Paris is Burning
It feels weird to be writing this to y’all right now. There’s kind of simultaneously too much information and not enough - I am feeling overwhelmed by processing it all and pointing to where folks should go to learn. Or even listen. It’s a really bizarre predicament to have because everyone is still (at least half) listening and really wanting to make changes/make things sustainable/dig in and do the work.
The past week I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can use this particular moment to build collective movement power behind queer imagination. Cherry and I joke that we went to college for activism, which is kind of true seeing as a lot of my professors in art school were long-time NYC gays who’d been entrenched in ACT-UP . My senior year of college was concurrent with the 20 year anniversary of ACT-UP’s founding, so I got a crash course on their genesis. It was the first perfect storm of activist moments: a huge initial push behind the movement for black lives, and young queers wanting to make change.
Now, sitting right in the middle of the second perfect storm of activist movements in my lifetime, I’m really wanting to harness that coalition power of LOVE and RAGE that exists so perfectly inside queer identity. Right now, I’m thinking about how the camera as an apparatus interacts and intersects with performance, with gender, and with blackness. And how this movement is about making sure that we have LIFE at the end of all this.
Paris is Burning (dir Jennie Livingston 1990)
If you asked a bunch of queers what you should be screening for “pride month” right now, I’d put money on this film being on everyone’s list. The iconic documentary chronicling NYC’s drag ball culture in the mid-late 1980s is a raw, revealing, joyful, devastating portrait and primer on black queer imaginations. The film profiles several different people as they compete in drag balls — defining the subcultural language of the ball but also just expressing their dreams. Their hopes. What being in a house, a ball means for them. What they do to survive, and what they do to thrive.
On this most recent rewatch, it clicked for me that the messy, urgent, dramatic way in which this film is put together is a gesture of solidarity between a white lesbian filmmaker and a black trans culture that is arguably the foundation for most of queer culture at large currently. What stuck out for me this time around was the way in which these women performing are 100% in charge of how they are being viewed from all parties: camera, crew and audience alike. The camera falls over itself to make sure it gets every single second of performance. This is the moment their legacy is being documented. Performing Realness is the transgressive and incredible break in which we are forced to confront our constructions of what is “real” “gender” and what gender actually is and could be. Realness is one of the most incredible productions of the black queer imagination - because it dismantles white supremacist notions of gender to the point of being farcical, but also underscores the ways in which performing those notions of gender are materially important for survival. As most of you know, we are living through a time where black trans women are murdered at an alarmingly high rate. I want to really underscore this, and also underscore that you should absolutely watch this film at your earliest convenience, because you will notice that black trans women gave the gays everything from Stonewall to catchphrases to glamour to performance to family to virtuosity to mutual aid etc etc etc.
10s, 10s, 10s across the board.
Mini Reviews of Things I’ve Watched Since We Last Spoke:
LA 92 (2017): National Geographic archival footage only retelling of the riots and protests that happened after a jury acquitted all officers involved in the ‘91 beating of Rodney King. I swear to god they did a number on restoring this footage because it is brutal and crystal clear. As my mother likes to remind me, I was only a tiny baby in 1992, this was really educational for me. Prepare your mind and body to watch this one, it’s really graphically violent and heartbreaking. 10/10
Waiting to Exhale (dir. Forest Whitaker 1995): Kind of like the Black First Wives Club but more soapy and no revenge at the end. Four best friends deal with their man problems that range from dating a married man to dating a coworker to getting a divorce to being in love with your gay ex-husband. Every scene has an iconic 90s R&B hit in the background. Plot is weirdly complicated and hard to follow…but it’s worth it. Angela Bassett is particularly good as a woman scorned. Watch w/ a glass of wine if you drink. 8/10
Little Shop of Horrors (dir. Frank Oz 1986): ICONIC movie adaptation of one of my favorite musicals of all time. Rick Moranis discovers an alien plant and brings himself and his workplace fame and fortune… only to find out that it eats people. Haven’t watched in a long time and I am now understanding how deeply perverse the whole movie is. Deeply campy, incredible performances, perfect music. If I had to choose a role to be in this movie, I would play one of the background singers. Worth it for the Dentist song alone. 10/10
The Watermelon Woman (dir. Cheryl Dunye 1996): This should be another one high on your list for “pride”! Cheryl plays herself as a video store clerk and filmmaker who is trying to make a movie about a black lesbian film star from the 20s. This is one of those fake archival films - the woman Cheryl is researching is not actually real, but her story is an amalgamation of a lot of black women’s stories from that time. In searching for information on this star, Cheryl finds a new girlfriend, fights with her friends, learns more about herself and tells an untold story of black lesbianism that is rich and bountiful. It’s awkward in all the way early 90s gay films are and the acting is pretty horrible, but it’s worth it. 7/10
Okay everyone. Have good weeks.
With love,
Ronika
As always, you can tip me on venmo @ronika-mcclain, but you can also donate $ to a black trans woman today. Check out the work G.L.I.T.S. is doing, or keep an eye out for someone’s gofundme on instagram. The information is out there.