children are dancing in the parade, standing along the route and watching the same performances.

Alcohol has also become deeply intertwined with the wider Carnival experience. Spectators routinely spend hours socializing and drinking before the bands reach their section of the route. After disorder during the 2023 Carnival, then National Celebrations Commission chairman Francis Fonseca noted that people along Baymen Avenue had been drinking for hours before the parade arrived and acknowledged the policing problems that can result when heavily energized crowds mix with alcohol. That same Carnival saw multiple street brawls, including an incident in which bottles were thrown between groups.

Such incidents should not be used to characterize every Carnival or every reveler. Many years pass with few serious problems, and thousands attend peacefully. But fights and other episodes of disorder have become recurring concerns surrounding Carnival and the wider September festivities. Police reported smaller fights during the 2025 event and arrested a 14-year-old who was allegedly found carrying a loaded 9mm pistol following an altercation.

The more troubling question, however, concerns children.

During the 2024 Carnival Road March, a video circulated showing an adult female reveler dancing sexually against a young boy. The Belize Carnival Association publicly condemned the behaviour, while Commissioner of Police Chester Williams confirmed that police were investigating. Association president Patrick Thompson said junior bands are deliberately required to be fully clothed because organizers do not want children being preyed upon.

That incident cannot fairly define an entire cultural celebration. But neither should it simply be dismissed as Carnival bacchanal.

Belize is simultaneously confronting a much wider national discussion about the protection of children from sexual abuse, exploitation and inappropriate adult behaviour. In April 2026, UNICEF Belize warned that a series of incidents involving violence and sexual abuse against children pointed to the need for collective action and stressed that violence against children “must never be normalized or excused.”

That makes the boundaries surrounding a family-accessible national celebration worthy of discussion.

None of this erases Carnival’s enormous cultural value. Over more than half a century it has provided a platform for costume designers, dancers, musicians and artists; strengthened community bonds; generated economic activity; and become one of the signature events of Belize’s September Celebrations. It began as an adaptation, but Belizeans have unquestionably turned it into a Belizean tradition.

But becoming a tradition does not place something beyond criticism.

The Carnival of 1975 and the Carnival of today exist in almost different worlds. One was overwhelmingly associated with children, handcrafted costumes, choreographed dancing and community participation. Today’s version is bigger, louder, more commercially significant and more visually spectacular—but it also carries a stronger culture of alcohol, adult revelry and overt sexuality.

Perhaps the choice is not between returning Carnival to 1975 and accepting everything that happens in its name today. There may instead be room for clearer boundaries: preserving the freedom and expression of adult Carnival while protecting spaces in which children participate; celebrating sensuality among consenting adults without normalizing adult sexual behaviour involving minors; and allowing people to drink and enjoy themselves without accepting violence and disorder as simply another part of the bacchanal.

After more than half a century, Carnival has earned its place as a Belizean tradition.

The harder question is whether everything that has become attached to that tradition deserves to be preserved with it.