opulence
you own everything new york 1987. the city is in the middle of a
violent crime wave income inequality in manhattan is among
the worst in the country and a callous presidential administration is ignoring
an epidemic that has killed tens of thousands of people
but inside the imperial elks lodge on west 129th street
a group of performers have gathered to get away from all that for just a few
hours okay i saw
all aboard and welcome to matt baume's culture cruise where we take a deep dive
on lgbtq milestones in entertainment that changed the world
last month we looked at 1967's documentary the queen
which captured a slice of new york drag culture right before stonewall changed
everything now we're going to jump ahead 20 years
to paris is burning the groundbreaking documentary
that captured another small hidden slice of new york drag culture
right before everything changed again and thanks to everyone who makes culture
cruise possible with the pledge of support on patreon
folks like garth jensen gareth marshall and fredo alvarez
you can head over to patreon.com mattbaume to help keep these videos
coming and check out some baca rewards before
we talk about paris's burning and voguing and the mummy in dorian cory's
closet which i promise we will get to we'll need a quick refresher on new
york's dragon ball room scene i went into a lot more detail on that
history in last month's video about the queen
but for now what you need to know is new york's drag balls have their origin
in annual galas that started in the latter half of the 1800s
those balls grew like balls do into a golden age in the 1920s a period known
as the pansy craze but although they
allowed people of all races to compete the balls weren't exactly welcoming to
people of color black drag performers almost never won
first place in the contests they were expected to lighten their skin
to compete drag balls then faded from public view in the 1930s
thanks to a moral panic that forced queer culture underground
30 years past and then with the sexual revolution in the 1960s
drag balls gradually came back out into the open leading up to the pageant
captured in the documentary of the queen they didn't know it then but when they
shot the queen drag was about to change forever at the very end of the pageant
we see a confrontation involving the reigning miss manhattan
crystal basia crystal where are you going this is not the time to show
temperament get back here and stay with the other finalists crystal unexpectedly
walks off stage when it's announced that the judges placed her
third not only was she passed over for the crown but as miss manhattan
she'd had to deal with systemic racism that had been a part of the ballroom
scene for a century and on that night in 1967 her
frustration erupted i have a rifle for my collar dolly i
am beautiful and i know i'm beautiful so what ever happened to crystal well now
we're ready to talk about what happened after the queen crystal and her friend
lottie started organizing their own drag pageants
and their own drag house the house of labasia where the pageant system had
titles like emperor and empress drag houses were structured more like
families support networks for queer people who might otherwise have been all
alone each house had a mother and crystal is recognized as the first
mother of the house of labasia drag houses kept growing and were a big
part of queer life in new york by the 1980s
particularly in communities of color but most of america had
no idea they existed until the documentary paris
burning came out in 1990 the film was shot over a period of several years and
it doesn't tell a linear story so much as present a series of vignettes
of harlem's drag balls in the mid to late 80s
we're introduced to a handful of figures who would come to reign over the scene
like pepper labaja who became the house
mother after crystal crystal was the founder
i'm i just rule it down with a soft glove
there's dorian corey a seasoned veteran of the circuit i always had hopes of
being a big star and venus extravaganza who's
young and idealistic i want a car i want to be with the man i
love i want a nice home away from new york
we meet people who come to the balls to dance to show off to feel a sense of
strength you go in there and you feel you feel
100 right as a bit being gay
it's not what it's like in the world and it really wasn't to understand why balls
were so important you need to understand the climate in
the mid 1980s for all the civil rights advances of the
previous decades it was still a pretty bleak time for queer people
homosexuality is a sin i don't care how you define it
it's not normal it's uh what freud is called
perversion okay what freud actually said in 1935
was that homosexuality is quote nothing to be ashamed of no vice no degradation
it cannot be classified as an illness but hey since when have homophobes let
facts spoil their homophobia life in the 1980s was particularly rough
for queer people of color this is white america and when it comes
to the minorities especially black we have had everything taken away from
us and yet we have all learned how to
survive making matters worse by the mid-1980s
homophobic legislators had started using the hiv epidemic as an excuse to
demonize queer people with proposals that even included
forcing anyone with hiv into concentration camps
we know to a certainty that aids is transmitted
in great measure by homosexual conduct the bill which allows for criminal
prosecution of doctors who failed to turn in the names of people who have
aids or test positive for the virus we want to identify every person who's a
carrier we want to identify every possible way to stop them from
from spreading the disease before it becomes a really serious
national health threat different subcultures within the queer community
developed different ways of dealing with the epidemic and with the homophobia of
the time the subjects of paris parishes burning
describe the balls not just as an escape but also a way to feel empowered i like
the competition makes me stronger makes me think more
makes me want to come back and get them you can see that feeling of strength and
triumph when you watch people walking especially when they get their trophies
they explain that for one night no matter how rough things are in real life
they can still live out whatever their fantasy might be you know a lot of those
kids that are in the balls they don't have two of nothing
some of them don't even eat they'll go out and they'll steal something and get
dressed up and come to a ball for that one night and live the fantasy but the
benefits of the balls weren't all fantasies there's also an
aspect that was very real and that's the family since being
founded by crystal the houses adopted a system of mothers who looked over each
house and the children that they protected
remember the world was extremely hostile to queer people particularly queer
people of color and it wasn't uncommon at the time for
youth to get kicked out of the house and abandoned by their biological family
when they came out here's how that was depicted in
mainstream entertainment at the time dad do you want me to leave too
i i don't care what you do so when are you coming back
when i'm welcome if you feel that unhappy about it
just throw him out and tell him you never want to see him again
it is wild that the studio audience gives that line a laugh but that gives
you an idea of just how seriously people took lgbtq youth
homelessness at the time and just one more thing to note about
those clips all of those examples are white families that's because with
very few exceptions the media's depiction of queer people
was overwhelmingly white at the time we'll talk a lot more about that racism
in a few minutes for now just keep in mind how commonplace family
rejection was and how drag houses provided support that many biological
families didn't the house of extravagance has
done a lot it's made me feel like i have a family
but this is the new meaning of family it's a question of a group of human
beings in a mutual bond because they're real
parents and give them such a hard way to go
they look up to me to fill that void so that's another reason this world
developed why houses came to exist in a world that was particularly hostile
ballroom was a place of power celebration support fantasy and family
so what were the balls like well the format will probably be familiar if
you've ever been to a drag show or a pageant or watch drag race
it starts with categories going to school
town and country the category is butch queen
first time in drags you know what i mean and just compare those categories with
what we saw 20 years earlier in the queen
there's basically one look in that 1967 pageant
beauty queen first place went to whoever looked the most like a glamorous movie
star to the point that the winner in the
queen is literally named after movie star gene harlow
so they made the categories for everybody they've all
walked the runway in some category or another
but there's always something there for everyone and that's what keeps them all
coming dorian's describing a big shift between
the queen and paris's burning remember the early drag galas were
technically open to everyone but they weren't really welcoming to
people of color so after crystal helped start drag houses in the 1970s
the new balls were by design far more inclusive than what had come before
this was a world by and for people who had felt
excluded not just from mainstream culture but from queer subculture
and when paris's burning was released mainstream audiences
loved what they saw the new award-winning film which is being
released nationally tomorrow paris is burning is getting major major
major attention it features i said you exotic gay
subculture in new york that helps gay and lesbian young people
to feel wanted and loved and accepted by dressing up as their
fantasies remember there was very little media
representation of any queer life at this time
let alone drag let alone queer drag performers of color
for many people paris burning was their first introduction to concepts that are
much more familiar today stuff like reading and shade for example
shade comes from reading reading came first then reading became
a developed form where it became shade shade is
i don't tell you're ugly but i don't have to tell you because you know
you're ugly and that's shade the documentary also defines voguing
kind of this ladies and gentlemen is voguing
a form of dance that has its roots in harlem a takeoff
on runway modeling and i had never seen anything quite like it
and i'm connie collins news 4 manhattan okay this newscaster isn't really
equipped to define voguing but willy ninja a choreographer who got
his start in ballroom has a lot more insight
voguing came from shade instead of fighting
you would dance it out on the dance floor and whoever did the better moves
was throwing the best shade basically so voguing is like a safe
form of throwing shade right after that interview was shot but
before the documentary was released voguing would become a
huge international phenomenon but it didn't come to mainstream audiences
through the balls at least not directly
madonna discovered voguing through one of her dancers jose extravaganza
a member of the house of extravaganza as the story goes madonna's hairdresser
told her about the balls and madonna just showed up at a club one night and
asked jose to dance she said i heard you do this vogue thing
and i want to see she must have liked what she saw because
she began working with jose and louise extravaganza to create the moves for the
vogue music video as well as its various incarnations on
tour and at the mtv music awards which includes an early televised thwarp
fun fact here ballroom isn't the only queer culture that madonna is lifting in
this video the cinematography is a pretty direct
homage to the work of a gay fashion photographer who worked for vogue
magazine in the 1940s he went by the name horst p horst he was
still alive when this video came out and he was apparently pretty annoyed
that madonna never asked his permission and that brings us to a topic that has
to be addressed when talking about paris's burning
and that's cultural tourism and appropriation
so paris is burning brought a big spotlight onto a culture that was
previously invisible to the mainstream but the person behind that spotlight
jenny livingston wasn't fully a part of that culture herself so
although the director jenny livingston is queer and was friends with people in
the ballroom scene and had been attending balls for years
she wasn't a performer or a member of a house and in the years since paris's
burning came out it's drawn criticism for the fact that
it was made by someone who wasn't an active participant in ballroom but was
instead an outsider looking in in particular the
writer bell hooks points out that livingston's film creates what hooks
calls an imperial gaze where the subjects are
defined by the observer rather than by themselves
and that definitely does happen in the film at some points for example
when voguing is defined by a completely clueless white newscaster
a takeoff on runway modeling and i had never seen anything
quite like it but to be fair the primary definition does come from people of
color who are actual dancers so voguing is like a
safe form of throwing shade in her essay is paris burning bell
hooks also accuses the documentary of failing to challenge white privilege
remember how important fantasy is to ballroom listen how the documentary
connects fantasy to race that is everybody's
dream and ambition as a minority to live and look
as well as a white person if you have captured the great white way
of living
you is a marvel paris is burning presents the ultimate fantasy of
ballroom as being glamorous and wealthy which are represented as being
exclusively white whether the subjects are looking at magazine covers or retail
or characters on dynasty or supermodels there are no black role models and one
of the major critiques of paris's burning is that it doesn't challenge
that white privilege and show more aspirational black figures
there certainly were black stars and supermodels at the time iman grace jones
naomi campbell but in fact dorian cory talks about how
black role models like the actress lena horn
were just overlooked when i grew up of course you know
black stars were stigmatized
nobody wanted to look like lena horn everybody wanted to look like
marilyn monroe now i realize that i too am describing a culture that i am
not a part of in this video i'm making
choices about what clips to show you and how to explain the historical context
and i'm doing all that from a position of white privilege
whenever you're learning about or discussing marginalized cultures
i think it's important to listen primarily to the people in
those cultures so by no means should i be your primary source
on ballroom i'm glad that you're watching now but by all means
don't stop here there are some amazing other videos that you should check out
made by black people in the ballroom scene
start with bet's series queer as fuck which released a documentary last year
called ballroom a safe space featuring interviews with members of the
house of labasia you should also watch the tedx talk by ronald murray where he
breaks down the language of voguing and check out ballroom throwbacks for
hours and hours and hours of conversations
with people of color in the ballroom community and of course read that bell
hooks essay is paris burning i've links to all those in the
description for this video and many of the subjects of the film were unhappy
with it as well here's octavia st laurent talking about
it several years later so how do you feel about paris's birth
it's a terrible movie i don't understand what people think is so great
some of the subjects planned to sue for a share of the profits from the film and
wound up accepting a distribution of a few thousand dollars which was
pretty unusual for a documentary at the time the years that followed paris's
burning brought fame to some of the people in the dock particularly willy
ninja who had big dreams i want to be a big star
uh known generally every corner of the world following the
film's release he went on to dance with janet jackson and malcolm mclaren
willie passed away in 2006 but to this day his house has members
all over the world just like he dreamed and his children are icons in the scene
but the future wasn't so bright for other people in the documentary
in a 1993 follow-up the new york times tracked down some of the subjects
found that many had passed away dorian cory left a particularly strange mystery
behind after she passed her friends went
through her belongings and found a mummified human body in her closet
a note attached to it said that it was someone who tried to break into the
apartment and that dorian shot him fingerprints suggested that the remains
were a man who had disappeared 25 years earlier
but to this day nobody's exactly sure how he came into dorian's life
or how dorian managed to mummify him other documentary subjects saw their
health decline over the following years in part due to a lack of effective
treatment for hiv and venus extravaganza who dreamed of a
better life was found murdered her killer was never caught violent
crime drug use and hiv was devastating the community there was one study that
showed that 62 of participants in house and ballroom
were hiv positive by 1993 reporters who covered the
ballroom scene were starting to use the past
tense to describe it and for time it looked like there was a possibility
that ballroom could literally die out so why didn't it well in part because in
the 90s the houses recognized what was happening
and they banded together to create a unified front to fight aids
with a new collaborative house the house of latex which threw the annual
latex ball that was a giant annual party to raise money and awareness to provide
education and distribute safe sex materials
and it continues to this day and there was another initiative called project
vogue that matched hiv educators to house mothers and fathers
teaching them safe sex practices that then they could pass along to their
children those projects were watched very closely
by hiv educators in the 90s and into the 2000s
and those researchers found that the family structure that the houses
provided in the form of emotional support and a sense of pride and
mentorship all correlated with better sexual health
in other words the family structure created by crystal
decades earlier turned out to provide more than just
escape and support crystal and the houses literally saved
people's lives today we're living in an incredible time
for ballroom we have shows like pose with the production team that includes
queer and trans people of color and legendary which highlights the
amazing work of real-life houses and crucially we have real-life role
models who are black and queer and a real part of the
community back in the 1980s dorian corey said that
she used to dream of being a star but as she got older she found herself
hoping for something else something that i think she ultimately
achieved everybody wants to leave something behind them
and then you think you left a mark on the world
if you just get through it
and a few people remember your name then you left them all
if you shoot an arrow and it goes real high
hooray for you thanks for cruising along with us and thanks to everyone who makes
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books and stickers in the mail and more now if you'll excuse me i gotta
go shoot an arrow real high