Paris Is Burning (film)

Paris Is Burning is a 1990 American documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the midtolate 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the AfricanAmerican, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it. Some critics consider the film to be an invaluable documentary of the end of the Golden Age of New York City drag balls, and a thoughtful exploration of race, class, gender, and sexuality in America. Others have criticized it as exploitive and fetishizing towards trans people of color.

Most of the film alternates between footage of balls and interviews with prominent members of the scene, including Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, Angie Xtravaganza, and Willi Ninja. Many of the contestants vying for trophies are representatives of Houses in the fashionbrand sense, such as House of Chanel that serve as intentional families, social groups, and performance teams. Houses and ball contestants who consistently won in their walks eventually earned a legendary status.Jennie Livingston, who moved to New York after graduating from Yale to work in film, and who spent six years making Paris Is Burning, concentrated on interviews with key figures in the ball world, many of whom contribute monologues that shed light on the ball culture as well as on their own personalities. In the film, titles such as house, mother, and reading emphasize how the subculture the film depicts has taken words from the straight and white worlds, and imbued them with alternate meanings, just as the houses serve as surrogate families for young ballwalkers whose sexual orientations have sometimes made acceptance and love within their own families hard to come by. ........

Source: Wikipedia