With POSE Taking Its Final Bow, We Must Remember PARIS IS BURNING

As we bid farewell to the ladies of POSE as it takes its final season three bow, we must remember: Before there was Blanca Evangelista, there was Angie Xtravaganza; before there was Electra Wintour, there was Pepper LaBeija; before there was Angel Evangelista, there was Venus Xtravaganza. And before there was POSE, there was PARIS IS BURNING (1990) (trailer behind the link,) the seminal, and sometimes maligned, 1990 documentary film that pointed focus on the Black and Hispanic drag balls of 1980's Harlem.

Pepper LaBeija, Mother of House of LaBeija, shows why she's Legendary.

Filmed over seven or so years in the eighties, PARIS IS BURNING was directed by queer filmmaker Jennie Livingston. She met a few dancers in Washington Square Park who informed her about the balls. She attended, and became hooked by the participants' stories. Getting their stories on film was not an easy thing to do though. During the Reagan years, a time when funding for the arts was under a watchful eye by conservative watchdogs like (thankfully) deceased Senator Jesse Helms, Livingston had to keep much of her project secret, seeing as it was made with government grants.

The film follows the lives and struggles of several participants of those original balls. Lives in which skin color, sexuality, gender expression and poverty mainstream America used to hold them down, the people of PARIS IS BURNING used to build themselves up. Releasing their creativity and fire, through the balls they insisted that they too were fabulous and legendary. All odds were stacked against them. The AIDS epidemic was a ravaging nightmare rampaging through their community; they were politically expedient and easily forgotten. They had little hope of becoming that which they emulated in dance. As dancer Dorian Corey states in the film, “You can’t get a job as an executive unless you have the educational background and the opportunity.” So as another dancer explains, balls give them “social standing in life.”

Director Livingston took some heat following its release and critical acclaim, as it won awards and recognition around the globe (but not at the Oscars where it failed to even get nominated.) Claims of exploitation and Livingston, a cis White woman making money off the effort of her Black and Brown subjects, have dogged her for years. This, despite $55,000 being distributed by producers amongst 13 of the more prominent participants in the film even though they'd signed waivers releasing their participation and likenesses and went into the production expecting to receive nothing. As Livingston explained a couple years ago, "Filmmakers don’t change that class system; we comment on it..Hopefully we make films that increase consciousness and help change power structures. I actually feel like my film and other queer films of the era and since have helped to change harmful structures. It’s one thing to be in the academy and to posit different situations that you wish existed; it’s another thing to step out and make art and put it into the world. If I truly wanted to take something from another culture and exploit it and commodify it, I wouldn’t have made a documentary film. If I wanted money, I would’ve gone to Wall Street.

Jennie Livingston in 2019

Speaking of exploitation, there's that little dance number that got some recognition the same year the film came out; Madonna's "Vogue" was inspired by these same balls. She'd met Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza and Luis Xtravaganza of the House of Xtravaganza through the club scene who introduced her to the dance style. They were then brought in to choreograph and appear in the video (directed by David Fincher of all people!) and went on tour with her. If members of the community benefitted, including world-wide recognition of that community, is this a case of cultural appropriation? I'll let you decide that for yourselves.

Controversies aside, there's no denying the cultural impact PARIS IS BURNING has had on the community, both at the time of its release, and over the past 30 years, culminating (so far) in award winning shows like POSE that boasts the highest number of trans/POC actors playing trans characters in history. As Rahul Patel wrote over at Little White Lies, "This particular story of a subculture forced to celebrate itself underground is precious to many. This life-affirming documentary is made so by the wisdom, spirit and beauty of its participants, their words and stories never ceasing to inspire."

If you're a fan of POSE and have never seen this glorious film, you really owe it to yourself to seek it out.