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Paris is Burning with DoctorJonPaul · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast. The questions asked if movies have women
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn bast
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Caitlin Drante, my.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Name is Jamie Loftus, and this is our podcast where
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Starting beta test Kitlan, what's that.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Well? It's a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test as it was co
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: created with Liz Wallace. It is a media metric that
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: has many permutations. Ours is do two characters of a
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other?
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: And is their conversation about something other than a man?
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: And we particularly like it when it's a narratively relevant
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: conversation or just something significant and not just like Hi,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: how's the weather or whatever?
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And today's a very special episode. It's one of a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: handful of documentaries that we've covered on this show before.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: But it just if you've seen this documentary. It begs
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: to be talked about. There's no shortage of story and
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it, it's streaming in so many places.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Get it together.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: The documentary of course, Being Paris is Burning from nineteen
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: ninety directed by Jenny Livingston. It is yeah, widely accessible,
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  Speaker 2: it's iconic, and we have a wonderful guest here with
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: us to talk about it.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: They are an award winning creator, writer, author. They are
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: a co host of BFF Black Fat theem podcast. Their
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: book Fat Femme, Revealing the Power of visibly queer voices
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: in Media and Learning to Love Yourself comes out March
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: twenty fifth.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: It's John Yay, welcome, dum hey everybody. How you doing.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: We're great, happy almost release.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know we're wait, oh god, oh my god.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: There's like thirty one with thirty two more days last.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like exactly, no, it's sooner because it's.
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: February that part. Yeah, you know what, there aren't that many. Yeah,
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: so it is a little bit sooner. So it's somewhere
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: around like the like twenty nine thirty days or something
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: like that. But yeah, you know, I'm a little excited,
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: a little nervous, but I will say this. I sent
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: it to my mom and sheat my mom she reads
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: very quickly, and she called me one day and she
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: was like, I'm on page one oh seven and I
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: just want to say I'm very proud of you. And
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: I was like, thanks, Mom, So yeah, So I'm very
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: much in the mind of like, I'm happy that it
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: landed with her. I was worried for a moment, but
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: it landed, so.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: That's so beautiful. I sent my dad my first draft
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of my book, and if the response was a little muted,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: he was like, you know, Jamie, I really like what
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you're going for here. There are some grammar mistakes. Would
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: you like me to send them to you in a document?
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, I guess yeah. And then
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: like six months later he was like, by the way,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed it, yeah, yeah, yeah, so cool.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: I love that. Well, tell us more about your book, John.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so quickly. You know, one of the things that
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: I had I've always been very vigilant about is the
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: idea of how black and specifically black queer voices are
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: either not uplifted or celebrated in media. And that's kind
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: of what I built my whole platform one, right, how
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: do I continue to uplift the voices of those who
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: often don't have the mic? And so I like to
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: tell people that I started this book back, and this
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: is also just a testament to how long it can
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: take to write a book. I started. I went to
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: a Lambda literary retreat back in twenty seventeen, started playing
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: with the idea of writing a book there, and it
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: just kind of set in my Google drafts forever. And
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: then the pandemic came and all my friends wrote books,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: and everyone got one, you know, everyone got one in
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: or even got two in, and I was just still
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: kind of like, no, no, no, no, I don't think
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: I could do it. And then I just got to
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: a point. You know what ended up happening was I was,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: you know, playing with it, going back and forth with
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: different agents. And then in twenty twenty three ish, you know,
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: or twenty twenty four, actually, I went to sun Dance
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: and I saw the Luther documentary. And I tell everybody
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: that that was kind of like the catalyst of me
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: wanting to be like, oh god, I know what I'm writing.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: I saw the documentary, I saw the way that they
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: danced around his queerness, how they didn't talk about his queerness,
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: but also how they did, And I said, you know,
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: there's got to be a way for us to kind
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: of celebrate, you know, like even just looking at Luther
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: and looking at Luther's story, I went back into my
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: own memories about how I thought about queerness from the
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: lens of how my family talked about Luther. And that's
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: kind of how I opened the book. I talk about
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: the idea of how people what they said and what
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: they didn't say about Luther and what that said to
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: me as a young queer kid in southern California. And
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: so I basically get to a point where I start
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: talking about this idea of how I literally had to
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: figure out how to find myself through media, like writing
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: about Luther and his experience and what I got from that.
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  Speaker 3: It really helped me understand how I found myself through media.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: And so that's really what the book is. I talk
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: about Luther, and again it's not about his sexuality per se.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: It's about all the things I was afraid to delve
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: into because of how my family talked about Luther. And
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: then my first time meeting Andre Leon Talley on the
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: show America's next top model, Miss Jay, you know, Derek j.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: Miss Lawrence, Like all of these black queer figures I'm
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: seeing in television and what that's telling me about my
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: own identity and how I'm learning through them to find myself.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: So it's a lot of you know, there's also like
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: moments I talk about what happened to me in college.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I talk about fat phobia. I talk about the idea
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: of how much we live, Like how the two thousands
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: lie to us. I talk very, very very vocally about
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: how much the two thousands was. It was just it
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: was shit. It was awful, Like the two thousands was terrible.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I mean it's like just such a period of like
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: absurd regression. It's wild to look back on lucky us.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I talk about that, like how two
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  Speaker 3: thousands shaped my you know, body dysmorphia, and you know,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: all the things I was doing to try to lose
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: weight while I was in college, to keep up with
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: the other queer kids I was running in groups with,
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: and just really this this overall kind of like how
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: did I get to this place? You know, I get
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: asked out a lot, how do you how are you
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: so confident? How are you so happy in who you are?
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Like a lot of therapy and a lot of writing.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: So that's really what it is. But yeah, that's pretty
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: much what my book is. In a nutshell, it's just
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: kind of an ode and a celebration of those who
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: came before us and those who are still here because
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I know that no one else is going to give
• 6:57
  Speaker 3: them their flowers, and so ultimately I thought, why not?
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: Why not me? Why not I do that?
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So why not? Yeah? That's amazing. I can't wait to
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: read It's sing And it's also a component of the
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: documentary we'll be discussing is kind of an examination of
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: how media influences the participants of the ballroom scene and
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: how they emulate certain people or certain TV shows or
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: stars or you know, all that kind of stuff. So
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: that'll be fun to dive into.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: And there's also so much of like the legacy of
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Paris is burning that there's which I that was the
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  Speaker 1: thing I was not familiar with going in, is like
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: the year's long legacy that the Spavia's had, positive, negative,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: everything in between.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So John, what's your relationship slash history with this documentary? Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: You know, so it was one of the documentaries. So
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: I'll say this, I did not know really anything. Again,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: obviously I tell people, you know, if you go out
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: and get my book, you know, I talk very openly
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: about how I grew up in a cult, and so
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: I do believe that, you know, Jehovah Witnesses are cults,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: they are part of the cult sect. And so growing
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: up in the cult, you know, I was very very
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: what's the word, not even protected, but I was scared
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: to indulge anything that had queer content. And so I
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: didn't really get to Paris's Burning until probably two thousand
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  Speaker 3: and four. And so this is a time where you know,
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  Speaker 3: I know about ball room, you know, miss right. I
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: know I know about it, but I don't know it
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: per se right. And so in two thousand and four,
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  Speaker 3: I'm in college, you know, I take an Art of
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: film class and that was one of you know, Aaron
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Race may may he rest in peace. He was one
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: of I'm gonna say he was my favorite instructor. But
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  Speaker 3: I really appreciate it the way he did his class.
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: He did his class, and so it was an art
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: of film and I was very much into writing at
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: the time, and he basically had positive you know, this
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: is what a good you know, a good drama is,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: this is what a good comedy is, and this is
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: what a good documentary is. And so Paris Is Burning
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: was the documentary that he posited for that class. We
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: watched it in class. It was a four hour It
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: was a summer class, and so the summer classes were
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: hell along. If anybody's ever taken the summer class out
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: of college, you know, you're in class for like six hours.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, we watched the class. We watched
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: the film for two hours, and then we worked in
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: groups and we had to dissect what made the documentary great.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: And that was my first, you know, entrance into that film.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: And I think what I really loved about the film
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: was that it was giving so many people, specifically trans
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: women or non binary people. It was giving them airtime,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: like they had a voice. And I had never seen
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: anyone who looked like you know, Peppala Basia or anyone
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: who looked like, you know, Willie Ninja or anything like that,
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: and so it just felt like I was like, oh
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  Speaker 3: my god, these are my people. Even though this film
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: was made almost fifteen years ago, you know, I still
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: feel like I found my home right, and so it
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: was just it was a very awakening. I feel like
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: the film really awakened something in me in regards to
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: not only narrative storytelling, but it also awakened kind of
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: this notion of like, wow, this is a subculture, you know,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: in a subculture that I feel like I have some
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: type of home in if that makes sense.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, yeah, Jamie. What's your history with the documentary?
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I saw this documentary in high school in uh. I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: think it was from my music teacher. She also like
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: did the dance stuff in our like plays and stuff,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and so she would just kind of show us whatever
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  Speaker 1: she felt like, and so she showed us Paris's Burning.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: I want to say I was in like tenth or
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: eleventh grade and I hadn't revisited since, but it was
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I'm very glad I saw it as young as I did,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: so thanks miss Bolani shout out to her. But I mean,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: I just remember, you know, being this like big class
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: full of teenagers that you know, it was whatever, the
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: late two thousands, So some kids were total assholes, but
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: most of most everyone was like really really really pulled in.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I had never seen a documentary like it before. I
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: think at that point, perhaps tragically, the closest I was
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: familiar with was like the Madonna Vogue music video that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I was like obsessed with anytime, like my mom would
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: turn it on for me, which I you know, that
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: is an element of this very complicated conversation around ballroom
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: culture and how white celebrities have sort of co opted
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: it over the years. But when I saw Paris Is Burning,
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, this is what this is, this
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: is what she saw, and was like, you know, I
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: want to present this in my whatever Madonna way, But yeah,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I was really taken with it, particularly obviously, I mean
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about everyone in the in the film, particularly Venus,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I don't know, I just I was really
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: taken by it, and I hadn't revisited it in years,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: and I had just rewatched it anyways, because I've been
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: working on a project about this feels weirdly tangential but
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: drag in comedy, because I interviewed that do you remember
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the YouTube video with Kelly.
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: Shoes Shoes Yeah, yes, yes, yes.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So I was doing just like some background on on
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: on drag and the history of drag because I interviewed
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Liam Kyle's all and who plays Kelly. And I just
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: read a book that I would highly recommend called Decolonized
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Drag by Kareem Kupchandani that I think came out a
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago. So I don't know, I mean
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: it's Paris's Burning. I know it is just like a
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: huge touchstone for a lot of people, and it was
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: definitely my first gateway into, you know, seeing this world
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and also like revisiting it. I was so happy to
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: see again just how inclusive the world of this documentary
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: is and how I mean, like you're saying, John, how
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: you know on drag race trans people weren't allowed to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: compete for years and years in this really restrictive way.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And again, like Paris is Burning is the real deal.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: It is a full community, and it's just it's beautiful.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: So it's really fun to revisit. Caitlyn, what is your
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: history with this field?
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: I saw it during the great Caitlin movie binge of
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: two thousand and four slash two thousand and five. Yes,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: I was a It was like during my freshman slash
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: sophomore year in college and I was a film student,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: and I realized how few movies I'd actually seen I
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: went into film school being like, I'm a scholar already.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: I don't even know why I'm here. I already know
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: everything about movies.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: I've seen Indiana Jones, one, two, and three.
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you thinkom because I know the I know film
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: And it turns out I didn't know shit.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: So I started compiling just like a list of all
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: the movies I felt like I needed to watch. And
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: I was getting all the Netflix DVDs back when that
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: was still a bad What a time? What a time?
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I got three at a time at a time you.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Had the premium.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Oh, you have the money. So I was cycling through
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: those and Paris Is Burning is one of the ones
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: I watched, and it was probably my first exposure to
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: actually seeing a trans person on screen who was not
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: a like CIS actor playing a trans person because for
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: some reason, I was like really attached to the movie
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Boys Don't Cry in high school. I watched it many
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: many times, but of course that is an example of
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: a SIS actor playing a trans character slash trans real
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: life person, So I think, yeah, seeing this documentary was probably,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: if not the first, one of the very first times
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: I saw an actual transperson on screen, and I learned
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: a lot, and I enjoyed the documentary very much. But
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: like you, Jamie, I hadn't revisited it in many, many years,
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: so I was very excited to dive back in and
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: revisited it. And there's so much to talk about. It's
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: really interesting to see the ways in which, like things
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: discussed in the documentary are still very relevant and also
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: some of the ways in which things feel quite dated
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: by our standards today. So lots to discuss. Excited to
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: get into it. Before we do. Let's take a quick
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: break and then we'll come back for the recap and
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: we're back, okay. So here's the recap of Paris is Burning.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: It's a little tricky to do a recap for a
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: documentary because it doesn't follow, you know, a standard narrative
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: three x structure. But I think I did a pretty
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: swell job here. But feel free to jump in and
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: fill in any blanks. But this is, of course, a
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: documentary about the ballroom scene in New York City, specifically
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Harlem in nineteen eighty seven. Ballroom, of course, referring to
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: a subculture of the LGBTQ plus community, where predominantly black
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: and LATINX queer folk put on balls, which are shows
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: slash competitions where participants walk on a runway, so to speak,
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: they model their outfit. There is often a component of
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: drag and or costumes. There's often dancing, especially voguing. There
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: are different categories.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: There's music, there's dynasties, there's families. There's family rivalries.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, there is. The rivalry is where it's at.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Those were some of my favorite parts of the doc
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: where I think it's Freddie who says House of Lebasia,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't be caught dead there. Yeah, but the ballroom
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: scene is all about self expression and being in a
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: space where you can be safe and comfortable and celebrated
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: in your queer identity.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Can I also make a no, I'm not to cut
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: you off, but I also think it's it's also imperative
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: to note that there was also as much as it
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: was fun, there was a lot of tension in those spaces,
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Like specifically that's seen with the jack it right, and
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: they were saying that the person who was walking men's
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: but they said it was a woman's jacket and they
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: were like going, there was like a hole. It literally
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: stopped the entire event, this jacket that they proclaimed to
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: be a woman's jacket. So it just I felt it
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: was important to note that because I think as much
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: as it was fun and celebratory, it was also there
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: was a lot of drama. There was a lot of.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Drama for sure, and the response, it's the buttons are
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: on the right side was set, Mama was up set.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: It was also really I mean, there's one of the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: things that I guess I hadn't really remembered about. It
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: was the generational tension as well, like that is really
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: really interesting to explore, and all I know in ways
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: that we'll talk about, but I was like, oh, yeah,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: this is like sort of a It really is like
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: generations of a family trying to all be at the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: same event, which always ends in a fight of some sort.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: So it's not shocking.
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: It's like Thanksgiving every day at the ball, like, you know,
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: the older auntie says something to the younger cousin, and
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: the younger cousin is like, you know what, you don't
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: know anything like let's talk about your your dirt, right,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: you want to talk about my dirt, Let's talk about yours.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: And I was going to say that, like you know,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: as much as you know, I have the privilege. So
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: recently I went to Creating Change earlier this year, and
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: earlier this year, like we literally January felt like it
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: was eighteen months. So January I've spent, let me tell you, right,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: And so I went to Creating Change back last month,
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: I should say, and they had a ball there. It
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: was an actual ball, and it was the same thing.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: It was very much like as I'm watching the event
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: play out at Creating Change, I'm watching, like, you know,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Paris's burning play out in my head, where you have
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: people who are like legends coming up to walk and
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: they're being cut off by people who think that they
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: are currently a legend, and so now there's tension between
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: people and who's walking. What It's just, it was. It
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: was fun, but I could see like Paris is burning
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: playing out in my head as I'm watching the ball
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: take place, So it's still present, It's still present.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: The drama remains.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: One of the I think most heavily featured queens in
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: the in the documentary is Dorian Corey, who just like
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the number of like both extremely shady and funny and
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: also profoundly wise, like those are Dorian's two settings. But
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I think Dorian really really really sets this like this
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: generational divide between the older generation and the newer generation
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: in a way that is like really fascinating and also
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: super funny because she's super funny.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it felt like Dorian Corey and Pepper Labasia
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: being the ta who like the generational differences on what
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: they say in their attitudes about things are most prominent.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: But yeah.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Over the course of the doc documentary, we meet several
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: people in this scene, starting with Pepper Labasia, the mother
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: of the House of Lebasia and has been for two decades.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: We also meet some younger members in the scene, like
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Kim Pendavis and Kim's friend in protege, Freddie Pendavis. Kim
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: is an aspiring legend. The goal of participating in Balls
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: is to become a legend or to be legendary. Pepper Labasia,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: for example, is considered a legend. We also meet Dorian
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Corey shortly after this, another legend. In the scene, Dorian
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: Corey talks about the differences between Ballroom now aka in
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: the late eighties when this documentary was filmed, and Ballroom
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: from when Dorian was first starting out, which I believe
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: would have been I don't know if it was like
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: the fifties or sixties. But first it was like elaborate
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: drag where people were dressing similar to like Vegas showgirls.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: Then it was people trying to emulate movie stars. Then
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: it became about emulating model like supermodels walking down the runway.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: As time went on, more categories were created to be
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: more inclusive. So there's categories like high fashion, winter sportswear,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: luscious body, schoolboy slash schoolgirl, realness, town and Country, executive realness, military,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: high fashion, eveningwear, and a very specific category butch Queen
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: first time in drags at a ball, to name just
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a few of the categories.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: It is so this dock. The categories are not all
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: of them, but some of them are so profoundly eighties
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: that you're like, okay, yes, right, it's wild. And it
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: was also interesting here Dorian speak to the philosophy in
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: costuming and how that's changed, not just like to reflect
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: the whatever the western beauty ideals of the period are,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: but also like the price of costumes.
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: Where we're gonna say that yeah, right, like.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: There's this there's a class component to it as well,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: where it sounds like when Dorian was coming up, you know,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: everyone made their own costumes. It was very scrappy, and
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: that was understood where by the time the documentary is
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: being filmed, it's again very eighty thing of like designer
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: labels by any means necessary, and in Dorian's opinion, something
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: that required an equal amount of scrappiness but less creativity.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Like it was interesting.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I was going to say to that point, that
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: was actually one of the things that one of the
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: first things that was on my mind was that it
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: really this film really shows not even just depression, but
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: it shows the the gap that so many of you know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: trans specifically trans black women were experiencing in that moment,
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: right It shows the pay disparity, It shows you know,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of them being houseless, and you know a
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: lot of them talking about what they have to do
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: to survive. And I think, you know, I don't want
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: to get ahead of myself, but what I will say
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: is that I think that them opening talking about that,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: right about this classism that lives in it, you know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: that lives in this ball world, really says a lot
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: to what's actually happening to them outside of these ballrooms, right, Like,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: it's really giving you a greater understanding of what the
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: disparity was, and I thought it was actually very interesting.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: I forget who it was, I have such a hard
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: time remembering names, but the woman who was talking about
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: wanting to go model, and you know, and how they
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: did that inner cut to all at the time, it's
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: you know, very eighties, but you know all these high
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: level fashion you know, high level stores and all of
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: these high level things, right even and then you you
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: talk about like even just the different categories. I think
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: one of the category was dynasty, right, so the whole
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: notion of you know, people trying to pretend to be
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: opulent and you know, I want to say herbaceous, but
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know if that's the right word. But like,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: you just had a lot of people trying to live
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: in a financial category that they could never attain, at
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: least in that moment or in that time. It was
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: very very far fetched and it was really hard for
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: them to attain it, and so they were playing this
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: out in different categories in the ball and I always
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: thought that was so interesting.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, lots to discuss there, and throughout the documentary there
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: are various discussions about race, class, gender, sexuality, the intersections
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: of all of those things and how systemic biases affect
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: the participants in the ballroom community. So yeah, we'll get
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: more into that in a bit. There's also talk of
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: essentially code switching and efforts to quote unquote pass as straight,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: which is characterized as realness. In this context. Realness also
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: refers to passing as a different gender than the one
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: you were assigned at birth. There's lots we can discuss
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: there as well. Pepper Labasia talks about her parents discovering
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: that she had breasts and wore women's clothing, and how
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: she was ostracized for this. Side note here, From what
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: I understand, Pepper Lebasia had breast implants and preferred she
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: her pronouns, but did not identify as a woman. She
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: goes into this a little bit later in the documentary,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: but she talks about how young teens would come to
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: her looking for a parental figure after they've been kicked
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: out of their house for being queer, and this kind
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: of leads into a discussion of found family chosen family,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: which is connected to houses in the ballroom community where
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: people belong to different houses such as the house of Labasia,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: House of Chanel, House of Dupre, house of Extravaganza, etc.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And they like function as real families family.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that section with Pepper explaining like I'm a mother,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: but I'm also like a mother, like I'm buying birthday
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: presents and which is just I don't know, as a
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: really moving section totally.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: We meet Venus Extravaganza, a young trans woman who was
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: brought into the House of Extravaganza. We'll see more and
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: more of her throughout the documentary. We also meet the
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: mother of this house, Angie Extravaganza, who we see winning
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: an award for being like best mother of a house.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: We also meet Willie Ninja, mother of the House Ninja,
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: and there's talk of you know, like you said, Jimmy,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: like mothers providing care and support and buying birthday presents
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and sometimes like giving younger members.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Really right, who talks about buying birthday presents? Yeah?
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well also and Angie Extravaganta, Like, I think a
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: lot of them touch on this, but yeah, they're basically
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: like providing care for the like children aka members of
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: their house. There's also talk of like this house is
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: the best, yeah, the most legendary, the most popular. Oh
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: that house, I wouldn't be caught dead in that house.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: So there's rivalries. As we discussed earlier, fights breakout, people
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: throw shade at each other and fist.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: The girls fight, they do fight.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: They talk about something called reading, which is throwing very
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: specific insults at one another, the idea being like, oh, well,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: if straight people insult a member of the queer community,
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: that's very different than members of the queer community in
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: insulting each other. So that's the idea behind reading, and
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: then throwing shade is like similar but more like subtextual,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: where the insults are a little bit more you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: it's shady for lack of a better word.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, Dorian said, I don't have to tell you you're ugly. Yes,
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: you just know you're ugly.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Like it's it's yeah, it's reading, but like with telepathy.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: It's.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: That's such a cute shirt.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I was like, I would not last a day. I'm
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: too sensitive.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Same yeah. And then from this came voguing, a dance
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: that would happen between two or more people who were
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: like feuding and throwing shade at each other other. There's
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: also talk of class and wealth. None of the people
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: featured in the documentary have much money, but part of
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Ballroom is fashion oriented and fashion costs money. High fashion
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: costs a lot of money. So we learn about something
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: called mopping, which and I think it's Freddy Pandavis, who
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: is my favorite moment of the movie, was like, oh,
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, mopping. That's when you know, you go
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: into a store and you see something and you see
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: something that you want, and then you're looking at it
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: and you look at the thing you want. Mopping is stealing.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it's basically you just take the outfit you
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: want and you don't pay for it. And it's because
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: again racism and homophobia and transphobia and all of these
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: systemic prejudices make it so that members of this community
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: are often living in poverty, and we also learn that
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: many of them earn money through sex work. There is
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: discussion of gender and transitioning and gender affirming surgeries, where
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: different people who are interviewed have different opinions and experiences,
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: where in some cases we see trans women living openly
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: and happily as such, people like Octavia's Stan Laurent Brooke
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: and Carmen Extravaganza Venus Extravaganza, and then in other cases,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: especially when Pepper Labasia is talking about it. There are
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: like just more sort of dated attitudes and hints of
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: transphobian misogyny. We can talk more about that, and then
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: we cut to nineteen eighty nine, so a few years
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: have passed. We check back in with a few of
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: the major plays of the scene, such as Willie, Ninja,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Dori and Corey and Angie Extravaganza, who says that Venus
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: Extravaganza had been murdered. She was the one who had
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: to go and identify the body and pass the news
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: along to Angie Extravaganza's biological family. And that's the note
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: more or less that the documentary ends on. So that
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: is Paris is burning in a nutshell. Let's take another
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: quick break and then we'll come back to discuss further.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: And we're back.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: We're back.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: Where shall we start? There's so many places start? Yeah, John,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: does anything stand out to you? Where would you like
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: to start?
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: You know? So, I think it's I think the one
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: thing for me that has always really struck me about
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: this film is the idea of like and again. When
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: I saw it in two thousand and four, it was
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: it was always like a foreign concept and foreign thought
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: to me. But this idea of chosen family, this idea
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: of like, you know, your family turns you know, because
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: you you as you grow up hearing this, right, your
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: family is the only people who always love you. And
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: then you come out and then they're like, no, I
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: don't just kidding, you know, just kidding by you have
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: to go and so, you know, finding people that you
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: you vibe with, people who truly are there for you
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: and care for you and want to see you not
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: just you know, survive, but like really thrive. That's the thing.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: You know. As much as I always thought Dorian and
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: Pepper were really shady, I could tell by the way
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: they talked about their chosen you know, the folks in
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: their different homes and their houses. You could tell that
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: there was just this very deep love and admiration that
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: they both had for the people in their houses. And
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: you know, I don't if you don't have you know,
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: I'll say this. If you're a listener and you identify
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: as straight and sists, I think there's just this And
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: maybe I don't know how the two of you identify,
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: but I know for me, the friends that I have
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: and the community I've built, it's the same concept, right,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: you can genuinely feel that they just want the best
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: for you. And so this film really kind of opened
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: my mind up to that of, like, you don't necessarily
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: have to just rely on your family to be happy.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: In this world. You can find people who truly want
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: the best for you, and you can live and thrive
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: and be happy and have a full live life, and
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: you can also have fun. As much as these balls
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: were shady and you know, drama was going down, there
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: were moments where people were really happy, and there were
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: moments when people were celebrating, you know, each other, And
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: so I just thought that was really funny. And the
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: last thing I'll say, I always thought it was really
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: funny in the scene where Dorian is talking and that
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: cat is walking behind her, Oh my god. I always
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: said that Dorian reminds me of like, not, lady, what
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: movie is that with the cat? It's a Disney movie.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: And for his New Groove, there's another movie where these
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: cats are walking and they're just really is it the
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Siamese Ones? We are Siamese. It's always in the Lady
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: in the Tramp. Okay, I was right. I was gonna
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: say that, but I wasn't wasn't sure she reminds me
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: of like a Siamese cat in the sense of like
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: she just knows she's regal, she just knows she's better
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: than everyone else. And I was like, it just was
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: so funny to me as I was watching that doc
• 35:29
  Speaker 3: I was like, of course there would be a cat
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: behind her because her personality is so much like a
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: Siamese cat. So it's just I thought that was funny.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, I loved the cat.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: It was really I mean, I I going off of
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: what you were just talking about, John, it was really cool.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I mean the I mean, there's so many benefits to
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: this being a documentary obviously, but where on this show.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Over the years, we've talked about so many movies that
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: have really appealed to queer audiences because of the element
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it's a found family in fiction. But there's no coding here.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: You're just seeing the families. There is no like, you know,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: mental hoops that you have to go through to feel
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: seen in a movie like Paris is Burning and that's
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: so singular and so, you know, not completely unheard of
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: at this time, but certainly on it seems like this
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: scale of success, which is really amazing but brings me
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: there's something I wanted to just touch on that. I mean,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I wasn't aware really about anything when it came to
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the production of this movie, and wow, there's a lot.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: There's a lot going on that have also echoed conversations
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: we've had before. I did not know that this movie
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: was directed by a white woman, for example. But the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: director of this movie, Jenny Livingston, directed it when she
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: was in I believe her late twenties. It's her first feature,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: and that and other elements of this production has garnered
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: quite a bit of controversy over the years. I think
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: rightfully so Jenny Livingston, I can share some quotes, but
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: has generally stood her ground on this that there's a
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: few different buckets of conversation and how Paris's Burning has
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: been criticized. It's been criticized for having a white director
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and primarily featuring Black and Latin people in this community.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: There's also a compensation that I would really like to
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: talk about because it reminds me a lot of way
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: back when when we covered Tangerine by Sean Baker, where
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: because white filmmakers statistically have a better chance of getting
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: their film made scene and profiting from it, while it
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: can produce really amazing work. It doesn't mean that those
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: who are featured, like the entire cast of Paris Is Burning,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: is getting equally compensated for literally making the movie. What
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: it is not that Jenny Livings and did nothing. Obviously
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: a lot of great work went into making this film,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: but it's their stories and that is the appeal of
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the film. And so there's been a lot of conversation
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: about that. At the time. I mean, this gets into
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: like one of my pet peeves, so we'll I'll just
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: shut up about it as quickly as possible. But compensating
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: interviewees and how taboo that is across nonfiction filmmaking. I
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: just think it's such a crack of shit. But you know,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: when this film was being made, that was the general
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: agreement that you know, everyone signed off and agreed to.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: But as is unpacked in both Hollywood Reporter article from
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: a twenty twenty one and a Vanity Fair article from
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen that reflects on this, a lot of why
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the subjects of this film agreed to do it is
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: because they really wanted their stories out there. And so
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: there is the argument that cast members have subsequently made
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: that like, yes, I did sign the piece of paper.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: I wanted our community and I wanted my story out there.
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I agreed to not be compensated. But then the movie
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: was acquired by Miramax and one stuff at sun Dance,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and you know, eventually made four million dollars and is
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the basis of polls. And who's seen most of that
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: money is Jenny Livingston, and so there have been rivalries.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: It does, I guess to her credit. It seems like
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Jenny Livingston has you know, attempted to correct this overtime.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: But it was it was a long, a long standing conversation.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I won't unpack it beat by beat because it's literally
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: thirty five years of back and forth. But I do
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: want to share a quote from Jenny Livingston defending herself
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: as a white woman. Let's see what she has to say.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: This is her, you know, disputing that Paris's Burning was
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: made for white people. She says, the sense that this
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: was a production by white pa before white people, that's
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: not historical. That is a projection rather than a truth.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: You have to see paris Is Burning in the context
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of nonfiction. She said versions of this over the years.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: What she mainly appears to be alluding to is the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: fact that she feels that this erases many of her
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: black collaborators who were working as producers and consultants. But
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the compensation issue, I think there's just she doesn't have
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: much of a leg to stand on, I feel. So
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I wanted to share a quote from Pepper, who is now,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: as is most of the cast of this movie is
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: no longer with us. But this is from an interview
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Pepper did when she was forty four, So nineteen ninety three,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: a California magazine said I had sued Miramax in one
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: untold millions and was seen shopping with Diana Ross on
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Rodeo Drive in a roles But I really just live
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: in the Bronx with my mom, and I am so
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: desperate to get out of here. It's hard to be
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: the mother of a house when you're living with your
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: own mother. And so, as we've seen for many marginalized performers,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: there is a lot of publicity, there's this big cultural moment,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: but it doesn't translate to sustained financials, and that is always, always,
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: always the case. I know we talked about it with
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: Tangerine as well, but it really stands out here too
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: where it's you know, a very similar you know, one's fiction,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: one's nonfiction, but a very similar setup where the white
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: filmmaker makes a really good film but does not compensate
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: her collaborators appropriately. And it seems like I want to wait,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: there's so many names. Let me see if I can
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: find the three names I'm looking for. As of twenty
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: twenty one, there were still three surviving cast members from
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Paris Is Burning. I actually didn't know that Poe's was
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: like based based on Paris's Burning. I know there's I
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: knew that they were like they both surround ballroom culture,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: but it's like officially based. Jenny Livingston was a consultant
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: on the first two seasons, and that is a Ryan
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Murphy joint. And we don't have enough time to unpack
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy today. But the surviving cast members were invited
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: to be consultants, including Junior le Beajia, who is in
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: Paris Is Burning, but he was the one of three
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: that said no because he felt that there it was
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: history repeating itself with Poe's being another story about predominantly
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: black and brown communities in ballroom, this time by Ryan Murphy.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: So it's again there's a white creative at the top,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: and he's like, you know, I would love to get
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: a check here, but like you're doing it again, and
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: it's you know, twenty five years later, so we can
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: link those pieces in the description. But yeah, I mean,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: this was just a conversation I was not aware of
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: at all and found very interesting.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Definitely that kind of brings me to Belle Hooks his
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: critics of this movie. I believe this quote comes from
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: her book entitled Black Looks, Race and Representation. Bell Hooks
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: said quote, watching Paris's Burning, I began to think that
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: the many yuppy looking, straight acting, pushy, predominantly white folks
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: in the audience were there because the film in no
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: way interrogates whiteness. These folks left the film saying it
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: was amazing, marvelous, incredibly funny, worthy of statements like didn't
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: you just love it? And no, I didn't love it,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: for in many ways, the film was a graphic documentary
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: portrait of the way in which colonized black people, in
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: this case black gay brothers, some of whom were drag
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Queen's worship at the throne of whiteness, even when such
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: worship demands that we live in perpetual self hate, steal,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: go hungry, and even die in its pursuit. We evoked
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: here is all of us black people, slash people of color,
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: who are daily bombarded by a powerful colonizing whiteness that
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: seduces us away from ourselves, that negates that there is
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: beauty to be found in any form of blackness that
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: is not imitation whiteness. And I see where she's coming
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: from with this criticism because different people being interviewed in
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: the documentary will say things like how they long to
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: be rich, and they point out that part of the
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: appeal of balls is that you can be whoever you
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: want to be at a ball and you can live
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: a fantasy of being able to be an executive or
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: a socialite or other type of wealthy person because society
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: will not afford you those opportunities if you are black, brown, queer.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: But this mentality of putting being wealthy on a pedestal
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: and emulating business ex executives and like doing ceo drag.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Like Dorian lays that out like really eloquently.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah right, But this mentality is very reflective of
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: the times. You know, it's the Reagan era economic ideals
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: of the eighties, and there wasn't a ton of pushback
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: on that at the time, even from marginalized communities, because
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: those ideals were just so pervasive, to the point where
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: it was not super common to interrogate things like capitalism
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: and white supremacy because they had just been so so
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: so normalized. And you know, pre Internet, there weren't as
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: many ways or resources to educate yourself or to spread
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: information widely except by mainstream media, which was perpetuating these
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: white supremacist, capitalist, cis, heteronormative ideologies. And I know Bell
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Hooks's criticism is like, yeah, but you still can and
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: should interrogate those things. So why didn't this documentary which
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: also fair, but like, I don't know, it's very tricky,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: and it also just speaks to how influential media is,
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: where ballroom contestants through the decades were you know, emulating
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: movie stars and characters from shows like Dynasty, which I
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, yeah, that is a show that I've
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: never watched and don't know anything about, but it was
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: very popular in the eighties.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: It really been lost to time. I don't think anyone
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: like revisits it really, right.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and they did redo it recently they
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: did it.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Was in like twenty seventeen.
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they did for ABC. I think ABC redid it
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: and it didn't go anywhere. But I think you speak
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: to so that I think that's the love hate that
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: I have with this film, right. I love what this
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: film stands for because I am a blackquar person who
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: is also you know, recognizing that even in twenty twenty five,
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: a lot of the stuff that they said in the
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: nineties was extreme. I mean twenty five years was it
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: twenty five years ago, thirty five years ago or thirty
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: five thirty five? Okay, so we're thirty five years out
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: from this film. You know, even thirty five years ago,
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: there were folks who were still dealing with a lot
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: of the stuff we're dealing in twenty twenty five. And
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: I think that's, like I said, the thing that I
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: love is that you see the resilience of these people saying,
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: you know, regardless, I'm going to live the life I
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: want to live, i want to be happy, I'm going
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: to find my people, I'm going to find joy. But also,
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: like I think that's the real issue I had with
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: the film is that we don't interrogate anything like we
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: leave these people kind of where we found them, Like
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: it's very much. We see you in squalor. We see
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: that you're going through it. We see that you're unhappy
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: to an extent, and you're using ballroom to find joy,
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: but we're not offering you any resources to get you
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: to a place where when you're done with this ball
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: you have somewhere to go to your head where you
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: feel safe, you feel seen, you have you know, you
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: have your means. And so I think that that's the
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: thing that gets lost in translation, is you know, and
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: I've had to say this on so many different accords.
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: I actually just sent an email about this this week.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't need a handout. I just need
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: a hand And I think that's the thing that you know,
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of people in the early nineties,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: especially when we're coming out of Reaganomics, we're watching black
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: and brown people say these systems are set up to
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: watch me fail, and I'm doing my best to survive
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: them and survive through them. And the best way I
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: know how to do that is through sex work, you know,
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: to the degree like I'm looking around and I'm going
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: help these people, like give them something like but then
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: you also have to interrogate. Okay, if Jenny did come
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: in and she was like, here's some money, then people
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: would be interrogating her and calling her the white savior, right. So,
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: but I think that there's just there's so many levels
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: to oppression, and I think the biggest thing that I
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: want folks in my rambling to hear is that there,
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: you know, we all have to be so intentional about
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: how we're just I won't even say reporting, because I
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: don't think anyone really reports on our stories anymore. But
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: I think the way that we talk about, you know,
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: the injustices that we face, right, there is an element
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: of privilege that's there. And I think that there's so
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: much education you have to do to make sure that
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: when you're going into a community that is oppressed, or
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: when you're going into a community that needs that kind
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: of help, that you've done your own intentional work to
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: make sure that you're not causing more harm. And I
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: think that's the thing that is most important for me
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: about watching this film. It's like, yes, it's funny, and
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: it's created such a you know, a culturally thing, and
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: I mean ru Paul is mentioning this film like almost
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: every season. At this point, he's had seventeen seasons of
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: Drag Race and he comes up every single season. But
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest thing is is that you have
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: so many people who are still oppressed and are still
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: striving to find peace after the ball, and it's like,
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: what do we do? What do we do to end that?
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: What do we do to help get these people the
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: resources that they need so that way they're not left for,
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: you know, left And I'm trying to be mindful of
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: my words because I saw your your note.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, we don't use like zoomer, we don't
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: use like TikTok girls.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, So just just being careful of that, right,
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: like why are we not you know, how are we
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: not leaving? Because that's really what it is. I mean,
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: the fact that it ends on talking about this trans
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: woman being killed. It so bothersome to me that that's
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: kind of how the film ends. And it's like no
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: one said or did anything about that, right, you know,
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: So I don't know, it's just it's it's like I said,
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's uplifting, but it's like I guess my
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: and I'm trying not to get into my social justice soapbox.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: But I'm like, why is it that we're always having
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: to be resilient? Like why why why do people enjoy
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: watching us struggle and and try to find joy in that?
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: And you know, and I get this all the time too,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: even with me. You know, oh, you have a book
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: coming out, you have a podcasting, you want to warns
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: it's so great, and it's like I shouldn't have to
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: be celebrated for all that I've been through to get
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: to where I am, like, I don't don't do that.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: We shouldn't have to do that. So yeah, it's just
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: something I think a lot about after watching this film.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: And then like there's an extreme end of that spectrum
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: with like the appropriation of voguing.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Donna's right, which came out even before this. That was
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that had come out before this documentary.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: I think the documentary was filmed, but they were released
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: around the same time, so in some ways it was like,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: you know, Madonna was you know, starting to sort of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: steal voguing in the late eighties, and then by the
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: time the movie comes out, the video is already out
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and it's didn't affect her career that's for fucking sure, right.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: And obviously the criticism is that, you know, Madonna and
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: already famous rich cis well, woman is profiting off of
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: something that she appropriated from ye black and brown queer communities,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: and and most people didn't realize that.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: I would even also say too, there's a document I
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: don't want to get too much away from Paris's Burning,
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: but there is a documentary about how dirty she did
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: her people, the people that she appropriated from, her choreographers
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: and her dancers that were also in these communities that
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: she quote unquote hired and then just let them go,
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: and how they were just kind of like, yo, you
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: came in here, and you know, you stole this from
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: us and and and then didn't give us anything. And
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: so it's just there's so much to say about entertainment,
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: which is like white.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like white pop stars one oh one. It's
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: like it's so much evil. It's I also wanted to
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: mention and this isn't you know, this isn't a necessarily
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: on Jenny Livingston, but where Paris's Burning was sort of
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: spoke about in media at this time of like there's
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: never been a documentary like this before which is patently untrue.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: It is that most of the documentaries made about underground cultures,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: about queer cultures were made by queer black and brown filmmakers,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: and so they just never got the attention or distribution.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: The filmmaker I've seen most mentioned in this conversation who
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: was making films around the same time, around a lot
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: of the same themes, and had a personal connection to
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: these communities was Marlon Riggs, who directed I think four documentaries.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: He passed of complications from AIDS when he was just
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: thirty seven. But this was a filmmaker who was working
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: at the time of Paris is burning, but his work
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: was never spotlighted. And then you see, you know, Jenny Livingston,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: who is a complete you know, admitted it's not like
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: she's pretending that she has, you know, intense connection to
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: this culture, but she's a complete outsider and it's her
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: project that gets the financing, that gets the sun dance,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: accolades and all that, which is again just something a
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: pattern we say repeated in entertainment over and over and
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: over and over.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: I wanted to touch a little bit more on the
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: differing attitudes that are based to some degree on like
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: different generations in this scene and how you know, for example,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: Pepper Labasia, who again preferred she her pronouns and had
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: breast implants, but I identified as a gay man who
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: emulated women but was not a woman, and says she
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: would never have any surgery that would like, you know,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: give her a vagina and quote unquote make her a woman.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: And she says that she would never recommend anyone have
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: that type of surgery because, oh what if they change
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: their mind? And oh, being a woman in the world
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: is hard. Why would you want to subject yourself to
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: the mistreatment and abuse and misogyny that women have to face,
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: which you know, when we watch this in twenty twenty five,
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: we realize that's a very like antiquated, enrigid way of
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: thinking about identity and transitioning. And it's like steeped in
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: this idea of your genitals determine your gender and it's
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: okay to deny someone something they want because I assume
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: that they will change their mind about what they want
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: and all these things. And I mean, I appreciate that
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: that is represented in this documentary just to show that
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: there are differing viewpoints, because that's also like juxtaposed, right,
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: next to trans women living happy lives as trans women
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: who have had gender affirming surgery. And it was just
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: interesting to see those opinions being included in the documentary
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: because and you hate to see it, but there are
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: and have been prejudices within marginalized communities. You know, it's
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: not constant solidarity all the time, especially in an era
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: like the eighties but also up to and including now.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, and that the movie itself doesn't at least
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, I let me know if you feel differently,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: But it didn't see like the movie was taking any
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: particular side. It was just presenting this is how this
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: person feels on this issue, which is a useful like
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: historical document And I don't know, I mean, not to
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: go back to drag race too much, but but again,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: I really like it didn't ping for me when I
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: saw this movie in high school. But I kind of
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: forgot that trans drag queens and CIS drag queens were
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: so intermixed in the ballroom scene. And that's something that
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: also is touched on quite a bit and decolonized drag
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: and just its criticisms of drag race and how it
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't always or hasn't always promoted true inclusion, and yeah,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: I appreciated like seeing especially, I mean like it. I
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: don't know. I also did not remember how Venus's life ended,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: which is still, I mean, to this day all too
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: common of trans folks being murdered and no one doing
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: anything to seek out I mean, who had done it,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: because they're just not treated. While I thought of like
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: Sam Nordquist who was just found killed a transman in Minnesota,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and I mean, there's just so many, so many, so
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: many examples from over the years. And to note that Venus,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: you know, was I Belave Italian and Puerto Rican, was
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: supporting herself through sex work and was found killed is
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: just it's so devastating. And I don't know. I mean,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't know what I wanted the movie
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: to do with that, but I just I don't know.
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: I guess I wasn't trying to make a point, it
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: just was. It was really tragic and horrible and it's
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: still something that we're very much dealing with now.
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think the scary part, you know, so
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: I will say this, I love our stories being told
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: in this way, right, but I think that there's also something,
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: like I said, kind of going back to my brant
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: about care, I think there's also something extremely scary about
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: our stories being told this way because now, you know,
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: especially with the way that this film ends, it shows
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: how disposable black trans people, trans people can be. Right.
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: So that's something that I think, you know, I if
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: there are any documentarians out there who's who's listening to
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: this and are thinking, oh, I want to do this
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: documentary or I want to I want to do this
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: type of research, I think this film is a great
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: place to kind of come back and to like examine
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: and say, like, what are all of the things that
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: Genny did right? And what are all the things that
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: Genny did wrong, especially when you're working with marginalized people.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Because even for me, right as someone who loves I'll
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: tell you right now, I will tune into I'm I
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: was watching one last night, the Parpito documentary on Netflix,
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: and there is a documentary. But yes, if it's a
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: true crime anything, mama is locked in. But I will
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: say to to that point, I think, you know, we
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: we have to There's got to be an element, especially
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: when we're dealing with marginalized people, that we have to
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: be very mindful demure and even I would even challenge
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: to be you know, to be cautious about how we're
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: how we're framing you know, stories and stories lines. But yeah,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: I will say that I do appreciate that there is
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: you know, joy, We're still left with joy from the film.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: And even now, you know, like I said, when I
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: watch shows that reference and I watch movies that reference that,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: or even you know, I revisited Polls a couple of
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: months ago. It was just really it was affirming to
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: see the impact that this documentary had on so many people,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: even now, like you said, thirty five years later.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Absolutely right, because it does certainly something to normalize this
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: subculture and bring awareness to people about it, because I'm
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: sure there are lots of people around the country slash
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: world who would have no other way really of knowing
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: about it, especially in previous decades.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: I mean all three of us were right, you know.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the fact that it's like taught in schools
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: and universities, and like I put it, I added it
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: to my list because it kept coming up in textbooks
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: I was reading about like significant queer cinema, so it
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: being pretty mainstream has you know, I think done net good.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: But also like, yeah, the note that it ends on
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: where it is basically just like, yes, Venus Extravaganza was
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: found murdered the end.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: That's all that's said. Yeah, that's all that said. And
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: then we see I believe it's Willie, who has since
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: seen a lot of success. It feels like they're almost
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: presented in opposition to each other, and.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: Right, here are the two possible outcomes, right like being
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: a participant in this community.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: I wish more care had been taken with. I mean,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: I feel like, I don't know, I'm not going to
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: redo her movie for her. It's done, it's done. But
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: but I would have stayed seated for another half hour
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes to really get into the two years later,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: because it felt like very much like an after method.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: I don't think it was intending to be dismissive, but
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: I think, like, like we've all said at this point,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: it just felt like and then this happened and it
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: was happy, and then this happened and it was sad.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: These are the two outcomes, thank you, good night, And
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: it's just like, well.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: No, that's giving way a second.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: It did not come here for this, is there more? Yeah,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: you're like girl, I know you have more be rail
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: than that, you know, so I know there's gotta be
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: some found footage somewhere.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: It's really and getting back to Bell Hook's criticism of
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: this movie, I mean, there's no criticism of the failure
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: of policing to investigate these murders.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, let's talk about it.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: It's just like there's so many there are moments where
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like it really works to this documentary's advantage
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: to let the subjects just speak, not take a clear
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: like this is what I Jenny am trying to say,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Like that's not her job here, But there's so much
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: that's left on the table that I suspect there had
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: to have been some footage about and if there wasn't,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: maybe the right questions aren't being asked because there is
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: so much about this specific period in time that's still
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: resonant now that it just feels like is either just
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: referenced in passing or like doesn't really come up. And
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: I think that like Bill Hooks was right to criticize
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: the audience reactions. That's if that's the audience's takeaway of likeugh,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: loved it anyways, brunch time, Like then there you know
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: you can't control how people receive your work, but that
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: does feel like a failure of the documentary to some degree.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I was going to say, to your point,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: one of the things I'm thinking a lot about to here,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: you know, there could have been and so in my mind,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: so I actually wrote a story about you know, the
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: I think it was, was it twenty or twenty twenty one.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: I wrote something about the whole fiasco and how people
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: are looking at Jenny Livingstone and now right basically in
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: our world, Now, what does this film for Slay? I
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: think it was for Slade. I wrote it for And
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: I will say this, I actually was in the mind
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: you know, actually while I was writing the article, one
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: of the things that I had picked up on was
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: that folks who were connected to this film back in
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: the nineties, they didn't want this to become because again,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: we were living in a political state, right, we had
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: to act up, folks, you know, things going on and
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: act up. We were five, we were only maybe four
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: or five years into the you know, the AIDS crisis,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: and so there's all of these things. And so I think,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: to an extent, you know, one of the justifications of
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: Jenny leaving this stuff out is. I don't want this
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: to become a political film, right, I don't want this
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: to be about, you know, the politics of being black
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: and queer. I just wanted to celebrate ballroom. I wanted
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: to celebrate a culture and that's it, right, Okay, fair,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: but me, especially me from an intersectional lens, right, we
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: cannot just talk about blackness and queerness and ball community
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: without talking about the politics of being black and queer
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: at this time. So it's almost like, you know, like,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: like I said, I understand what she was trying to do,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: But at the same time, we have the term intersectionality
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: being coined in eighty nine. So I'm thinking to myself, well,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: why wasn't this film done from an intersectional lens where
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 3: we're watching oppression, you know, asking the question right and
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: formulating our questions from this place of how is oppression
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: impacting those who participate in ballroom?
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: Like that that should have been the focus and then
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: we could have maybe moved into this what are we
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: going to do to vindicate Venus in her life? Right?
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: But I think, you know, and again, and I don't
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: want to be heavy. I don't want to be one
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: of those people that put their foot on Jenny's neck.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: She's had enough people put their foot on her, so
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: I get it. But what I'm saying is is I
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: think that, you know, like I said to my point earlier,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: I think we have to be when we're creating art
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: and where, you know, we're trying to tell a story,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: we have to sometimes get away from the fear of
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: it quote unquote being too political because we are political.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: Everything is just political. Whoa, I said brilliantly and blew
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: everyone's minds wide open.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean I I it's I didn't I
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: didn't realize that you'd written about it, John, That's I.
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it just felt like there there
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: was a lot that feels mysteriously absent. I don't know, particularly,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: I mean looking at I was, you know, just looking
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: into like where the folks from this documentary documentary are now?
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: There are still three living cast members, Freddy and Saul
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: pen Davis and Junior li Bejia is still alive as well,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: but most of the cast is gone and the majority
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: of them died because of complications related to AIDS. And
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean, it's like definitely not I'm
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: not the person to determine how much does that factor
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: into this narrative or not. But I've seen the criticism
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: around like where is you know?
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: Something that I also thought the documentary might touch on
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: but doesn't is the history of ballroom. And I'm by
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: no means an expert. I am pulling this a lot
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: from scholarly journal Wikipedia, but just to kind of contextualize
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 2: ballroom a little bit. Its origins trace back to the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 2: mid eighteen hundreds, where, for example, a person by the
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 2: name of William Dorsey Swan, a formerly enslaved person and
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: the first person to describe themselves as a drag queen,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 2: started hosting secret balls in Washington, DC in the I
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: think late eighteen hundreds. Many of the attendees of these
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: balls were black men. They would be arrested in police
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: raids frequently, but the balls would continue. They caught on.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: Other cities started them. By the eighteen nineties, there were
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: similar drag events organized in New York. By nineteen thirty,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: there were similar events in Chicago, New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: other cities. They were generally racially integrated, although there was
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of race within that space, and so by
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties, there was you know, predominantly black balls,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: you know, black and brown balls, because they were like,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: we don't want to deal with the racism in these
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: integrated spaces because the white people are treating us badly.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: And then that led to a lot of the houses
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: that we see represented in Paris's Burning, where for example,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: like Crystal Liabasia founded the House of Liabysia in Harlem
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: in the early seventies and that was, you know, part
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: of the kind of origins of the specific scene that
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: we see represented in the movie. But anyway, there's much
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: more information. Again I'm not an expert, but I feel
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: like a documentary today would have been like where did
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: ballroom come from? You know, and it would have like
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: gone through that history quite a bit more.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: But it feels more like a style choice of like
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: we're just dropped into this world and there's so much
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, that also speaks to like how under educated
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: you know, people generally are about drag culture.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: The other thing that the documentary to me doesn't make clear.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about the title Paris Is Burning,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: and it refers to a ball of the same name
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: that was held annually by Paris Dupree who was the
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: founding member and mother of the House of Dupre. Paris
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: Dupree is credited as one of the pioneers of voguing.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Paris is seen briefly and mentioned briefly in the documentary,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: but not heavily featured or interviewed. And so I was like, oh,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: interesting that you call the documentary Paris is Burning after
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: Paris Dupree's event, but like it's not really a feature
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: or interview Paris de Brea.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: Interesting, but wow. Yeah, I wanted to look into that
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: because I was like, why is this called Paris is Burning?
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: And that's why is there anything else anyone wants to discuss?
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: Regarding the movie.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: I will say it's an annual It's a film you
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: should watch annually at least once a year.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely get some friends together.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's great. Yeah. So for for all of the
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: for all of the criticizing we've been doing for the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: past hour plus, it is a terrific movie. It's very, very,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: very rewatchable. And I think, I mean, as we've all
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: sort of talked about, it was a gateway for it's
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: a it's a gateway watch. I think, like you know,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: it's definitely a good one on one for ballroom culture
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: that it seems like has paved the way for a
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: lot of other work, and some of that, although Ryan
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: Murphy is not a good example, is not made by
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Cis white creators. So I think it definitely has a
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: strong place in history. And it's also just like, yeah,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: it's just such a great watch.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: Definitely, the music, choices, the fashion, it's.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: All of it.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, the cat, the cat.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: Now the other thing. I don't know if I'm supposed
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: to talk about this on the air, y'all. Do know
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: that there was some stuff with mother Later on in
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: the years, they found folks in Dorian's closet. I don't
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: know if we want.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 2: To Oh, we can't wait.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I forgot that that was Dorian. Oh okay, wait,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: let's talk about it just really quickly. Yeah.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: I don't want to go into the mess too much
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: because I don't want it to overshadow the joy of
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: this film. But I'm just letting you know that that
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: was That is a piece.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: Of the history, and history is a many headed, complicated thing.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: Wait for our listeners and also me who doesn't know
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: about this, could you say, yeah.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: Wow, I feel like there's like five listeners right now
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: that heard us ending the episode and we're screaming at
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: the top of their lungs. Okay, yeah, yeah, John, take
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: it away, like.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: No, not more, but okay. So there is an article
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: and it says a famous drac Queen, a mummy in
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: the closet, and a baffling mystery, and this was written
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen and so so so what I will
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: also posit and say if you are a pose watcher,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: you will know that. I think it was either season
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: two or season three. Towards the end of the season.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: There is an actual episode where they're talking about this,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: Uh there's a Louis Vauton trunk that is in I
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: think it's in Who's uh, what's her name's house? But anyway,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: all that to be said, they're trying to get to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: this trunk. Well, it's based off of this story surrounding
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 3: Dorian Corey, and I guess one of the clips of
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: this article, it says what stands in starkes contrast to
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: the gruesome implications in her closet, it is Corey's demeanor.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: The most extensive video of Corey is in nineteen nineties
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: Jennie Livingston's documentary. It's an examination of aforementioned ball culture
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 3: and interviews. She's witty, realistic, and unflappable. In contrast to
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: the grandiosity of aspiring models and housewives. She has a
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: self possessed cadence and world weary observations, which endear her
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: to be a comparatively mainstream audience. So, you know, there's
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: this notion that she's just very fun and very you know,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 3: witty and very you know, very endearing per se. But
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: I guess it's probable that there was something that was
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: happening between nineteen eighty eight and nineteen ninety and ultimately
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: she tucked it away in her closet.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: So okay, yeah, I forgot. How dare I forget about
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: the mummy? Truly?
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: The I'm so confused.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: So it's so dead, Bob I was. I would say,
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: there's a dead body. I've seen different story as to
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: what the story I was looking at, which is cited
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: on scholarly journal Wikipedia, but also is Yeah from a
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five paper called The Drag Queen and the
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Mummy that the body discovered was determined to be dead
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: for approximately twenty five years was said to be the
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: body of a man named Robert Worley, who hadn't been
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: seen since nineteen sixty eight. But it was the theories
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: surrounding that death were either the theories were that Robert
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: and Dorian were in a relationship of some sort and
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: that either Robert had been killed and she had hidden
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: in his body for whatever reason, or that she had
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: killed him in self defense because of violence she was
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: experiencing at his hands. And then was like, let's just
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: go in here. I fascinating lives all around, John, thank
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: you for bringing that up.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I just wanted to say, like, because I don't
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: want people listening and being like they totally just over
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: they just looked over this whole you know, story. But
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: I think it's also tangential to what we're talking about here, right,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: these people, you know, So like I'm even I'm looking
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: through the story that I just quickly googled, and it
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 3: said that there's also a rumor that this whoever this
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: body was, They basically claim that this man broke into
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: her home and tried to rob her, and that it
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: was self defense. And so when people ask why she
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: kept the body, it says a black drag queen who
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: lived in a poor, dangerous area in the sixties or
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: seventies had a little chance of garnering sympathy from the police.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: And so I think it's it's it's as much as
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: it's not related to the story of what Genny was
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: trying to do with this film, I think it really
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: like this story per se says a lot about the
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: times that these queer people were living in, right like
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: the fear of Okay, well, I I tell someone that
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: this man broke into my home and I killed him
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: in self defense, and then I still end up in jail,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: and then I end up dead in jail, right right,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: Like that's probably regardless of what the story was. You know,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: the reality was Dorian was worried about their livelihood and
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: so just to be queer at this time, and I
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: mean still even now, right, you know, to be worried
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: about your livelihood is something that's very real for queer people.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: And you know, as much as like I said, it
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: doesn't relate to the story, it very much does absolutely.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: I mean, and the ways that I've seen this story,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I didn't connect that it's story and
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: from this movie. The ways I've seen the story presented
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: over the years has been more framed as clickbait sensationalism
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: in a way that I feel like really leans into biased,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: horrible perspectives of like, well, queer people are inherently violent,
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: and that's why when you find a body in the closet,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: like that is why as opposed to queer people and
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: specifically like black queer people are particularly vulnerable. And like
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: you're just saying, John would not have stood a chance
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: at you know, standing up against the white supremacist police state,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: and so it was self defense and was necessary in
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: order to survive. I've not really seen that anecdote presented
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: that way. It was more like a fun fact. Did
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: you know this famous drag queen from Paris is burning?
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: Did you know in the way that I think a
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: lot of AI slop kind of leans towards.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it doesn't humanize, it doesn't. And I think that's
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: the thing too with these type of not even these stories,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: but just like I even thine, going back to the documentary,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: it you know, this idea that there's this humanity that's
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: not there, you know sometimes you know, and I think
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: that's what you know when you were talking about when
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: you were giving the piece about Bill Hooks. I think
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 3: that's what they were ultimately trying to say, that there's
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: just this lack of humanity. And I don't even think,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: you know, that's why I said I there was a
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: part of me that didn't even want to tell anybody
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: that I was watching the documentary. But it's like, you know,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 3: I sometimes have to check myself with that of like,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: these were humans. These are people that had really like
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: a really terrible thing happened to them, and we sensationalize
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 3: it and there's so much oh my god, this really
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: saucy thing happened. You did you hear about it? But
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: it's like, yo, like where's the humanity behind it? And
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: so I have to catch myself sometimes when I get excited,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: you know, in conversation about these type of films. But yeah,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: that's kind of where I'm left right.
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: Well, Paris Is Burning does touch on these topics of class,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: of race, of gender, of sexuality, but it does so
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: in a pretty surface way where it'll be like one
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 2: person's like SoundBite from there, you know, in interview, monologuing
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: for a couple sentences about something, and that happens a
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: few times throughout the documentary. So It's not as though
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: the documentary ignores these topics and the intersections of them,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: but it doesn't zoom out very much as far as like, well,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: how do these things affect these people systemically in larger
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: and more significant ways. It doesn't dive deeply into these things.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: It's just pretty I don't want to call it superficial necessarily,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 2: but it's you know, it's not super deep the way
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: the movie explores these things.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: Which and that connects to something we've talked about a
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: lot where that stands out as particularly when the subjects
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: that these films are people who are largely ignored by
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: the rest of culture, and so then it, you know,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: ostensibly becomes the job of one movie to do every everything,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: when the reality is like one movie can't do everything.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: There is plenty to criticize about Jenny's approach here, which
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: we have done and many have done and will continue
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: to do it, and rightfully so. But I think it
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: also draws attention to the fact that on a lot
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: of I mean think about like how many documentaries are
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: there about World War Two, and how every documentary about
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: World War two doesn't address every aspect and perspective and
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: figure of World War two. But that's okay. There's forty
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: trillion documentaries about World War Two that grandfathers all over
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: the world are watching as we speak, and like, there whatever,
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: there is more, not that there wasn't more. Like we're saying,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: there were filmmakers that were creating work around these communities,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: but in terms of work that was easily accessible, In
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: terms of work that was getting the financing and marketing
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: to support it, there wasn't very much. And so then
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: it becomes I mean, it's like a tricky conversation because
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: one movie can't do everything, but one movie can do
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: more than it's doing.
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 3: It can do something. Chat, that's what I hear.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, maybe we just need Paris Is Burning to
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: yeah or something, or a different movie.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 3: Let's start a GoFundMe and we can we can start
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: we can be the ones that do that.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, anything else anyone wants to talk about.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: It's all.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: The movie, whether or not it passes the Bechdel test,
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: is like not the most applicable since it's a documentary
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 2: format and it's not a lot of people having dialogue.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 2: But I'm pretty serious anyway, right because many of the
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: people featured are people of a marginalized gender, and we
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: do see them speak to each other about balls and
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: houses and clothes and things like that. So the film
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: does past the Bechtyl test. But what about the Bechtel
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: Cast nipple scale, a scale where we rate the movie
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: zero to five nipples based on examining it through an
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens. John, I see shock and awe on
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: your face.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: Anything about Journey nipple? Yes, okay, I really don't know
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: what we were thinking, but we committed to it. And
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: and that's the scale.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 3: So one nipple is terrible and five nipples are great.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this is correct.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: I would give it. Oh, because you can't do half.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: Nipples, Yes, you can do we do quarter nipples.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: Slice them and dice them. However you like.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: Slice the nipples? Ooh, that's terrifying. Let's go. I would
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: do four nipples.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: I'm around that area as well. Yeah, yeah, I think
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: I was going to give it like three point seven five.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think three point seven five is perfect.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, I I agree. We've decided it's three point
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: seven five and that's.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: That, and that's that. We've discussed the movie's shortcomings, but
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: we've also discussed the many ways in which this is
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 2: a very important piece of cinema and important documentary paved
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: the way for similar projects. And uh yeah, I would
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 2: give my nipples too.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: Oh yes, you can give your nipples away to John.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 2: We award them. Oh, okay to people. Uh I, I
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: sort of just want to give my nipples to everyone
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 2: featured in the documentary. That's and then but specifically setting
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 2: aside one nipple for the cat.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: Yes, of course, I'm gonna just leave my nipples on
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: the table. And I wish I could give every participant
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: of this documentary, uh five hundred thousand dollars at the
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: time it came up. Oh my god, Like that's just
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: I just wish that the subjects of this documentary that
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: it's you know, the filmmaking is good, but it is
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: the people at the center of this movie that make
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: it what it is. That is the reason that we
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: are still watching it today, and they should have been
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: compensated better. So yeah, yeah, just distributing money in nineteen
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: ninety that's how I'm going to use my nfles.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: Well, John, thank you so much for joining us.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 3: This was great and this was such a good conversation.
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 3: Thank you for and thank you for thinking of me
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: and thank you for including me. This was, like I said,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: I had a really great time, and it also gave
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 3: me a new again. I've watched this film a million times,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 3: I've written about it, I've done so many things around it.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: But this also gives me a great perspective to think
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 3: about as I rewatch it. So I will be watching
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: it a little bit more closer next time, though.
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: I will say that if you want yeah, yeah or not.
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I'm just like I'm shutting off my brain and
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: watching a thing that I like.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's me a reality TV.
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: We were so delighted to have you. Thank you so
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 2: much for joining us. Come back anytime for any movie
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: you'd like to discuss.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, where can we find you? And where can our
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: listeners follow your work?
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: Well? You can often find me doing a pirouet inside
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: of a Krispy Kreme or any donut location. But when
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 3: I am not eating sugar I'm not supposed to have.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: You can find me on social media. My handout is
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 3: doctor John Paul everywhere except for Twitter. I am no
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 3: longer on Twitter, good for you, but you can find
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: me in Blue Sky. I don't know how much longer
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 3: I'll be on Instagram or Facebook, but you can also
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: find me there and also on threads. But yeah, and
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 3: then visit my website ww dot doctor Johnpaul dot com
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: and you can probably catch me in a bookstore near you. Yeah,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 3: if you're in the LA area, you'd like to come
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: to my book launch. All the information for that is
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 3: on my website.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 2: So yay, we'll be there. We're in the LA area.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, come down, come down.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, please pre order John's book. Thank you again for
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: joining us. You can follow us mostly on Instagram these days.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 2: At Bechdel Cast, you can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 2: where we cover two movies a month. Plus you get
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 2: access to the entire back catalog. There's fun, amazing, brilliant
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: genius themes such as Rodent Timber coming up this March.
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: There's a stunning number of movies about rodents. Would you
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: like to hear an intersectional feminist discussion of them? If not,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: too bad, you have to drive.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: You have to subscribe anyway.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Intersectional feminist discussion of ratitude incoming. Link in description's get
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: our merch at teapublic dot com. Slash the Bechdel Cast
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: and with that another wonderful episode of The Bechtel Cast concludes.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 2: Wow, see you next time.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 3: Bye Bye, bye bye.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 2: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
• 1:28:22
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• 1:28:25
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• 1:28:29
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• 1:28:32
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