While watching the film Paris is Burning, I honestly wasn't quite sure what my reactions were (or supposed to be). I was pretty neutral about most of the content, except for the ending then Venus' murder was briefly mentioned. At first, thought the terminology being introduced was helpful and its incorporation seemed important, but I can also see how that could've been distracting and steering the focus away from the real issues at play in the documentary. After discussing the film in class, and hearing other students voice their opinions, I now understand the importance of broadening my perspective and lens. I really appreciated hearing people's thoughts because I myself wasn't able to create a particular opinion or observation on the film.
After reading the two articles, the one that "hooked" me the most was Bell Hook's Is Paris Burning? The author mentions a lot of interesting points that I otherwise wouldn't have picked up. Some ideas that stood out to me the most were the mentioning of white celebration, critique of the filmmaker, and the existence of two possible narratives within the film.
In terms of white celebration, the film includes an abundance of white female models, emphasizing the notion that that is the only life that is worth aspiring. Many scenes in the movie exploits Black drag members, demonstrating that colonization and exploitation of Black people are still present in white culture. Although some reviews claim that the film displays black pride, there are no specifics within the film elaborating/explaining that. There was quite a few criticisms being made about Livingston, but the one that popped out to me was her unawareness/unwillingness to address topics of appropriation of Black experiences. One of the comments that she made during an interview was along the lines of "I'd love for a black director to have made this film", which is significantly highlighting her cultural arrogance. Essentially, she's implying that she made this film only because she discovered it. Adding onto this, the article also mentions how Livingston may have been depicted as doing ball culture a favor by bringing it into a wider public spotlight, but her participation in exploitation negates that notion.
Overall, this film makes me feel like it's contributing to almost a "dehumanization" of drag ball culture since the only things I took away from the film were how extravagant the ball scene is (or possibly is) like and the importance of re-presentation. The reason I use dehumanization is because I personally felt like Livingston was only focusing on filming at a surface level, not even thinking to involve any sort of vulnerable or emotional aspect.
"Dehumanization" of drag is a good way to describe it. I personally felt drawn in by how the film was shot and how extravagant the ball scenes were. But then after hearing of the critiques from class, I had to ask myself why I was so intrigued by the glamarous aspects of ball culture without even considering the negatives of it. Was this the point of the film? To exploit black drag members as you said? I think we, as consumers naturally fall prey to the theatrics of film sometimes so it was very nice to have gotten different prespectives of our from classmates and the readings.
ReplyDeleteYes! I also used to feel that this documentary was good for me instead of considering more aspects of that. But after seeing many people 's comments, I knew that this documentary was not good like I thought, although to some extent, this documentary showed some information about queer.
ReplyDeleteI agree that "dehumanization" of drag ball culture is an excellent way to describe what the film does. Also, you mentioned that at first you weren't sure how to react to the film or how you were supposed to react, and I think with a film like this that hits viewers full force with extravagance, that's pretty understandable and sort of how I felt when I first watched it a couple years ago.
ReplyDeleteYou describe it so well! If I didn't already know a bit about drag or ballroom culture I would have thought of the community in only its surface level characteristics. I wouldn't have wanted to dive deeper because that lens wasn't offered and if something was ever brought up it was quickly switched to a "lighter" topic.
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