-=+~PARIS IS BURNING~+=-

looks very gay...

is very gay!

Feel which one is realer.

When interview subject Dorian Corey died in 1993, a mummified corpse was discovered in a trunk in her apartment. The body, which had been there for at least 20 years, was identified as Robert Worley (aka Robert Wells)
from the article on Corey:
A note attached to the body said, "This poor soul broke into my apartment and I was forced to shoot him."

woah!

the best. digging up those banjee youtubes made me want to re-watch instantly

I wonder what happened to Jennie Livingston. Interviewed her for ESM when this came out the first time. OMG old, old, old...

This movie kind of became required viewing for cultural-studies and postmodern philosophy classes in the 1990s, especially in light of Judith Butler's chapter on it in Bodies That Matter. As it is, I don't really remember if it's actually a good documentary or whether it's just good at "problematizing" "hegemonic" "constructs."

a friend of mine in hs saw this movie w/o knowing anything abt it and was so disturbed - later he turned out gay

Gee I thought the takeaway from that was 'everyone's in drag, always'. Our mag ran a huge posthumous interview with Willi Ninja last year; also last year there was a hilarious voguing revival where you had all these bears watching Realness Categories as executed by 20-year-old club kids pretending to be banji/grime. Good lolz, especially from House Of Fierce Nest.

I watched this again the other night after some years and it's still a classic. Always loved the MC at the ball, esp. his spiel re: proper ladies always having a handbag in the evening. Great doc.

http://wutsang.blogspot.com/2011/11/full-body-quotation-at-new-museum.html

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/5011/occupyballroom.jpg

my day is made

hmm

weird, was just wathcing this last night

a friend of mine in hs saw this movie w/o knowing anything abt it and was so disturbed - later he turned out gay

You mean TURNED OWWWWWWT!, right?

Everyone knows that when the old queen in this film died, they found a real skeleton in her clost, right? Of somebody she offed? Or did I dream this?

no it's true. she shot a trick and had him in a trunk in her apartment for years.

http://bit.ly/9rFYK4

just found out today that this is now on netflix watch instant

no it's true. she shot a trick and had him in a trunk in her apartment for years.

― jed_, Friday, November 18, 2011 1:00 PM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark

!

I got to talk to Jennie Livingston about that once! She said Dorian Corey had spent a lot of time studying/being obsessed with mummification at one point, and also that one of the craziest things to her was that she at one point had to move from and/or to some 3 or 6 story walk-up tenement bldg apt and must have had to drag the damn thing all the way down and then back up all those stairs.

Everyone knows that when the old queen in this film died, they found a real skeleton in her clost, right? Of somebody she offed? Or did I dream this?

I had a customer tell me story like this. I wonder if she was talking about the same person.

There was a really cool article about it in some academic journal

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2935316

i just read the article. Dorian left a note with the body, a man called Robert Worley, saying "this poor man broke into my home and was trying to rob me" but J R Kasindorf (who wrote the article) did some digging and found the brother of Robert Worley who says that he was not surprised that his brother was found dead after nearly 30 years. He also was not surprised that his brother may have had connections with transvestites and talks about a time that his brother phoned him blind drunk, having phoned the wrong number and assumed he was talking to Dorian, although he couldn't remember the name at that point. after the journalist suggests the name Dorian the brother says that was definitely who he (Robert) had thought he was talking to when he called him. It seems that they had a relationship but Robert Worley was abusive and probably had tried to beat up Dorian and ended up with a bullet in the head and subsequently ended up in a suitcase for 20-odd years.

i mean this article http://bit.ly/9rFYK4 not the one stevie linked, which you can only read the first page of online.

Just watched this again (back-to-back with Wigstock: The Movie) and was struck with a bunch of new realizations

First was how how much these people valued brands, labels, consumerism and white standards of success, which I'd never really considered before. And it makes sense, and it's very easy to, as a middle-class white male, be all "oh that shit's so dumb, you don't want that!! You should forge your own culture and identities and etc. w/o trying to emulate that stupid white privileged bougie bullshit!", but I don't live a life where I'm sort of forcibly othered and have all that shit rubbed in my face while being told how impossible it is to obtain it. But it's still tragic nonetheless

Second was the huge difference between ball culture drag and Wigstock-type drag. Participants in ball culture were predominantly black/latino who didn't really have much voice in mainstream society, gay culture (which was and arguably still is predominantly white), or, from what I understand, machismo-heavy black or latino cultures (okay I know that sounds weird/problematically languaged/etc but just see: Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied) and then created their own scene where they could act out their fantasies, have something to look forward to and feel valued and important in, etc. There was so much emphasis on realness and passing and emulating as closely as possible and the competitions seemed very serious, whereas with stuff like Wigstock, the emphasis was on camp and it seemed very fun and feel-good and still empowering but not in a way that was as *essential* as the ballroom. It wasn't entirely white, though: the festival (and whole scene, I guess) had several queens of color, which makes me wonder what separated it so greatly from the ball scene. Was it mostly a class issue? It (that is, the coexistance of two very different drag cultures) had never really occurred to me before and it's something very interesting to think about.

this movie is still incredible. i think about it a lot.

i think about it a lot, too.

that is a good question about whose answer i have no idea, stevie

May I STRONGLY suggest reading this NYT article from 1993 that spoke about the film's backlash from within the community. Sad to read that everyone just thought they'd get rich from the film and resented Livingston highly when they didn't

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/18/style/paris-has-burned.html?src=pm

saw again. That MC is hilarious: "shake the dice and steal the rice, right now baby."

I always forget about the fate of the young petite Xtravaganza.

I don't. ;_;

are you still watching a buncha '90s films these days, E?

That's not one of the ones I need to revisit. It'll be top 10 no matter what.

same!

"Which vote is realer?"

well, at least top 15...

that sassy kid who talks about swiping food at Roy Rogers is like Theo Huxtable of the piers.

hahaha. that scene seems kind of out of place in the movie but it's hilarious.

How much did you pay for that sandwich?

... Five dollars?!

ws, srsly

see, they put the cheese... on the meat!

I'll let that slide, E, as he's 40 by now.

i saw a print of 'the queen' the other night, about the 1967 'miss all-american beauty' drag pageant in NYC, which we were told beforehand is getting an imminent dvd release; it is a must-see if you like PiB (crystal labeija's reading scene alone is worth the cost)

Nice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syGKwLky46c

hah, that's the clip! (altho, uh, spoiler alert)

"i declare her one of the uglier people of the world!"

"Now is not the time to show temperament!"

I need to rewatch.

see, they put the cheese... on the meat!

Ahahaha, I love this line!

i'm laughing and i can't even remember it.

I spent years trying to do that. Then someone posted it on ILX.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e753ln6EdoM

Perfect song choice.

apparently it's some exclusive Larry Levan edit that was only available in the film and on tapes he sold at Paradise Garage (if the YouTube comments are to be believed)

so good. this is my #1 barbara mason joint:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkzgPpWVEzE

You should nominate it for the disco poll!

Yes, btw, everyone who checks in on this thread (except Morbs) should definitely head over to nominate stuff in the disco poll!

link me, hunty

hang the DJ, hang the DJ

STRONGEST EMOTION, THE DISCO EXPLOSION: It's the Grand ILM Disco Poll nomination thread (nomination time ends on Friday, November 1st)

i know it's perverse to prefer a recent edit to an OG, especially one which removes the whole chorus but this eros edit is the one that takes BM into the stratosphere for me. probably my favourite disco edit of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NU1uSicrnM

As soon as I saw that Barbara Mason track posted I thought of the Eros edit, it is so very good.

oh god thank you all this is fantastic

Fun little bit

Also seated at our table were Paris Is Burning director Jenny Livingston and one of the film's stars, Junior Labeija, who was also homeless in New York City as a teenager. Labeija, Boyce, and Garvin are all volunteers for the Ali Forney Center. (Amusing side note: Labeija entered in a magnificent cape, which he checked before sitting down.)

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UoYN0t_WR9M/Um3a4WareqI/AAAAAAACn9s/wsrgrCbA2f8/s400/AFCgala2.jpg

Last night I dreamt someone on facebook posted a pic of the EXECUTIVE REALNESS title card, but photoshopped to read EXECUTIVE SURREALNESS. But now I'm not sure if it was a dream or if I actually saw it!

I had totally forgotten about this movie after seeing it in some film/cultural studies class in the lol 90s but it's been on cable a bunch recently for some reason and HOLY SHIT THIS MOVIE

Usually watch it once a year now.

My exposure to drag has usually been more of the wigstock variety - ie sort of ironically self-aware and willfully silly, playful. I had forgotten how deadly SERIOUS all the ballroom stuff is, the "performances" are still outrageous and amateurish and in many ways comical but they make it feel like there's really something at stake, the pathos of it is more apparent.

^^important distinction IMO. I watched Wigstock and PiB back to back once and was like whoa

Yeah you posted that upthread which seems really on-point. I've been to drag events, hung out with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, etc. but the vibe is just different. does this ballroom stuff still happen? or is it all just RuPaul's Drag Race these days

it really is a masterpiece

xp it does but it's still fairly underground and still largely young poc

that's still ongoing but there's another thread of the voguing scene reaching out into the avant-garde (or, rather, in establishing and expanding the eminance of the voguing scene within the avante-garde) and also talking about it's political significance with re to aids, transgenderism et al.

funnily enough it's a Scottish arts collective called Arika which is playing a significnt part in motivating key figures around the historical scene and outwards.

a few weekends ago they organised the Master BallStar weekender in NYC

https://www.facebook.com/events/224651564392303/?source=1

and strangely, again, a lot of those events first happened in Glasgow last year with a lot of the artists at the centre and at the periphery of the scene camping up in Glasgow for a weekend series of events.

one of these, an artist called Boychild, creates some of the most visceral performance art i have EVER seen and operates within the confines of the lipsync - really this video doesn't capture it at all - it has to be seen to be believed - but it will give you a taster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQw_kHoGKic

another artist who is doing incredible work in this realm is the choreographer Trajal Harrel with his projects Twenty Looks (or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church) which comes is sizes XS-XL & Antigone (jr) and Antogone (sr) - i've had the great honour of seeing two of these and they blew my mind. I saw size M aka (M)imosa and Small.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmMX8F9QYNY

S1ocki, if you are interested in these then Trajal is presenting (M)imosa and Antigone Sr. In Montreal quite soon and I urge you to go.

http://www.fta.qc.ca/en/shows/2012/mimosa

http://www.fta.qc.ca/en/shows/2014/antigone-sr

I would literally cut my hands off to see Antigone Sr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v51IBW_RF4

oh cool

more boychild:

http://vimeo.com/57567972

yes s1ocki, please go and tell me what i missed. x

i really hate these pretentious decontructions of things that already have a flashed out anthropological value. it's very much YOU SEE!!!???

fair enough, i love the pretension, personally.

although i wouldn't call them deconstructions, it's just part of the continuum.

they lack the realness.

we all do. although trajal was pretty heavily involved in the scene fwiw.

wait drag was "real" at some point?

so they say.

well, basically...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvTNyKIGXiI

no, i can completely see where nauru is coming from but if it had stayed like that then none of us would know about it - it would be lacking realness to even watch the doc.

and boychild and trajal, imo, are not exploiting it, on any level, but using it as tools to explore the language in another area.

god forbid these people take their drag balls seriously

i don't really care because when I saw (M)imosa i was transfixed for 2 and a half hours and left thinking it was the best art i had scene in years and I still think about it daily one year on.

interesting!

11. UMBRAGE

"Umbrage" comes from the Old French ombrage (shade, shadow), and it was once used to talk about actual shade from the sun. It took on various figurative meanings having to do with doubt and suspicion or the giving and taking of offense. To give umbrage was to offend someone, to "throw shade." However, these days when we see the term "umbrage" at all, it is more likely to be because someone is taking, rather than giving it.

Fantastic interview from 2009 with the since-departed Octavia St. Laurent:

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/22663/1/octavia-st-laurents-last-interview

3q2;jrladf;w45rjw3o;a

https://www.criterion.com/films/29647-paris-is-burning

New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Jennie Livingston, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
New conversation between Livingston, ball community members Sol Pendavis and Freddie Pendavis, and filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris
Over an hour of never-before-seen outtakes
Audio commentary from 2005, featuring Livingston, ball community members Freddie Pendavis and Willi Ninja, and film editor Jonathan Oppenheim
Episode of The Joan Rivers Show from 1991, featuring Livingston and ball community members Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Freddie Pendavis, and Willi Ninja

https://media.giphy.com/media/4NU0oR5iSv7ck/giphy.gif

Suffice to say that the Criterion disc is all that and every last extra listed was great. The 'over an hour' understates -- it's almost TWO hours of outtakes. It's a mix of course, some of it being general extra footage that you can understand didn't make the cut. But there's a slew more from the interviews with Pepper, Dorian and Venus in particular -- everything about the latter's comments are just retrospectively heartbreaking as much as they are in the full film, but even more so. Amazing moment in the Dorian interviews referenced by Livingston in the 2005 commentary -- somewhere outside a gun goes off, everyone pauses, and Dorian just goes "...gunfight at the OK Corral." Which giving the infamous murder she committed almost makes sense!

There's also a bit of general talk about AIDS and gay/balls history, as well as an amazing segment nowhere in the feature film featuring Marcel Christian, a House of Christian member (apparently later LaBejia), who started up a drag ball zine I'd never heard about called Idle Sheets, with lots of footage showing pages from various issues, readings from it, etc. If there's a specific online archive of them I haven't found it yet but here's two samplings from it:

http://www.mothernyc.com/verbal/marcel.html

An amazing resource, I'm sure; I hope it's out there in full somewhere.

A couple of minor mysteries get solved along the way as well thanks to the outtakes -- specific contexts of shots and scenes and the like -- with the final outtake sequence finally detailing why in the released film there were shots of a ball in what looked like a well-let hotel convention/conference room. That's because it was! The House of Xtravaganza did a trip down to DC by bus for a showcase there, and it was held at a Holiday Inn.

Anyway, the commentary while older is informative, the new conversation between Livingston and the others providing more stories and context, etc. etc -- whole thing's great, a must-own.

I'm watching the Criterion disc tonight.

Criterion's going to have to work really hard to put out a disc that's going to spend more time in my player than this one this year.

it's suspicious that you're not playing more discs from the 1920's & 30's, tbh.

https://media.giphy.com/media/hsCfSBzsXkVq0/giphy.gif

will have to set aside a weekend for it at some point

“Except the voice! It’s still there!”

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ER2AeMxWkAEyNSe.png

lmao

A quick but important note that a kind of new spiritual cousin to the original film, I’m Your Venus, is now on Netflix, about the two families of Ms Xtravaganza, the biological and the chosen, remembering her and hoping to find out more about her life and death. It’s quite wonderful.