PARIS IS BURNING (1990) | Dir: Jennie Livingston I saw this film for the first time at the Film Forum on Houston Street in New York City with my friend Lili, her brother Oscar and his boyfriend, Johnny. They had already seen it, maybe a couple of times. Oscar and Johnny were the first bona fide long-term gay couple I had ever met. They’d been together for years, since they’d fled North Carolina after college. They loved PARIS IS BURNING, a now-legendary documentary about the drag balls of Harlem, an event in which groups of drag artists compete against other groups of drag artists - their "houses" - mostly people of color, many of them living with HIV and AIDS. It is a breathtaking film, shot in gritty 16mm, low light, with intimate interviews with these artists and their fans about the culture and origins and cultural significance of drag, people I had never met before and would likely never have known about (thanks, Jennie). If you like Madonna’s “Vogue,” watch this film and you’ll see where she stole, er, appropriated it. So much about this film resonates, but there are two things that stand out: it’s about the families we create and about the ways in which marginalized people always know more about the dominant culture than is true in the reverse. I’ll never forget the sold-out audience in the theater, hanging on every word of the subjects featured in the film, and how Oscar and Johnny made sure I understood, as a gay tadpole, how important it was for me to learn about this aspect of queer culture. I’ve tried to pass along some of what I learned to the queer kids behind me.
