Paris is Burning with DoctorJonPaul

And we particularly like it when it's a narratively relevant conversation or just something significant and not just like Hi, how's the weather or whatever?

just want to say I'm very proud of you. And I was like, thanks, Mom, So yeah, So I'm very much in the mind of like, I'm happy that it landed with her. I was worried for a moment, but it landed, so.

take to write a book. I started. I went to a Lambda literary retreat back in twenty seventeen, started playing with the idea of writing a book there, and it just kind of set in my Google drafts forever. And then the pandemic came and all my friends wrote books, and everyone got one, you know, everyone got one in or even got two in, and I was just still kind of like, no, no, no, no, I don't think I could do it. And then I just got to

a point. You know what ended up happening was I was, you know, playing with it, going back and forth with different agents. And then in twenty twenty three ish, you know, or twenty twenty four, actually, I went to sun Dance and I saw the Luther documentary. And I tell everybody that that was kind of like the catalyst of me wanting to be like, oh god, I know what I'm writing.

I saw the documentary, I saw the way that they danced around his queerness, how they didn't talk about his queerness, but also how they did, And I said, you know, there's got to be a way for us to kind of celebrate, you know, like even just looking at Luther and looking at Luther's story, I went back into my own memories about how I thought about queerness from the lens of how my family talked about Luther. And that's

kind of how I opened the book. I talk about the idea of how people what they said and what they didn't say about Luther and what that said to me as a young queer kid in southern California. And so I basically get to a point where I start talking about this idea of how I literally had to figure out how to find myself through media, like writing about Luther and his experience and what I got from that. It really helped me understand how I found myself through media.

And so that's really what the book is. I talk about Luther, and again it's not about his sexuality per se. It's about all the things I was afraid to delve into because of how my family talked about Luther. And then my first time meeting Andre Leon Talley on the show America's next top model, Miss Jay, you know, Derek j. Miss Lawrence, Like all of these black queer figures I'm seeing in television and what that's telling me about my own identity and how I'm learning through them to find myself.

So it's a lot of you know, there's also like moments I talk about what happened to me in college. I talk about fat phobia. I talk about the idea of how much we live, Like how the two thousands lie to us. I talk very, very very vocally about how much the two thousands was. It was just it was shit. It was awful, Like the two thousands was terrible.

So that's really what it is. But yeah, that's pretty much what my book is. In a nutshell, it's just kind of an ode and a celebration of those who came before us and those who are still here because I know that no one else is going to give them their flowers, and so ultimately I thought, why not? Why not me? Why not I do that?

to indulge anything that had queer content. And so I didn't really get to Paris's Burning until probably two thousand and four. And so this is a time where you know, I know about ball room, you know, miss right. I know I know about it, but I don't know it per se right. And so in two thousand and four, I'm in college, you know, I take an Art of film class and that was one of you know, Aaron Race may may he rest in peace. He was one

of I'm gonna say he was my favorite instructor. But I really appreciate it the way he did his class. He did his class, and so it was an art of film and I was very much into writing at the time, and he basically had positive you know, this is what a good you know, a good drama is, this is what a good comedy is, and this is what a good documentary is. And so Paris Is Burning was the documentary that he posited for that class. We

watched it in class. It was a four hour It was a summer class, and so the summer classes were hell along. If anybody's ever taken the summer class out of college, you know, you're in class for like six hours. And so, you know, we watched the class. We watched the film for two hours, and then we worked in groups and we had to dissect what made the documentary great. And that was my first, you know, entrance into that film.

And I think what I really loved about the film was that it was giving so many people, specifically trans women or non binary people. It was giving them airtime, like they had a voice. And I had never seen anyone who looked like you know, Peppala Basia or anyone who looked like, you know, Willie Ninja or anything like that, and so it just felt like I was like, oh

my god, these are my people. Even though this film was made almost fifteen years ago, you know, I still feel like I found my home right, and so it was just it was a very awakening. I feel like the film really awakened something in me in regards to not only narrative storytelling, but it also awakened kind of this notion of like, wow, this is a subculture, you know, in a subculture that I feel like I have some type of home in if that makes sense.

so thanks miss Bolani shout out to her. But I mean, I just remember, you know, being this like big class full of teenagers that you know, it was whatever, the late two thousands, So some kids were total assholes, but most of most everyone was like really really really pulled in.

I had never seen a documentary like it before. I think at that point, perhaps tragically, the closest I was familiar with was like the Madonna Vogue music video that I was like obsessed with anytime, like my mom would turn it on for me, which I you know, that is an element of this very complicated conversation around ballroom culture and how white celebrities have sort of co opted

it over the years. But when I saw Paris Is Burning, I was like, oh, this is what this is, this is what she saw, and was like, you know, I want to present this in my whatever Madonna way, But yeah, I was really taken with it, particularly obviously, I mean we'll talk about everyone in the in the film, particularly Venus, and yeah, I don't know, I just I was really taken by it, and I hadn't revisited it in years, and I had just rewatched it anyways, because I've been

working on a project about this feels weirdly tangential but drag in comedy, because I interviewed that do you remember the YouTube video with Kelly.

and also like revisiting it. I was so happy to see again just how inclusive the world of this documentary is and how I mean, like you're saying, John, how you know on drag race trans people weren't allowed to compete for years and years in this really restrictive way. And again, like Paris is Burning is the real deal. It is a full community, and it's just it's beautiful. So it's really fun to revisit. Caitlyn, what is your history with this field?

Boys Don't Cry in high school. I watched it many many times, but of course that is an example of a SIS actor playing a trans character slash trans real life person, So I think, yeah, seeing this documentary was probably, if not the first, one of the very first times I saw an actual transperson on screen, and I learned a lot, and I enjoyed the documentary very much. But like you, Jamie, I hadn't revisited it in many, many years, so I was very excited to dive back in and

revisited it. And there's so much to talk about. It's really interesting to see the ways in which, like things discussed in the documentary are still very relevant and also some of the ways in which things feel quite dated by our standards today. So lots to discuss. Excited to get into it. Before we do. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap and we're back, okay. So here's the recap of Paris is Burning.

It's a little tricky to do a recap for a documentary because it doesn't follow, you know, a standard narrative three x structure. But I think I did a pretty swell job here. But feel free to jump in and fill in any blanks. But this is, of course, a documentary about the ballroom scene in New York City, specifically

Harlem in nineteen eighty seven. Ballroom, of course, referring to a subculture of the LGBTQ plus community, where predominantly black and LATINX queer folk put on balls, which are shows slash competitions where participants walk on a runway, so to speak, they model their outfit. There is often a component of drag and or costumes. There's often dancing, especially voguing. There are different categories.

be a woman's jacket. So it just I felt it was important to note that because I think as much as it was fun and celebratory, it was also there was a lot of drama. There was a lot of.

was eighteen months. So January I've spent, let me tell you, right, And so I went to Creating Change back last month, I should say, and they had a ball there. It was an actual ball, and it was the same thing.

It was very much like as I'm watching the event play out at Creating Change, I'm watching, like, you know, Paris's burning play out in my head, where you have people who are like legends coming up to walk and they're being cut off by people who think that they are currently a legend, and so now there's tension between

people and who's walking. What It's just, it was. It was fun, but I could see like Paris is burning playing out in my head as I'm watching the ball take place, So it's still present, It's still present.

Corey shortly after this, another legend. In the scene, Dorian Corey talks about the differences between Ballroom now aka in the late eighties when this documentary was filmed, and Ballroom from when Dorian was first starting out, which I believe would have been I don't know if it was like the fifties or sixties. But first it was like elaborate drag where people were dressing similar to like Vegas showgirls.

Then it was people trying to emulate movie stars. Then it became about emulating model like supermodels walking down the runway. As time went on, more categories were created to be more inclusive. So there's categories like high fashion, winter sportswear, luscious body, schoolboy slash schoolgirl, realness, town and Country, executive realness, military, high fashion, eveningwear, and a very specific category butch Queen first time in drags at a ball, to name just a few of the categories.

to survive. And I think, you know, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but what I will say is that I think that them opening talking about that, right about this classism that lives in it, you know, that lives in this ball world, really says a lot to what's actually happening to them outside of these ballrooms, right, Like, it's really giving you a greater understanding of what the disparity was, and I thought it was actually very interesting.

I forget who it was, I have such a hard time remembering names, but the woman who was talking about wanting to go model, and you know, and how they did that inner cut to all at the time, it's you know, very eighties, but you know all these high level fashion you know, high level stores and all of these high level things, right even and then you you

talk about like even just the different categories. I think one of the category was dynasty, right, so the whole notion of you know, people trying to pretend to be opulent and you know, I want to say herbaceous, but I don't know if that's the right word. But like, you just had a lot of people trying to live in a financial category that they could never attain, at

least in that moment or in that time. It was very very far fetched and it was really hard for them to attain it, and so they were playing this out in different categories in the ball and I always thought that was so interesting.

which is characterized as realness. In this context. Realness also refers to passing as a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth. There's lots we can discuss there as well. Pepper Labasia talks about her parents discovering that she had breasts and wore women's clothing, and how she was ostracized for this. Side note here, From what I understand, Pepper Lebasia had breast implants and preferred she

her pronouns, but did not identify as a woman. She goes into this a little bit later in the documentary, but she talks about how young teens would come to her looking for a parental figure after they've been kicked out of their house for being queer, and this kind of leads into a discussion of found family chosen family, which is connected to houses in the ballroom community where people belong to different houses such as the house of Labasia,

House of Chanel, House of Dupre, house of Extravaganza, etc.

you know, yeah, mopping. That's when you know, you go into a store and you see something and you see something that you want, and then you're looking at it and you look at the thing you want. Mopping is stealing. So yeah, it's basically you just take the outfit you want and you don't pay for it. And it's because again racism and homophobia and transphobia and all of these systemic prejudices make it so that members of this community are often living in poverty, and we also learn that

many of them earn money through sex work. There is discussion of gender and transitioning and gender affirming surgeries, where different people who are interviewed have different opinions and experiences, where in some cases we see trans women living openly and happily as such, people like Octavia's Stan Laurent Brooke and Carmen Extravaganza Venus Extravaganza, and then in other cases,

especially when Pepper Labasia is talking about it. There are like just more sort of dated attitudes and hints of transphobian misogyny. We can talk more about that, and then we cut to nineteen eighty nine, so a few years have passed. We check back in with a few of the major plays of the scene, such as Willie, Ninja, Dori and Corey and Angie Extravaganza, who says that Venus Extravaganza had been murdered. She was the one who had to go and identify the body and pass the news

along to Angie Extravaganza's biological family. And that's the note more or less that the documentary ends on. So that is Paris is burning in a nutshell. Let's take another quick break and then we'll come back to discuss further.

family is the only people who always love you. And then you come out and then they're like, no, I don't just kidding, you know, just kidding by you have to go and so, you know, finding people that you you vibe with, people who truly are there for you and care for you and want to see you not just you know, survive, but like really thrive. That's the thing.

You know. As much as I always thought Dorian and Pepper were really shady, I could tell by the way they talked about their chosen you know, the folks in their different homes and their houses. You could tell that there was just this very deep love and admiration that they both had for the people in their houses. And you know, I don't if you don't have you know,

I'll say this. If you're a listener and you identify as straight and sists, I think there's just this And maybe I don't know how the two of you identify, but I know for me, the friends that I have and the community I've built, it's the same concept, right, you can genuinely feel that they just want the best for you. And so this film really kind of opened my mind up to that of, like, you don't necessarily have to just rely on your family to be happy.

In this world. You can find people who truly want the best for you, and you can live and thrive and be happy and have a full live life, and you can also have fun. As much as these balls were shady and you know, drama was going down, there were moments where people were really happy, and there were moments when people were celebrating, you know, each other, And

so I just thought that was really funny. And the last thing I'll say, I always thought it was really funny in the scene where Dorian is talking and that cat is walking behind her, Oh my god. I always said that Dorian reminds me of like, not, lady, what movie is that with the cat? It's a Disney movie. And for his New Groove, there's another movie where these cats are walking and they're just really is it the Siamese Ones? We are Siamese. It's always in the Lady

in the Tramp. Okay, I was right. I was gonna say that, but I wasn't wasn't sure she reminds me of like a Siamese cat in the sense of like she just knows she's regal, she just knows she's better than everyone else. And I was like, it just was so funny to me as I was watching that doc I was like, of course there would be a cat behind her because her personality is so much like a Siamese cat. So it's just I thought that was funny.

You're just seeing the families. There is no like, you know, mental hoops that you have to go through to feel seen in a movie like Paris is Burning and that's so singular and so, you know, not completely unheard of at this time, but certainly on it seems like this scale of success, which is really amazing but brings me there's something I wanted to just touch on that. I mean, I wasn't aware really about anything when it came to the production of this movie, and wow, there's a lot.

There's a lot going on that have also echoed conversations we've had before. I did not know that this movie was directed by a white woman, for example. But the director of this movie, Jenny Livingston, directed it when she was in I believe her late twenties. It's her first feature, and that and other elements of this production has garnered

quite a bit of controversy over the years. I think rightfully so Jenny Livingston, I can share some quotes, but has generally stood her ground on this that there's a few different buckets of conversation and how Paris's Burning has been criticized. It's been criticized for having a white director and primarily featuring Black and Latin people in this community.

There's also a compensation that I would really like to talk about because it reminds me a lot of way back when when we covered Tangerine by Sean Baker, where because white filmmakers statistically have a better chance of getting their film made scene and profiting from it, while it can produce really amazing work. It doesn't mean that those who are featured, like the entire cast of Paris Is Burning, is getting equally compensated for literally making the movie. What

it is not that Jenny Livings and did nothing. Obviously a lot of great work went into making this film, but it's their stories and that is the appeal of the film. And so there's been a lot of conversation about that. At the time. I mean, this gets into like one of my pet peeves, so we'll I'll just shut up about it as quickly as possible. But compensating interviewees and how taboo that is across nonfiction filmmaking. I

just think it's such a crack of shit. But you know, when this film was being made, that was the general agreement that you know, everyone signed off and agreed to. But as is unpacked in both Hollywood Reporter article from a twenty twenty one and a Vanity Fair article from twenty nineteen that reflects on this, a lot of why the subjects of this film agreed to do it is

because they really wanted their stories out there. And so there is the argument that cast members have subsequently made that like, yes, I did sign the piece of paper. I wanted our community and I wanted my story out there. I agreed to not be compensated. But then the movie was acquired by Miramax and one stuff at sun Dance, and you know, eventually made four million dollars and is the basis of polls. And who's seen most of that money is Jenny Livingston, and so there have been rivalries.

It does, I guess to her credit. It seems like Jenny Livingston has you know, attempted to correct this overtime. But it was it was a long, a long standing conversation. I won't unpack it beat by beat because it's literally thirty five years of back and forth. But I do want to share a quote from Jenny Livingston defending herself as a white woman. Let's see what she has to say. This is her, you know, disputing that Paris's Burning was

made for white people. She says, the sense that this was a production by white pa before white people, that's not historical. That is a projection rather than a truth. You have to see paris Is Burning in the context of nonfiction. She said versions of this over the years. What she mainly appears to be alluding to is the fact that she feels that this erases many of her

black collaborators who were working as producers and consultants. But the compensation issue, I think there's just she doesn't have much of a leg to stand on, I feel. So I wanted to share a quote from Pepper, who is now, as is most of the cast of this movie is

no longer with us. But this is from an interview Pepper did when she was forty four, So nineteen ninety three, a California magazine said I had sued Miramax in one untold millions and was seen shopping with Diana Ross on Rodeo Drive in a roles But I really just live in the Bronx with my mom, and I am so desperate to get out of here. It's hard to be the mother of a house when you're living with your

own mother. And so, as we've seen for many marginalized performers, there is a lot of publicity, there's this big cultural moment, but it doesn't translate to sustained financials, and that is always, always, always the case. I know we talked about it with Tangerine as well, but it really stands out here too where it's you know, a very similar you know, one's fiction, one's nonfiction, but a very similar setup where the white filmmaker makes a really good film but does not compensate

her collaborators appropriately. And it seems like I want to wait, there's so many names. Let me see if I can find the three names I'm looking for. As of twenty twenty one, there were still three surviving cast members from Paris Is Burning. I actually didn't know that Poe's was like based based on Paris's Burning. I know there's I knew that they were like they both surround ballroom culture,

but it's like officially based. Jenny Livingston was a consultant on the first two seasons, and that is a Ryan Murphy joint. And we don't have enough time to unpack

Ryan Murphy today. But the surviving cast members were invited to be consultants, including Junior le Beajia, who is in Paris Is Burning, but he was the one of three that said no because he felt that there it was history repeating itself with Poe's being another story about predominantly black and brown communities in ballroom, this time by Ryan Murphy.

So it's again there's a white creative at the top, and he's like, you know, I would love to get a check here, but like you're doing it again, and it's you know, twenty five years later, so we can link those pieces in the description. But yeah, I mean, this was just a conversation I was not aware of at all and found very interesting.

you just love it? And no, I didn't love it, for in many ways, the film was a graphic documentary portrait of the way in which colonized black people, in this case black gay brothers, some of whom were drag Queen's worship at the throne of whiteness, even when such worship demands that we live in perpetual self hate, steal,

go hungry, and even die in its pursuit. We evoked here is all of us black people, slash people of color, who are daily bombarded by a powerful colonizing whiteness that seduces us away from ourselves, that negates that there is beauty to be found in any form of blackness that

is not imitation whiteness. And I see where she's coming from with this criticism because different people being interviewed in the documentary will say things like how they long to be rich, and they point out that part of the appeal of balls is that you can be whoever you want to be at a ball and you can live a fantasy of being able to be an executive or a socialite or other type of wealthy person because society will not afford you those opportunities if you are black, brown, queer.

But this mentality of putting being wealthy on a pedestal and emulating business ex executives and like doing ceo drag.

so normalized. And you know, pre Internet, there weren't as many ways or resources to educate yourself or to spread information widely except by mainstream media, which was perpetuating these white supremacist, capitalist, cis, heteronormative ideologies. And I know Bell Hooks's criticism is like, yeah, but you still can and

should interrogate those things. So why didn't this documentary which also fair, but like, I don't know, it's very tricky, and it also just speaks to how influential media is, where ballroom contestants through the decades were you know, emulating movie stars and characters from shows like Dynasty, which I was like, oh, yeah, that is a show that I've never watched and don't know anything about, but it was very popular in the eighties.

five thirty five? Okay, so we're thirty five years out from this film. You know, even thirty five years ago, there were folks who were still dealing with a lot of the stuff we're dealing in twenty twenty five. And I think that's, like I said, the thing that I love is that you see the resilience of these people saying, you know, regardless, I'm going to live the life I want to live, i want to be happy, I'm going

to find my people, I'm going to find joy. But also, like I think that's the real issue I had with the film is that we don't interrogate anything like we leave these people kind of where we found them, Like it's very much. We see you in squalor. We see

that you're going through it. We see that you're unhappy to an extent, and you're using ballroom to find joy, but we're not offering you any resources to get you to a place where when you're done with this ball you have somewhere to go to your head where you feel safe, you feel seen, you have you know, you have your means. And so I think that that's the thing that gets lost in translation, is you know, and I've had to say this on so many different accords.

I actually just sent an email about this this week. You know, I don't need a handout. I just need a hand And I think that's the thing that you know, I think a lot of people in the early nineties, especially when we're coming out of Reaganomics, we're watching black and brown people say these systems are set up to watch me fail, and I'm doing my best to survive

them and survive through them. And the best way I know how to do that is through sex work, you know, to the degree like I'm looking around and I'm going help these people, like give them something like but then you also have to interrogate. Okay, if Jenny did come in and she was like, here's some money, then people

would be interrogating her and calling her the white savior, right. So, but I think that there's just there's so many levels to oppression, and I think the biggest thing that I want folks in my rambling to hear is that there, you know, we all have to be so intentional about how we're just I won't even say reporting, because I don't think anyone really reports on our stories anymore. But I think the way that we talk about, you know, the injustices that we face, right, there is an element

of privilege that's there. And I think that there's so much education you have to do to make sure that when you're going into a community that is oppressed, or when you're going into a community that needs that kind of help, that you've done your own intentional work to make sure that you're not causing more harm. And I think that's the thing that is most important for me

about watching this film. It's like, yes, it's funny, and it's created such a you know, a culturally thing, and I mean ru Paul is mentioning this film like almost every season. At this point, he's had seventeen seasons of Drag Race and he comes up every single season. But I think the biggest thing is is that you have so many people who are still oppressed and are still striving to find peace after the ball, and it's like, what do we do? What do we do to end that?

What do we do to help get these people the resources that they need so that way they're not left for, you know, left And I'm trying to be mindful of my words because I saw your your note.

kind of how the film ends. And it's like no one said or did anything about that, right, you know, So I don't know, it's just it's it's like I said, it's it's it's uplifting, but it's like I guess my and I'm trying not to get into my social justice soapbox. But I'm like, why is it that we're always having to be resilient? Like why why why do people enjoy watching us struggle and and try to find joy in that? And you know, and I get this all the time too,

even with me. You know, oh, you have a book coming out, you have a podcasting, you want to warns it's so great, and it's like I shouldn't have to be celebrated for all that I've been through to get to where I am, like, I don't don't do that. We shouldn't have to do that. So yeah, it's just something I think a lot about after watching this film.

us and and and then didn't give us anything. And so it's just there's so much to say about entertainment, which is like white.

It is that most of the documentaries made about underground cultures, about queer cultures were made by queer black and brown filmmakers, and so they just never got the attention or distribution. The filmmaker I've seen most mentioned in this conversation who was making films around the same time, around a lot of the same themes, and had a personal connection to these communities was Marlon Riggs, who directed I think four documentaries. He passed of complications from AIDS when he was just

thirty seven. But this was a filmmaker who was working at the time of Paris is burning, but his work

was never spotlighted. And then you see, you know, Jenny Livingston, who is a complete you know, admitted it's not like she's pretending that she has, you know, intense connection to this culture, but she's a complete outsider and it's her project that gets the financing, that gets the sun dance, accolades and all that, which is again just something a pattern we say repeated in entertainment over and over and over and over.

And she says that she would never recommend anyone have that type of surgery because, oh what if they change their mind? And oh, being a woman in the world is hard. Why would you want to subject yourself to the mistreatment and abuse and misogyny that women have to face, which you know, when we watch this in twenty twenty five, we realize that's a very like antiquated, enrigid way of

thinking about identity and transitioning. And it's like steeped in this idea of your genitals determine your gender and it's okay to deny someone something they want because I assume that they will change their mind about what they want and all these things. And I mean, I appreciate that that is represented in this documentary just to show that there are differing viewpoints, because that's also like juxtaposed, right, next to trans women living happy lives as trans women

who have had gender affirming surgery. And it was just interesting to see those opinions being included in the documentary because and you hate to see it, but there are and have been prejudices within marginalized communities. You know, it's not constant solidarity all the time, especially in an era like the eighties but also up to and including now.

so intermixed in the ballroom scene. And that's something that also is touched on quite a bit and decolonized drag and just its criticisms of drag race and how it doesn't always or hasn't always promoted true inclusion, and yeah, I appreciated like seeing especially, I mean like it. I don't know. I also did not remember how Venus's life ended, which is still, I mean, to this day all too common of trans folks being murdered and no one doing anything to seek out I mean, who had done it,

because they're just not treated. While I thought of like Sam Nordquist who was just found killed a transman in Minnesota, and I mean, there's just so many, so many, so many examples from over the years. And to note that Venus, you know, was I Belave Italian and Puerto Rican, was supporting herself through sex work and was found killed is just it's so devastating. And I don't know. I mean, I guess I don't know what I wanted the movie to do with that, but I just I don't know.

I guess I wasn't trying to make a point, it just was. It was really tragic and horrible and it's still something that we're very much dealing with now.

So that's something that I think, you know, I if there are any documentarians out there who's who's listening to this and are thinking, oh, I want to do this documentary or I want to I want to do this type of research, I think this film is a great place to kind of come back and to like examine and say, like, what are all of the things that Genny did right? And what are all the things that Genny did wrong, especially when you're working with marginalized people.

Because even for me, right as someone who loves I'll tell you right now, I will tune into I'm I was watching one last night, the Parpito documentary on Netflix, and there is a documentary. But yes, if it's a

true crime anything, mama is locked in. But I will say to to that point, I think, you know, we we have to There's got to be an element, especially when we're dealing with marginalized people, that we have to be very mindful demure and even I would even challenge to be you know, to be cautious about how we're how we're framing you know, stories and stories lines. But yeah, I will say that I do appreciate that there is you know, joy, We're still left with joy from the film.

And even now, you know, like I said, when I watch shows that reference and I watch movies that reference that, or even you know, I revisited Polls a couple of months ago. It was just really it was affirming to see the impact that this documentary had on so many people, even now, like you said, thirty five years later.

I don't think it was intending to be dismissive, but I think, like, like we've all said at this point, it just felt like and then this happened and it was happy, and then this happened and it was sad. These are the two outcomes, thank you, good night, And it's just like, well.

resonant now that it just feels like is either just referenced in passing or like doesn't really come up. And I think that like Bill Hooks was right to criticize the audience reactions. That's if that's the audience's takeaway of likeugh, loved it anyways, brunch time, Like then there you know you can't control how people receive your work, but that does feel like a failure of the documentary to some degree.

think it was for Slade. I wrote it for And I will say this, I actually was in the mind you know, actually while I was writing the article, one of the things that I had picked up on was that folks who were connected to this film back in the nineties, they didn't want this to become because again, we were living in a political state, right, we had to act up, folks, you know, things going on and act up. We were five, we were only maybe four or five years into the you know, the AIDS crisis,

and so there's all of these things. And so I think, to an extent, you know, one of the justifications of Jenny leaving this stuff out is. I don't want this to become a political film, right, I don't want this to be about, you know, the politics of being black

and queer. I just wanted to celebrate ballroom. I wanted to celebrate a culture and that's it, right, Okay, fair, but me, especially me from an intersectional lens, right, we cannot just talk about blackness and queerness and ball community without talking about the politics of being black and queer at this time. So it's almost like, you know, like, like I said, I understand what she was trying to do, But at the same time, we have the term intersectionality

being coined in eighty nine. So I'm thinking to myself, well, why wasn't this film done from an intersectional lens where we're watching oppression, you know, asking the question right and formulating our questions from this place of how is oppression impacting those who participate in ballroom?

I get it. But what I'm saying is is I think that, you know, like I said to my point earlier, I think we have to be when we're creating art and where, you know, we're trying to tell a story, we have to sometimes get away from the fear of it quote unquote being too political because we are political.

of them died because of complications related to AIDS. And I don't know, I mean, it's like definitely not I'm not the person to determine how much does that factor into this narrative or not. But I've seen the criticism around like where is you know?

ballroom a little bit. Its origins trace back to the mid eighteen hundreds, where, for example, a person by the name of William Dorsey Swan, a formerly enslaved person and the first person to describe themselves as a drag queen, started hosting secret balls in Washington, DC in the I think late eighteen hundreds. Many of the attendees of these balls were black men. They would be arrested in police raids frequently, but the balls would continue. They caught on.

Other cities started them. By the eighteen nineties, there were similar drag events organized in New York. By nineteen thirty, there were similar events in Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia,

other cities. They were generally racially integrated, although there was a lot of race within that space, and so by the nineteen sixties, there was you know, predominantly black balls, you know, black and brown balls, because they were like, we don't want to deal with the racism in these integrated spaces because the white people are treating us badly.

And then that led to a lot of the houses that we see represented in Paris's Burning, where for example, like Crystal Liabasia founded the House of Liabysia in Harlem in the early seventies and that was, you know, part of the kind of origins of the specific scene that we see represented in the movie. But anyway, there's much more information. Again I'm not an expert, but I feel like a documentary today would have been like where did

ballroom come from? You know, and it would have like gone through that history quite a bit more.

but not heavily featured or interviewed. And so I was like, oh, interesting that you call the documentary Paris is Burning after Paris Dupree's event, but like it's not really a feature or interview Paris de Brea.

Cis white creators. So I think it definitely has a strong place in history. And it's also just like, yeah, it's just such a great watch.

think it's in Who's uh, what's her name's house? But anyway, all that to be said, they're trying to get to this trunk. Well, it's based off of this story surrounding Dorian Corey, and I guess one of the clips of this article, it says what stands in starkes contrast to the gruesome implications in her closet, it is Corey's demeanor. The most extensive video of Corey is in nineteen nineties Jennie Livingston's documentary. It's an examination of aforementioned ball culture

and interviews. She's witty, realistic, and unflappable. In contrast to the grandiosity of aspiring models and housewives. She has a self possessed cadence and world weary observations, which endear her to be a comparatively mainstream audience. So, you know, there's this notion that she's just very fun and very you know,

witty and very you know, very endearing per se. But I guess it's probable that there was something that was happening between nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety and ultimately she tucked it away in her closet.

seen since nineteen sixty eight. But it was the theories surrounding that death were either the theories were that Robert and Dorian were in a relationship of some sort and that either Robert had been killed and she had hidden in his body for whatever reason, or that she had killed him in self defense because of violence she was experiencing at his hands. And then was like, let's just go in here. I fascinating lives all around, John, thank you for bringing that up.

was self defense. And so when people ask why she kept the body, it says a black drag queen who lived in a poor, dangerous area in the sixties or seventies had a little chance of garnering sympathy from the police.

And so I think it's it's it's as much as it's not related to the story of what Genny was trying to do with this film, I think it really like this story per se says a lot about the times that these queer people were living in, right like the fear of Okay, well, I I tell someone that this man broke into my home and I killed him in self defense, and then I still end up in jail, and then I end up dead in jail, right right,

Like that's probably regardless of what the story was. You know, the reality was Dorian was worried about their livelihood and so just to be queer at this time, and I mean still even now, right, you know, to be worried about your livelihood is something that's very real for queer people. And you know, as much as like I said, it doesn't relate to the story, it very much does absolutely.

specifically like black queer people are particularly vulnerable. And like you're just saying, John would not have stood a chance at you know, standing up against the white supremacist police state, and so it was self defense and was necessary in order to survive. I've not really seen that anecdote presented that way. It was more like a fun fact. Did you know this famous drag queen from Paris is burning? Did you know in the way that I think a lot of AI slop kind of leans towards.

just this lack of humanity. And I don't even think, you know, that's why I said I there was a part of me that didn't even want to tell anybody that I was watching the documentary. But it's like, you know, I sometimes have to check myself with that of like, these were humans. These are people that had really like a really terrible thing happened to them, and we sensationalize it and there's so much oh my god, this really saucy thing happened. You did you hear about it? But

it's like, yo, like where's the humanity behind it? And so I have to catch myself sometimes when I get excited, you know, in conversation about these type of films. But yeah, that's kind of where I'm left right.

few times throughout the documentary. So It's not as though the documentary ignores these topics and the intersections of them, but it doesn't zoom out very much as far as like, well, how do these things affect these people systemically in larger and more significant ways. It doesn't dive deeply into these things. It's just pretty I don't want to call it superficial necessarily, but it's you know, it's not super deep the way the movie explores these things.

to do it, and rightfully so. But I think it also draws attention to the fact that on a lot of I mean think about like how many documentaries are there about World War Two, and how every documentary about World War two doesn't address every aspect and perspective and figure of World War two. But that's okay. There's forty trillion documentaries about World War Two that grandfathers all over the world are watching as we speak, and like, there whatever,

there is more, not that there wasn't more. Like we're saying, there were filmmakers that were creating work around these communities, but in terms of work that was easily accessible, In terms of work that was getting the financing and marketing to support it, there wasn't very much. And so then it becomes I mean, it's like a tricky conversation because one movie can't do everything, but one movie can do more than it's doing.

does past the Bechtyl test. But what about the Bechtel Cast nipple scale, a scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. John, I see shock and awe on your face.

compensated better. So yeah, yeah, just distributing money in nineteen ninety that's how I'm going to use my nfles.

and you can probably catch me in a bookstore near you. Yeah, if you're in the LA area, you'd like to come to my book launch. All the information for that is on my website.