Paris is Burning

By: Amos Lassen

"Paris Is Burning"

Out of the Closet and Onto the Runway

Amos Lassen

I am sure that there are those who have wondered why I have never posted a review of Jennie Livingston's wonderful film about the drag scene in New York City in the 80s. The film is basically a chronicle of the balls, the dancing and the ambitions of those who participated. When the documentary was released in 1990 by Miramax we saw upfront and personally a lot about the racial, social and sexual politics of tucking and binding our male parts and wearing dresses. This is the world of cross-dressing flamers and it is theater that encompasses both communal acceptance and making fun of the gender roles dictated by society. However, what is hard to see here is when does parody and satire end and desire begin. Dorian Corey, the drag historian of the film, for example, has an obsession with reality and in a sense this puts him back in the closet. For others like Pepper LaBeija, performing at drag balls is a transformative experience.

Livingston's camera is nonjudgmental and she gets both sides and shows the balls to be creating a family in a place that is far from the demands of white America. There are rules, rituals and even a language at the balls and there is everything else from dissing to pantomime. The balls are quite different from the usual New York street violence. What we see in the film are contrasts between fantasy and reality, between dreams and nightmares, between pretending and being. There are a few times that we see the streets of New York, midtown Manhattan where everyday people walk, shop, eat and talk. Then we go to the balls where there is nothing ordinary. The gymnasiums in the basements of buildings are transformed into showrooms where the subjects of the film hang out and perform for one another. There are themes to the balls-military, schoolboy, executive. Those who participate are mostly African Americans and they try to look as real as possible. As the film moves forward it becomes more difficult to separate how the people look and who they are.

We now know that Madonna's hit song, "Vogue", is linked to the dancing at the balls. We see an exotic world where not much is as it seems, an encapsulation of New York at the end of the 80s where a group of outcasts make a home using ingenuity and theft. They are divided into houses which are like gangs and/or families.

Many of the people who went to the balls are gone now; victims to AIDS are to sexual violence. Right before the movie was finished, Venus Xtravaganza, one of the brightest lights, was beaten to death in a prostitution deal gone bad. Since the movie was originally released others have also died or been killed.

The film is "a no-frills foray into the all-frills world of '80s Harlem drag balls. Shooting from the hip, the documentary captures the raw energy of this once-underground subculture in which aspirational fashions and impromptu catwalk displays let poor black kids fantasize about being rich and shameless".