Revisiting Paris is Burning: The quintessential queer film
It’s the 80s in Harlem, New York City—with only a few dollars on their name, sisterhood, and loud bouncy music, they witness Paris burning. Ostracized and segregated from the rest of the white patriarchal city, trans, gay, and queer predominantly queens of color dressed in glamour, danced vogue, and pranced in their safe space—the ball.
More than a reflective documentary of the ball culture, Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning, is a piece of queer herstory. Offering a looking glass for us to revisit, and be reminded of those who came before and fought for us.
Why is Paris Burning?
Coined from Paris Dupree’s 1986 annual ball of the same name, Paris is Burning chronicles the ball culture. In an almost voyeuristic and intimate storytelling, it follows ball personalities Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza. Throughout the film, they tell and show their experiences as queer and trans people, their dreams, aspirations, and the ball.
Outside their ballroom, a hall in Imperial Elks Lodge on West 129th Street, we hear constant cheers and finger snaps. Inside, we see them compete for trophies and recognition, in different categories, with their own houses.
As the film progresses, it schools us on ball culture jargon, teaching us of terminologies shade, reading, voguing, and houses and mothers. The very foundation of the ball culture was made from the houses and mothers of the ball. Although left out of the film, houses were first coined by Crystal LaBeija, the first mother of House of LaBeija. Crystal felt restricted and discriminated against by the earlier version of queer ballroom, which mainly caters to Eurocentric pageantry. Houses and mothers strictly function as nuclear families do—mothers take care of their children and house. As a family, they go to balls to compete in face, body, and realness categories, and eventually gain legendary status.
Who burned Paris?
As highlighted in the film, the balls have the face category where they show off their flawless mugs and bone structure, the body category for their snatched physiques, voguing as their legacy in dancing, and realness. Being robbed of opportunities in the real world, the realness category is where they dress for what could have been. In the film, they had the executive realness competition showing that they can serve businessmen regardless of their socio-economic conditions.
Willi, Pepper, Dorian, Venus, and all the queens in the ball, more than what was shown in Paris is Burning, tore down and burned these categories on the regular. It has become their own realities, their life, and their own being. But beyond their regular commune in the ballroom, they face their inhumane realities.
How can we forget that it was also in this era that these queens and their sisters were being picked upon by death one by one? In their time, AIDS was a worsening epidemic that was strongly believed and tagged as a gay disease. It also did not help that more gay teenagers were being thrown from their homes, and forced to live in the streets. Or that their government could not give a single care for every single queer person dying in the street.
Within the community, cases of trans women forced to sex work and killed by their clients were becoming a norm. In the film, 23-year-old Venus, who aspired to become a model, was strangled to death. She claimed in the film that she no longer works as a prostitute, but went on and talked of “friendly men” buying her gifts.
Paris has burned
“Some of them say that we’re sick, we’re crazy. And some of them think that we are the most gorgeous, special things on Earth.”
This is the unfortunate beauty in the contrast in Paris is Burning, tragically encapsulated in the late Venus’ words. Her story and others that were recorded in this film, in a sense, are tragic and deprecating. But it is a reminder of the past. It is a landmark and a logbook of where the gay community has been, and where it is now.
On the other hand, it is a celebration of how the community triumphed over some of its barricades, and of their culture being recognized and known. It is a celebration of Venus’ life. A celebration of sisterhood captured in film for the whole world to spectate.
More than companions in ball competitions, true to Crystal’s vision, the houses serve as a support system within their community. In a society where people of their image are looked down upon, they hold, praise, and cheer on each other. And as the present queer community continues to be looked down upon, by extension, it is only fitting we give them the same praise, cheer, holding, and hugs as we learned from Paris is Burning.
