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Paris is burning achieved the status of controversy when it came out as a documentary that offered a white view of the black and Latino drag world. It is important to understand that Jenny Livingston, the director of the film, is a white lesbian whose sexuality and race had a bearing on the way the film was made and presented.
The film documents the lives and dreams of drag performers in balls that are organized to assess the height of realness in drag experience as presented by the performers. The performers are judged on the realness of their performance. They need to walk and act like fashion models would do on runways and represent their Houses. These houses offer a sense of belonging to gay and transgender community of New York City.
Starring people called Venus Xtravaganza, Willie Ninja and Octavia along with others, Paris is Burning is a commentary on subtle amalgamation of race, gender and class that tends to affect everyone in the houses in some way. This marginalized section of the society is presented mostly through the lens of a white lesbian woman who has been accused of presenting some "female" characters in a way that would satisfy her lesbian fantasies. (Hooks,)
Even though most of the film comes through in the form of interviews...
"Jennie Livingston approaches her subject matter as an outsider looking in. Since her presence as white woman/lesbian filmmaker is "absent" from Paris Is Burning, it is easy for viewers to imagine that they are watching an ethnographic film documenting the life of black gay "natives" and not recognize that they are watching a work shaped and formed from a perspective and standpoint specific to Livingston. By cinematically masking this reality (we hear her ask questions but never see her) Livingston does not oppose the way hegemonic whiteness "represents" blackness, but rather assumes an imperial overseeing position that is in no way progressive or counterhegemonic."
The film has around 20 songs which are sung by some well-known and others not so well-known singers but the most meaningful of them is by songwriter Jerry Herman called "I Am What I Am" from the play La Cage aux Folles, the ultimate Broadway transvestite musical. Artistically the movie is sound. The use of music and light is appropriate but the problem comes in the interpretation of the content.
The…
Reference
Bell hooks, "Is Paris Burning?" Z, Sisters of the Yam column (June 1991)
" Rather the participants described different aspects of the ball and the culture themselves. I think in this film the lack of narration worked well. It let the viewer form their own opinions of what they were seeing without any guidance. Since most of the viewers were probably unfamiliar with such cultures, the lack of narration made the film thought provoking. 4) Native voice -- Did any members of the group
Paris is burning is a documentary released in 1990 by Jennie Livingston and comes forth as a poignant film that talks of patrons of the then still-burgeoning vogue ball scene. This was a safe space for disenfranchised and mostly poor, gay and transfigured Latinos and blacks in a time where it was very deadly to walk down the street as such. This film explores the ball competitions which were structured
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Paris is Burning chronicles the lives of African-American drag queens and gay men during the heyday of the New York City 'vogue-ing' fad. The filmmaker follows several men involved in the scene and shows the release mechanism the theatrical space of the club provide in their lives. The main protagonists are marginal figures in the mainstream world that often denies their existence or threatens them with violence. They are
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