Paris is Burning by Bell Hooks
When I first saw the movie in which this paper is written on, I had a deep sense of melancholy. Maybe because I had heard that the film was about African American drag queen in the states, and the idea of what I thought the film was like was really different to what t film was really like. I think two main things that the film brings out is the difference in race and the difference in class. The article brings out that the film shows “the way in which colonized black (in this case black gay brothers, some of whom were drag queens) worshiped at the throne of whiteness, even when such worship demands that we live in perpetual self-hate, steal, lie, go hungry, and even die in its pursuit.” (149) you can see this clearly in the film were people are constantly talking about money and how money would help them change not just their situation but also their body. The most dramatic example is when they mentioned that one of the girls interviewed Venus was killed. The article talks about how this moment is minimized and just stated there really is no time to mourn in the video, and that is what makes it sadder because in real life many of the people in this situation are killed and society really just overlooks it. I think the film tries to bring out a sense of community in the video when they do the “balls”, but really it’s just a way to castaway these people from the main stream society, it’s as if they were living in a fake version of what is real. In the article Hooks says clearly that he did not like thefilm in any way, but what I did find positive is that the film does a good job of showing the hopes and dreams these people have and how most don’t fulfill them but instead are always stuck in the world depicted in the film, you can especially see this when referring to the older drag queens who in a way have lost hope. In general in the end of the film as an observer you really don’t feel closure, there is something missing there is no resolution no prospect for the future and I really think this is what gives the movie such a sense of sadness and hopelessness.
I think that the fact that the death of Venus was only superficially addressed was actually a good thing because the documentary hadn’t built up a tine in which the treatment of such matter wouldn’t had been percieved as superficial or out of place. As Bill said in class, if the death of Venus was explored more in depth it could’ve easily become a spectacle in itself.
Also, I disagree when you say that the dreams of the people in the documentary can be understood as a positive aspect, I think their dreams are maybe the most shocking part since they are related with ideas of wealthiness, stereotyped femeninity and whiteness as an ideal.