“No matter you say, no matter what you think, I am beautiful.”
For over a hundred years, the ballrooms of New York have been host to extravagant, exciting,
and sometimes secret queer dance parties. It’s a world where people who faced incredible
obstacles in life could relax, and unwind, and live out their fantasies. And it was also
a world that for many decades was hidden, erased, or even dangerous to document.
But now, all that’s changed. Not only are we fortunate enough to have newly-restored
footage of balls from decades past, but people in the scene are creating their own documentaries.
And by looking across old docs like Paris is Burning and new ones like Kiki, we can
start to reconstruct the history of queer dance parties, and ask — after fifty years
of ballroom, how much has changed… and how much is still the same as it was decades ago?
All aboard and welcome to Matt Baume’s Culture Cruise! In some of my recent videos, we looked
at documentaries like The Queen from 1968 and Paris is Burning from 1990. This time,
we’re jumping ahead another 25 years Paris is Burning, for a look at what came after.
The documentary Kiki from 2016 captures a relatively new scene, where young queer people
are creating the next generation of ballroom.
By the way, Culture Cruise is made possible thanks to patrons like Rusty O’Neil, Karel
Polt, and Jessica Shook — if you’re enjoying these videos head over to patreon.com/mattbaume
to check out the rewards for backers.
Now before we get started, let’s do a quick recap on the history of ballroom. And if you
want more detail, you can watch my videos on The Queen and Paris is Burning. The short
version is that the scene evolved out of elaborate balls starting in the 1800s where people — often
people of color — would dress up in what today we would call drag. Those balls grew
in popularity through the 1920s. But then there was a backlash, a moral panic, and for
a time dressing in drag and going to balls was a crime.
Years passed, and queer people were increasingly the target of the police, the medical establishment,
and society in general. During that time a ton of queer culture was lost. Sometimes because
it was erased, like with regulations that banned so-called “perversion” in films,
or because it was simply too dangerous for queer people to openly express themselves.
“Each of our contestants ... is breaking the law.”
But then with the sexual revolution, drag functions started to re-emerge. In the 1970s,
people like Crystal LaBeija started organizing their own balls in Harlem, and to form Houses,
and the modern ballroom scene was born.
A little slice of that history was captured in the documentaries The Queen and Paris is
Burning, which were recently restored, complete with all the memorable catch phrases:
“If you shoot a arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you.”
But there are other documentaries that reveal even more, like the 2016 film Kiki.
So what makes Kiki different? One of the things that sets it apart is that it was co-created
by someone who is actually a part of ballroom culture.
“I am Twiggy Pucci Garcon. … I am the founder of the opulent house of Pucci.”
More specifically, Twiggy’s a part of the Kiki scene, which is like an offshoot of ballroom.
The word kiki means to laugh when you’re hanging out with your friends …
“You get in a smart crack and everyone laughs and kikis.”
And the Kiki scene was created in 2002 by Aisha Diori at the health nonprofit GMHC.
The idea was to give young queer people a place to relax, hang out, and support each
other, and hey as long as they were there, make sure they have information about HIV
and safe sex.
That worked great, and over time, participants created their own events, their own Houses,
and their own history. But a lot of the history of what led up to that is hidden, even from
people who are a part of it.
“I don’t see our story being told in history. What does it mean for the black LGBT community,
for our story — ballroom is a part of that story, to not be anywhere?”
But that history must exist … so where is it? Well, to find it, sometimes you have to
know where to look. For example, in Paris is Burning, we see people hanging out on the
piers, just a few blocks from the Stonewall Inn. Back in the 80s, it was pretty run-down
and dilapidated, but it was still a place where queer youth knew they could gather and
find each other when they had nowhere else to go. Today, it’s all landscaped and lush,
but it still serves the same exact function for the people in Kiki.
“And like a lot of my friends, we used to stay on the pier and vogue all day.”
And one of the most amazing historical connections in Kiki is when they resurrect a place called
The Rockland Palace.
“Rockland Palace was a space in the 1920s and 30s where the original drag balls were
held.”
The building’s gone, just a parking lot today. So Kiki’s filmmakers, Twiggy and
Sara Jordeno, bring the Rockland Palace back to life by organizing a festival where it
once stood, building stages for music and dancers.
“So, tonight we’re going to reincarnate this place and have a kiki ball here.”
What I love about this moment — what I like about shining a light on queer history in
general — is when I see folks remembering queer people of the past, refusing to let
them be forgotten, it makes me feel like a hundred years from now, queer people like
me won’t be forgotten either.
Also, this is a place where you can see another big difference from documentaries of the past.
Look who’s in the audience — parents. Biological family members in Kiki are way
more supportive than in documentaries past.
We meet Gia Marie Love, a trans woman and mother of the house of Juicy. Here’s Gia’s
mom talking about her daughter’s transition:
“She was on the phone, I said whatever your decision is, I’m with you. I accept it.
I think she’s sexy. Like me.”
And here’s Pucci’s mother:
“But you should never tell your child to get out of the home. That’s just wrong.”
Compare that to what you hear from Pepper La Beija in Paris is Burning, 25 years earlier.
She talks about how part of her role, as the Mother of a House, is to look after young
people who’ve been thrown out of the home where they grew up.
“Because their real parents give them such a hard way to go, they look up to me to fill
that void.”
Now let’s jump back another 25 years, to the 1960s, with a documentary called Queens
at Heart. That one was filmed one year before The Queen, before the modern ballroom scene
existed, but there were still underground queer dance parties — all illegal — where
people could dress in drag and perform.
Listen to how they talk about family acceptance then:
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” “I have an older brother.”
“Does he know that you’re homosexual?” “No.”
“What do you think he’d do if he found out?”
“Probably kill me.”
I think it’s chilling how casually that line is said. There was so much hostility
to queer people at the time that it was treated as totally unremarkable that your own family
might try to take your life if they knew the truth.
And to be fair, violence is still a factor in a lot of queer peoples’ lives. Later
in the Kiki documentary we meet Zariya Mizrahi, whose mother wasn’t as accepting as some
of the others.
“And then, like, she like took me by my throat and slammed me into the wall and she
said if this is the life you want to live then get your shit and get the fuck out of
my house.”
Family acceptance has certainly improved over the last 50 years, but you can see in these
documentaries that rejection, violence, and homelessness have been and continue to be
major issues.
It’s why the support to be found in the ballroom and kiki scenes is so necessary — and
that’s something that’s been very consistent. Here’s Pepper in Paris is Burning:
“When someone has rejection from their mother and their father, their family, when they
get out into the world, they search. They search for someone to fill that void.”
And here’s Simba in Kiki, talking about the same thing 25 years later.
“When you come into the scene, you, you create a family. You have gay brothers, gay
sisters. You can pick your gay parents or your gay parents pick you. … They say we
often become the parents we never had.”
That support gives people a freedom to figure themselves out that they might not have all
on their own. For example, when they started filming Kiki, Gia Marie Love was newer to
the scene and hadn’t yet begun her transition.
We see her watching that older footage of herself, and smiling at just how much she’s
changed, a change that was possible because of the kiki scene.
“Because I found a community that appreciates me and all of me, I’m able to be myself.”
“When I came out into the scene, the scene helped me realize that transition was possible
from a male to a female and to be able to live the life, you know, that you want to
live.”
Gia and Zariyah’s freedom to be themselves reminds me so much of Brooke Xtravaganza,
back in Paris is Burning, 25 years earlier:
“The part of my life that was a secret is now closed. I can close the closet door, there
are no more skeletons in there, and I’m as free as the wind that’s blowing out on
this beach!”
Jump back another 25 years, and transitioning was almost entirely out of reach for most
people. I talked about this more in my video about The Queen, but back then gender therapy
— what was then called “sex reassignment” — was still a brand new practice. At the
time, it could cost the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars, and good luck finding
any insurance to cover it. It was so hard to obtain trans-affirming care that patients
usually had to go overseas to find it. And the treatment was so experimental that some
early patients died from complications.
Still, despite the costs, despite the risks, we hear first-hand just how important it was.
“Would you say that you’re a happy, fulfilled person?”
“I’m very happy but I’m not quite fulfilled until I get my sex change and can be a complete
woman. Then I’ll be happy. Completely.”
The science and understanding around gender has changed a lot over the last 50 years.
But that desire to live authentically, to be your complete self, that hasn’t changed
at all.
We should also talk about how much language has changed. You’ve probably noticed that
some of the terms in these older docs are not the words that we use today, like how
Queens at Heart talks about getting a “sex change.” Fifty years ago, the word “transgender”
had only just been coined, and there just wasn’t commonly agreed-on language for all
the different ways someone can express their gender.
But even though the language wasn’t as precise, that didn’t mean people in the community
didn’t understand themselves. At one point in Queens at Heart, the interviewer calls
an interviewee, Simone, “effeminate,” and she actually schools him on how his terminology
is what we would today call ... problematic.
“When did you first discover that you were effeminate.”
“Well I think we ought to clear up what’s feminine and what’s gay.”
“Well what’s the difference?”
The first time I watched this, I was really startled, because this is a conversation that
a lot of people are still having to this day. Simone’s pointing out a distinction between
sexual orientation and behavioral traits that are gendered. Now because this was filmed
so many decades ago, the conversation doesn’t use the same terms that we’d use today.
But still, she’s pointing out an important distinction that the interviewer just doesn’t
seem to see.
“Well what’s the difference?” “Well, a gay person is a boy who’s attracted
to another boy or a girl who’s attracted to another girl. And feminine, anybody can
be feminine. There’s lots of married men who have feminine instincts. You know, they
have limp wrists or they walk a little more feminine than the other men.”
Simone’s understanding of who she is and how she defines herself really highlights
why, when you’re talking about a marginalized group, you should listen to the people in
that group. They know first-hand how to describe their experiences in ways that outsiders might
simply not understand.
That is certainly not something that’s changed in fifty years. And it’s one reason why
Kiki is so important — and different from those earlier documentaries.
To be clear, I like Paris is Burning. It is a visually beautiful movie, the people in
it are fascinating, and it broke through to the mainstream to reach people who would probably
never have thought about queer culture otherwise. It brought queer culture to a mass audience,
and it’s possible modern shows like Drag Race wouldn’t be talking about shade and
reading, if those modern shows even existed at all.
“In the great tradition of Paris is Burning… get out your library cards, darling!”
Not only that, but at a time when the biggest mainstream story about gay life was about
HIV and tragedy, Paris is Burning shows queer people as beautiful and triumphant, and I
think that’s an incredibly powerful and important achievement.
I also like The Queen and Queens at Heart. Those docs were made at a time when queer
life was simply not spoken of. You could be sent to jail or labelled mentally ill just
for not conforming to traditional gender roles. So I think it’s incredibly brave for the
people in those films to have shared their stories.
Now, that having been said … Paris is Burning, The Queen, and Queens at Heart were all made
by people from outside of the scene that they were documenting. So, in contrast, the team
that made Kiki included folks like Twiggy. As a result, I can have more trust that the
people in Kiki are being depicted authentically, that they’re not being misrepresented.
But I also find Kiki a little harder to relate to than other docs. Paris is Burning, The
Queen, and Queens at Heart all spend a lot more time explaining things and defining terms.
“Shade comes from reading.”
And as an outsider to the scene myself, those explanations are really helpful for me. There
are times during Kiki when I kind of missed that. But my guess is that the people who
made Kiki know their audience has seen Paris is Burning, or are already familiar with ballroom.
We already know the basics. Kiki doesn’t have to retread that same ground. Instead,
it can build on what’s come before.
These older docs you can think of as being like ballroom 101. And Kiki’s like ballroom
102 — and it can be that because it’s made by people who know the scene first-hand.
That documentaries are being made about ballroom isn’t new, that’s been happening for generations.
But what’s changed is who gets to tell those stories.
For a really complete understanding of ballroom’s history, you should check out more media from
people who are in the scene — like the YouTube channel Ballroom Throwbacks, BET’s series
Queer as Fuck, and the show My House. And of course follow icons from the scene like
Leomy Maldonado, MJ Rodriguez, and of course, Dominique Jackson.
“I am ballroom!”
The more you look back across the story of ballroom — a hundred years ago, fifty, twenty-five,
today — you can see so much that’s changed. The buildings, the families, the terminology,
the hair, and now, who gets to tell the story. But underneath all those things, the people
themselves have remained remarkably consistent, from one generation to the next to the next:
“You’re one of the taller drag queens around.” “But I’m one of the more beautiful
ones too darling.” “I am beautiful and I know I’m beautiful.”
“And for those children who can’t take the fact that I still look beautiful, ha,
suffer.” “When people step onto the ballroom floor,
they’re not just competing in a category. They’re telling their story. … So someone
who walks is telling you I am beautiful. … No matter what you say, no matter what you think,
I am beautiful.”
Land ho! We’re pulling into port. Thanks to everyone who makes Culture Cruise possible
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when the next one happens.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late to the bald room.