Paris is Burning: the legends get the makeover they deserve

REVIEW by Drew Rowsome

11 Jun 2019

For a documentary that is, on the surface, so concerned with glamour and realness, to be lovingly remastered and rendered vibrantly clear, is poetic justice. Anyone who has seen Paris is Burning is in for a treat. The grit and grain that marked the film as cinema verite is, for the most part, gone and the colours and sequins pop. When the fabulous Pepper LaBeija quotes Norma Desmond and announces that he is ready for his close-up, he finally gets the one he deserves. 

Anyone who hasn't seen Paris is Burning is in for a crucial experience.

Paris is Burning was filmed in the last half of the '80s and released in 1990. It documents not only the underground ball culture and the people in it, but also the beginning of the culture moving into and seducing the mainstream, just before it was partially co-opted, most notably by Madonna. 

Watching Paris is Burning now, is not only thrilling but also telling. A remarkable amount of gay slang (now also mainstream) and style is seen as it originated. What was exploring a new and strange subculture is now a historical document about a time that was highly influential. It is also - in a post-Rupaul's Drag Race and years of activism world - sobering to see the roots of drag and the difference in our attitudes towards trans.

The ball footage is exhilarating but the remastering also brings out the backgrounds and enhances the not as glamorous reality of the offstage lives of the characters. They are all beautiful and no longer shocking or odd, they just were the ones who helped pave the way. Elders. And that is the disturbing thing about seeing Paris is Burning after so much, so little, time has passed: very few if any of these people are still alive. Their many dreams and aspirations were never achieved, but at least Paris is Burning did immortalize them and give them the celebrity they so blatantly craved. 

They aspired to be "legendary." And now they are.

The film itself is shamelessly manipulative and the stars - LaBeija, Dorian Corey, Willi Ninja, Octavia St Laurent, Venus and Angie Xtravaganza, and the two unidentified underage gay boys - are all articulate and quick with a campy or cutting quip. Any one of them could hold the audience's attention indefinitely. They are also adroit, particularly Venus Xtravaganza, at attempting bravado that is in reality akin to despair and knowing denial. Much like the balls themselves where the competitors take on the costumes of their oppressors and blow them up into a different form of revolution.

The politics are complicated, and as self-aware as the legends are, the hierarchies of race, gender and sexuality are issues they are grappling with, enthralled with, and brutally trampled by. We still are. As I began watching, I started jotting down quotes that I thought were relevant. After filling two pages of notes, I gave up and surrendered to the emotional experience. I will be haunted forever by the sight of a beautiful young black boy discussing his relationship with drag, gender and oppression, while clutching a copy of Betty and Veronica's Double Digest.

When Pepper LaBeija delivers a monologue about race, and we have heard so many describe their aspirations to be "white" and thus "normal," it is heartbreaking in its wisdom. When he, among others, cites Dynasty as a life goal, we see how camp mutated and bubbled in reality before becoming the cultural common that it is today. There is a sense of circles and concepts resolving but never achieving resolution, not even all these years later. When Octavia St Laurent's ambitions brush up against a photographer and then Eileen Ford, the sense of hope and terror is devastating. A story we still see daily.

A substantial portion of Paris is Burning is concerned with the concept of family. Of those who support and help when biological family and the world in general have rejected or actively turned against. The release of the remastered version of Paris is Burning during Pride month is not just good marketing, it is a reminder that chosen family has always been our biggest strength. That, and being fabulous in the face of oppression.