Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning is widely regarded as necessary in distribution, all the while garnering scrutiny in execution. Livingston’s direction and narrative exposed a wider audience to the unique lives and experiences of Hispanic and African American gay men, transgender women, and drag queens as they navigate and compete in vogue dancing competitions in New York City’s vibrant subculture of the 1980s. Inspiring countless quotes, artistic inspiration, and terms within pop culture, this documentary allowed many to see and begin to understand the significant contributors to vogue dancing and ballroom activities as a rising subculture. In bringing light to the stories of key figures such as Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza, Livingston celebrates their contributions to the overall space and provides an outlet or a platform to cater to their desires toward stardom. Although Livingston’s documentary brought this specific subculture to the fore and provided significant exposure to these essential people, the methods and the surrounding factors she brought into existence have faced heavy scrutiny. Many have viewed her documentary as the right story told by the wrong storyteller. Critics see her as an outsider and point out the voyeuristic or exploitative pretenses with which she examined and highlighted the factors surrounding this essential subculture, the refusal to pay her actors, and the significant profit and recognition she received. Of course, critics’ voices can appear louder than others since they are often the most passionate about the subject, but one cannot deny this documentary’s overall importance and influence within the space. Paris is Burning has transcended and shaped much of the current and former cultural zeitgeist.
In writing this summary, I used the help of this article by The Guardian:
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Hi Dylan, I agree with the agreement between essential and controversial that you pose with the film Paris is Burning. I thought the film provided an amazing perspective on meanings of gender, race, class, and sexuality. It brought light to the ballroom culture that existed and is held by Black and Latino gay men in New York City. I thought that the film provided visibility to the language that was specific to their culture like “voguing”, “shade”, and “reading”. Especially with the time that it was released, 1990, during the increase of AIDS-related deaths and with the surfacing of AIDS awareness. With this, I thought that this film was able to make many viewers and people who either share the same identity or might feel lost to connect to people, which they may not have had access to before. However, I agree that the film has also caused some controversy to the point where there was a petition for BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn’s decision to show the film. The critics claimed that “that awareness and affection for the documentary had done nothing to curb the gentrified attitudes that have long threatened ball culture and the people in it—a rich, dangerous irony” (Vanity Fair). In short, I agree with your analysis of the film and the way that you analyzed how the viewers and society reacted to the film.
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/06/paris-is-burning-documentary-drag-jennie-livingston-interview
Hey Dylan! I think this is an amazing article to find and you did a great job at providing the controversy. I think that we can bifurcate two considerations, one on cultural prominence and the other on the ethics of its creation. To the former, it is relatively easy to resolve that the cultural figurehead that Paris is Burning has become has transcended any individual controversy of the creator. Its value is replicated in a lot of introductory queer studies, its exposure has cracked open a culture that has proliferated into a larger movement. It serves as one of the few “snapshots” of any life of a culture that was intentionally buried. However, on the ethics its creation, I think only those within the queer and transgender community can best determine the merit in performing ethics-based analysis of the film. The ethics of exploitative practices are easy to designate as immoral. Furthermore, I think that this rhetorical form that Livingston embraces which exposes aspects of their lives that many in the article felt were wrong.
However, I am curious if you think that these ethical conversations matter at all? Can a world without this movie be viewed as a preferable one? I’d love to hear your thoughts, great post!