The 2008 Slug Queen – aka Marie Slugtoinette – floated by her subjects Saturday morning, fulfilling her first official royal duty since her coronation: to preside over the Eugene Celebration Parade.
Parade-goers squeezed together to get pictures of this year’s queen, decked-out in a traditional 18th-century, French-style ball gown with a sluggish twist: a silky slime trail coming out the back of the dress and a specially designed slug-shaped scepter.
“Eugene has a great sense of humor,” Constance Van Flandern, the 2008 Slug Queen, said. “It is an icon that can pull everybody together.”
Van Flandern said she is proud of Eugene’s slimy tradition. Whereas most cities opt for a more traditional city queen, for example Portland’s Rose Queen, Eugene took a more bizarre approach.
“We love our slugs!” Van Flandern said.
Van Flandern considers the Slug Queen to be a community organizer – a figure that lightheartedly unites the various sub-cultures of the community.
The Slug Queen pageant, which is an obvious spoof on traditional beauty pageants, was created in 1983 to mock the Eugene Celebration. A former city council member conceived the pageant after the city’s leaders opted against calling the celebration a “Slugfest.”
The pageant, which began privately in the councilwoman’s own backyard, was named the Society for the Legitimization of the Ubiquitous Gastropod. Two years later it was opened to the general public, which has embraced the tradition ever sense.
“I decided I wanted to be the Slug Queen three days after I moved to Eugene,” said Van Flandern, who moved to Eugene from New York in 2002. “I saw the Slug Queen at the Eugene Celebration parade and thought, ‘That’s funny!’”
Contemporary Slug Queens have a long list of civic duties beginning with presiding over the Eugene Celebration Parade, Van Flandern said. Throughout the year the queen is involved in several art shows and is responsible for organizing at least one charitable ball.
The queen is also very involved in the Eugene Celebration and spends a lot of time wandering around the celebration area in full Slugtoinette garb.
“It definitely takes about an hour and a half from when I start getting dressed to actually arriving somewhere – it’s a lot of work,” Van Flandern said. “Yesterday I had to (get dressed) without my handmaiden and I ended up pulling someone off the street who recognized me to help the Slug Queen get dressed.”
Each Slug Queen is responsible for developing and designing his or her own court theme; Van Flandern chose to mimic Marie Antoinette’s 18th-century French court.
Van Flandern’s dress was designed and made by her friend Marjorie Taylor, a University psychology professor.
“Connie can talk anyone into doing anything,” Taylor said. She also created the costumes for all the members of the queen’s court.
The Slug pageant is a three-part competition judged by Eugene’s “old queens,” according to its Web site.
“Once you’re a Slug Queen, you’re always a Slug Queen,” Van Flandern said.
The contestants are judged on their flamboyant costumes, a talent performance, questions to test their wit, and their ability to bribe the judges.
“The bribes can be hilarious,” Van Flandern said. “I went whole-hog, though.”
As her bribe, Van Flandern proposed spreading a “slug-trail” this year both locally and nationally by reaching out to businesses and increasing the society’s presence on the Internet. The Slug Queen now has a Wikipedia entry, which the queen said has brought the society international notoriety, and an extensive, historically accurate Web site.
Several local businesses, including Sweet Life Bakery, Hideaway Bakery and Prince Pücklers, have also started to create and sell Slug Queen products, Van Flandern said.
“It’s good for business and I want students to know about these places,” Van Flandern said. “I’m trying to bring awareness to those places.”
Van Flandern also reached out to the University journalism school to create GastroPOCASTs,which will be short news clips done by University students and posted to the society’s Web site. She hopes to begin Gastro-PODCASTs by October.
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