Paris Is Burning: The Untold Tale of Queer Willpower
“I remember my dad said you have three strikes against you – every black man has two. That they’re black and a male. But you’re a black male and you’re gay. He said if you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna have to be stronger than you’ve ever imagined.” –
Paris Is Burning, 1990
The 1970s witnessed a significant economic downturn in New York. However, innovation could be found underground in recreational spaces and in the projects where Black folk formed hip-hop. A decade later, a new subculture slowly peaked out from the shadows. Beneath vibrant lights and opulence, queer people of color were shaping their own pathway to success. They did not have the notoriety of Madonna. Still, on their stage, they emerged as celebrities, dancers, and models, wearing hand-woven costumes that were larger than life, complete with sparkles, big hair, and pompous dresses.
The arena is a ‘ball’. This is not at all related to traditional ballroom dancing, but a third space created by Latino and Black queer people. This is their boxing ring: their fight to be seen, their battle for success, for their life. They hold competitions among themselves in different categories: face, vogue, and body, to determine who will ‘snatch’ the coveted selection of glistening trophies.
Balls still permeate our consciousness to this day, mainly through the influence of our lexicon. Our generation still uses terms like ‘throwing shade’ and ‘reading’, which originated from this era.
Throwing shade, Verb:
- a subtle dig
- a way to disqualify your opponent at a ball
Reading, Verb:
- a more casual, interpersonal way of throwing shade
- more of an explicit dig
Voguing, Verb:
- a way for two people to fight it out on the dance floor; whoever wins is throwing the best shade
‘Voguing’ is a form of dance that has slowly become more mainstream, even getting its own TV show, “Legendary,” on HBO Max. It’s incorporated in memes and has its own niche on apps like TikTok. But before Madonna brought it mainstream, it was a secret language for ballgoers. Queer people of the 1960s and ’70s looked to Vogue magazine for inspiration. The dance was initially modeled after the sharp angles in the poses but evolved into more fluid motions.
The documentary, “Paris Is Burning,” which showcases the intricacies of this subculture, opens with Pepper LaBeija walking into the ballroom. She makes a scene with an extravagant bedazzled dress and a presence big enough to fill the entire room. The crowd shoots up immediately, yelling and screaming, waving hand fans, and clapping. As she starts voguing, the announcer, Junior LaBeija, shouts, “Learn it and learn it well.”
The documentary transitions to a humble scene of Pepper smoking a cigarette in her small New York City apartment. She introduces herself to the camera as the “legendary mother of the house of Labeija.” She’s not the founder but the current ruler. Pepper explains to the interviewer, Jennie Livingston, the importance of this role. This isn’t just a space born out of competition, but a home for those without one.
Beyond the performance and high energy of the ballroom scene, it’s a space for young Black and Latino queer kids to feel at home. Many of them were shunned by their original families, kicked out, and abandoned. “Paris is Burning” explores the depth of this culture. How this epidemic of homelessness and othering formed new families and built a culture out of nothing but resilience and dreams.
The balls evolved from drag and impersonating Las Vegas show girls to a desire to mimic movie stars like Marilyn Monroe in the ’70s and imitate models in the ’80s. As the decades passed, there was an understanding that not everyone was capable of imitating movie stars, so the categories expanded to be accommodating. Now you could show off your body, your beauty, and your realness – everyone had a place.
The category is executive realness, luscious body, even schoolboy! The infamous drag queen, Dorian Corey, describes that in real life, you can only become an executive if you have the educational background and opportunity. “The fact that you are not an executive is merely because of the social standing of life. Black people have a hard time getting anywhere, and those who do are usually straight. In a ballroom, you can be anything you want. You’re not really an executive, but you’re looking like an executive, and therefore, you’re showing the straight world that I can be an executive. If I had the opportunity, I could be one.”
With that comes a level of aspiration towards heteronormativity – admiration of the in-group. Some of the categories call for you to look like your straight counterpart, a “real man” or “real woman”. Even within this fantasy they have created for themselves, they cannot escape the pressures of society, of what they “should be”. Instead, you are rewarded if you can imitate the norm.
In some ways, there is an empowering aspect to it. A trans woman walking the ball gets the affirmation that she’s just as much of a woman as a cis girl sitting across from her on the train. “Rather than have to go through prejudices about your life and lifestyle, you can walk around comfortably blending in with everyone else.”
In one scene Pepper LaBeija, who didn’t identify as trans but preferred feminine pronouns, recalled the moment her parents found out she was dressing as a woman. She was horrified when she saw her mother burn her clothes. “She really was devastated. How could you have breasts bigger than mine, your growing nails, you’re becoming a woman right before my very eyes. I’m embarrassed.”
The goal for trans youth of the time was to blend in as a survival mechanism. “When they’re undetectable, when they can walk out of that ballroom into the sunlight, and onto the subway, and get home and still have all their clothes, and no blood running off their bodies, those are the femme realness queens.”
That was Venus Xtravaganza.
The soft-spoken Jersey girl sits at the foot of her bed. She’s your average it-girl: blonde, thin, and beautiful, the only thing that keeps her from being treated as such is that she’s transgender. Venus recalls her journey into the ballroom scene. Out of fear of embarrassing her family, she moved away to New York. In order to become an Xtravanganza, one of the legendary houses in the ball scene, you would normally have to snatch a trophy. Venus was special. For her birthday, Hector, the founder of the house, took her to the village to meet drag queens and trans women, and she was in utter shock at how beautiful they were. She said, “It made me want to do it more.”
It’s fascinating to observe the difference in generational thinking. Pepper LaBeija disparages younger people from getting gender-affirming surgery and was glad that she didn’t have it. But when you see Venus’s sister in the house, Brooke, prancing around the beach in pure glee, you understand its importance. She sings and brags to her friend, Carmen, telling Jennie Livingston that she doesn’t have to hide anymore. She feels complete.
I teared up even after the second time I watched Octavia St. Laurent and Venus ramble about their future. “I want a car, I want to be with the man I love, I want a nice home away from New York–somewhere far where nobody knows me. I want my sex change,” Venus says in a hushed tone. Octavia lies on her bed, dreaming of a life of fame. “I want my name to be a household product. I want everyone to look at me and say there goes Octavia.” These are dreams every little girl has. They envision their wedding or envision some elaborate goal of theirs. It shifts and morphs throughout our lives, but it remains one of the most human experiences one can have. Trans women share the same dreams as any other girl, yet Octavia and Venus sit in rickety, bare apartments as outcasts of society.
Venus died in a hotel a year after her interview with Jennie. She was strangled, her body hidden under the room’s mattress. It still remains a cold case, but theories surrounding her death presume she was murdered after a man discovered she was trans. In Venus, I see not just one story but a thousand more. Girls just like her who were killed, or kids whose humanity was demonized simply for existing.
Isn’t it weird that the more things change, the more they stay the same? We’re nearly 40 years separated from her murder, yet transgender people have become one of the main targets of the American government. They’ve been ousted from the military, removed from athletic competitions, barred from gender-affirming healthcare, and, at worst, murdered. According to the nonprofit Everytown, the number of trans people murdered between 2017 and 2021 doubled. In 2023, half of all gun homicides of trans people were Black women.
Intersectionality between minority groups and queer individuals is at the center of this issue. A lot of ball culture not only revolves around heteronormativity but also white supremacy. It was a reinvention of the lifestyle, wealth, and stature they saw of white people. There has long been a wealth gap between Black and white households. The aftermath of slavery and the reinstitution of it in new forms like sharecropping and the prison system kept most Black people poor while white households continued to benefit from riches accumulated before the Civil War. Now, according to Brookings, the total difference in wealth between the median white and Black household is $240,120.
That’s exactly why ballgoers desired the huge houses and fancy clothes. It was a reality they had grown up watching on shows like “Dynasty,” but it was impossibly out of their reach. However, there were ways of obtaining one of these special items if someone was truly determined. Kids would mop or go into designer stores and steal labels to walk in the ball. Some girls would turn to sex work in order to pay for outfits. The mere appearance of wealth aided their status in the ballroom. One participant told Jennie Livingston they “never felt comfortable being poor.” That they looked at the way rich folks lived and “felt cheated.”
“Opulence!” The emcee, Junior LaBeija, shouts from the side of the room. “You own everything!” Men prance around in outfits best suited to go horseback riding or for an outing at the country club. Blazers, riding boots, and lapels. They make believe like children playing with toys, even just for one night.
One of the most popular voguers, Willie Ninja, tells Jennie he wants to be a star and bring vogue to Paris. “I want to make the real Paris burn”. Octavia St. Laurent talks about wanting to be on TV. “I at least want to be comfortable”. She has posters of models plastered on the walls. She runs her hand around their pictures while she sits in her pajamas, looking up at them with admiration.
“The ballroom tells me I’m somebody, but when the ballroom is over and you come home, you have to convince yourself that you are somebody, and that’s where they get lost.”
A lot of the older queens’ dreams have soured over the years. While she sits pampering herself at her vanity, Dorian Corey says, “I always had hopes of being a big star, but as you get older, you aim a little lower. Everyone wants to leave a mark on the world. Then you think, you left a mark on the world if you just get through it. If you shoot an arrow and it goes real high, hurray for you.”
“This is white America. Any other nationality that is not of the white set knows this and accepts this till the day they die. That is everyone’s dream as a minority. To live and look as well as a white person. The kids from Fisher Price–they’re not in no concrete playground. They’re riding around the lawn. The pool is in the back.” Pepper Labeija comments over snippets from a ball, continuing with, “We as a people for the past 400 years is the greatest example of behavior modification in the history of civilization. We have had everything taken away from us, and yet we have learned how to survive. If you have captured the great white way of looking or speaking, you are a marvel.”
The ballroom is yet another form of Black survival– of queer resilience. Kids would walk in balls while starving. They wouldn’t have a home to go to, so they would sleep on the pier and then dress up the next night to live the fantasy. Pepper said, “I have kids come to me and latch hold of me like I’m their mother or like I’m their father. They look up to me to fill that void.” This is a different meaning of family. One not bound by blood but by a mutual bond.
No matter what social structure shapes this subculture, that’s ultimately what it encapsulates. It was the only space for these individuals to be whatever they wanted, to represent themselves however they wanted. They could showcase their arrogance, their wit, their beauty, and their charm. Even if the ingroup and the elites didn’t think they were worthy of sitting next to them, the ballroom’s mere existence proved them wrong. “I came, I saw, I conquered. That’s a ball.”
