hooks
Paris is Burning is indeed a controversial film. Every film related to “subaltern” or “non-dominant” culture, it is, in same way. That’s why it’s very interesting the reading of the film made by hooks. Especially, because he felt identifies with this kind of film for being a black and lesbian woman. As she said literally in her text, her first feeling about the film was disappointment. She was much exited about it, but the film didn’t reach her expectative. For me, her text is closer to a film critic text than to a criticism text. Her main concern, in my opinion, was the role of the director, Livingstone. We may say that hooks didn’t like a white/lesbian making a film like this, but, if she was exited about the film maybe this one was not the main reason because she didn’t like the film.
Her claim is about the role played by the director in the film. For hooks, Livingstone is an “outsider” in the world of ballroom, she definitely is. But, How does she approach to this case? That is hook’s problem. She says that Livingstone is trying to “not be” in the film, when of course, she is. The film try to have an effect of the eye watching what’s going on in this particular event without asking the role of the observer. Livingstone, and I agree with hooks about this, is not taking account her presence in the scene. She is interfering in the event that she is presenting to her audience. It is possible that someone “from the outside” doesn’t affect at the time he/she looks. In addition to that, jooks didn’t like, actually, what she saw in the film. She felt that balls were reproducing the paradigm of supremacy of the man/white/straight and “whiteness” in general. I think this is important to make a distinction between the “queer/scholar world” and the rest of the “queer world”. Being a black gay doesn’t mean to hate “whiteness”, doesn’t mean, necessarily, that they are subverting the established order. I think in most of the cases that is the “purpose” that scholars related to queer studies try to give to this kind of groups, but doesn’t mean that it’s like that.
Butler
On the other hand, Judith Butler goes deep about the analysis of this film. She rejects the idea that “just for been a drag you must be subversive”. She is more concerned about the unstable categories of “been a man” and “been a woman”. For her, the situation is much more complicated. When the man is dressed like a woman, he is not trying to “be” a woman. He is in a more complex situation that can not be reduced to the dichotomy man/woman.
She says a few interesting film about the different categories that we can find in the balls. The main concern of hooks was the “idol” figure of white woman. But, that one is just one category among the others. Then, appear some categories like “the army man”, the “Eyve League student”, etc. The main reflection is based on the concept of “the norm” and the “symbol” of this representation.
For Butler, this film is not about the misogyny of black gays. For her, it is, in some way, the coexistence of both spheres. The world of the balls and “the rest of the world”. According to her, the main idea is about appropriation of dominant culture. But, is not an appropriation in order to keep subordinated to it, it is a way of resisting to this exclusion.
It is very interesting for me the idea of legitimacy that is under both texts and the film. Who speak for the one who are in the film? Do they do it by themselves? They are selected, interrogated and edited by the film maker, Livingstone in this case, then, they are shown, in a cinema, and the, their “behaviour” (like if they were animals) is commented and critiqued by “others”. It is interesting, also, that all the “voices” that we hear outside the film are lesbian voices. In same way, we can say that are intellectual lesbians who are discussing about black/gay/poor issues. Why them? What give them the legitimacy to speak, show, and critic the other group?