On
director Jennie Livingston’s web site she describes her controversial 1991
movie Paris is Burning as ‘depicting a New York fashion subculture’.
This documentary, she goes on to explain, was shot in the late 1980s, and
examines how a community of Black and Latino gay and transgender New Yorkers
build sustenance, creativity, and family. The film sets out to explore ballroom
culture; re-defines words like house, mother, shade, voguing and Realness and
draw’s a series of incisive character portraits about the people involved in
what is a vibrant time capsule of New York’s ballroom subculture in the 80s.
Livingston’s
documentary was seven years in the making and followed African American and
Hispanic gay men, drag queens and transgender women as they compete in “Balls”
which are fierce and fun competitions involving fashion runways and vogue dancing battles, while
sporting various styles that include Butch Queen, Town and Country and Luscious
Body. Many of the contestants taking part represent “Houses” which serve them as
surrogate families and social groups for a predominantly youthful community
largely ostracized from mainstream society. But what the movie really does is that
it explores the complex issues of class, race, identity, and the transformative
powers of both dance and performance.
The
most interesting parts of the film are the interviews with key members of the
community who take part in the Balls, which helps unlock our understanding of
this colourful and entertaining culture. The saddest story is that of Venus
Xtravaganza who is heavily featured in the documentary and was a transgender
performer and an aspiring model who was saving money for her sex reassignment
surgery before she was murdered at the age of 23.
This
highly regarded documentary won several awards including a Sundance Film
Festival Grand Jury Prize and Teddy Bear Award at the Berlin International Film
Festival. Last year (2016),
the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film
Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant".
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