Paris is burning: documentary analysis and cultural impact

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 elaborately whereby contestants adhered to a particular category or theme the catwalk and subsequently be judged on the basis of realness of how they walk the beauty of their clothes and their ability to dance. Most part of the film changes between 6 the footage of the balls and interviews that were done on prominent members of the scenes which includes runway legends and gorgeous voguing such as Pepper LaBeija, Willi Ninja, Venus Xtravaganza, Avis Pendavis. Most of the contestants who vied for the trophies were representing fashion houses within the fashion -- brand scene like House of Chanel which serves international families, performance teams and even social groups. Houses and ball contestants that won in their walks ended up earning legendary status. The voyage ball of late 80s and 90s was a site where there was beauty, transformative glamor and empowerment which is a tradition which still goes on up-to-date. This documentary immortalized a specific moment of Tran's culture and gay in New York before these two were changed forever by the dual clouds of gentrification and AIDS.

1. What does the film reveal about fashion and gender stereotypes?

The film reveals to us an unblinking behind the scenes story of New Yorkers who are obsessed with fashion who ended up creating voguing and drag balls. They ended up turning these raucous celebrations into an expression that was very powerful of personal pride. The world within a word is automatically familiar that is filled with desires, ambitions and yearnings which are a reflection of America. This movie is an intimate portrait of an urban community, a world in which the allure of high fashion and wealth turned out to be an affirmation of acceptance, love and joy. This movie therefore depicts fashion as something very appealing and nice.

The film brings to light people of different gender identities or communities and how they express themselves in different ways.it also explores how those in the film dealt adversely with homophobia, racism and poverty, when it comes to sexual stereotypes we see how Venus Xtravaganza turned out to be sex workers, some shop lifting clothes and some ended up being through out of their homes by their parents who were homophobic. This show how there was a lot of sexual stereotyping in that parents were not accepting their children's sexual orientation.it means that the parents were not open on the idea of gayism or Tran's culture hence they were not ready to accept their children as they were. This is what led to them kicking out their one child from their houses.one of them was saving money in order to carry out a sex reassignment surgery on them. There is also an aspect of realness that is brought out in the film.it explores on exactly who are the real women and men; in the film it is depicted that one can be removed from their position as a poor, black or male and be transformed to a 'very' rich, cultured, gendered in ones own embodied and empowering way. There is also the aspect of passing among ones straight counterparts .in other cases it is normally about passing as the opposite sex and thus giving rise to several transgendered subjects that are identified all through the movie.at the end of the movie the narrator says that 'Its really like going back to the closet'.

However there was a problem in the film since Jennie Livingston never interrogated whiteness within her film this is a clear indication that subcultures mainly depend on the dominant main stream culture. Her film depicts that people look to white culture for the ideals of beuty.in so many ways this film paints a graphic picture of the way white colonized black people in this case the black gay brothers some of whom were drag queens worship and bow down at the throne of whiteness even if this worship demands that people must live in perpetual self-hate, go hungry, steal or even die when they are pursing it. Here it is evoked that black people or people of color are daily bombarded by powerful hands of colonizing whiteness which seduces away from them which negates that there is any kind of beauty that can be found in any form of blackness which is not imitation.

2. How do the participants of New York's drag balls cope with the lack of understanding and tolerance they encounter in their original families and mainstream society?

The Drag is presented as a complex performance of class, gender and race whereby there is an expression of an individual's identity, their desire and what they aspire in life along many dimensions. The African-American and Latinos that are introduced to us in this film include a diverse range of identities and gender presentations from gay men to buthc queens to even Tran's gender women. The film was an exploration of a new subculture within the African-American and Latino cultures which proved to be the microcosm of the society that was underappreciated and the mainstream society was quite unfamiliar with. This are really new concepts in the mainstream society as well as the families that these people come from.it was therefore very hard for the families and the entire society to accept this new lifestyles that their children had adopted.at the same time this children were not ready to let go of their new acquired way of life that came with their participation in the New York balls. However the participants were not in any way bothered by what the society thought of them .they went about with their normal lives as if nothing else matters. This is what helped them to survive in the harsh society, since they were not concentrating too much on what people though of them.