Film Review of Paris is Burning: Analysis for English 100, Spring 2019

This report provides a critical review of Jennie Livingston's documentary, "Paris is Burning," focusing on its exploration of the drag ball culture in New York City during the late 1980s. The review examines the film's engagement, its ability to educate audiences about issues of homophobia, sexual identity, and racism, and its overall success in achieving its goals. The analysis considers the film's structure, the portrayal of the ball community, the use of specific categories and realness, and the depiction of social injustice. The review also discusses the film's potential to be motivational and encouraging for its audience, which includes individuals from various cultural backgrounds, sexual orientations, and ethnicities. The report highlights key aspects of the film, such as the significance of voguing and the origins of certain social media terms within the ball scene. The review concludes with an assessment of the documentary's effectiveness in addressing the unacceptability faced by the drag community and its ability to showcase their potential for overcoming societal oppression.

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English
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The Drag ball culture got explored by Livingstone in his movie Paris is Burning
Introduction
The firm Paris is burning that was filmed during the late 80s was solely based on
exploring the drag ball culture of the New York city. The film has explored the drag ball culture
of the New York City chiefly focusing on the latino, Black, homosexual as well as transgender
community. The entire movie was found to rotate between the footage of the ball as well as the
interviews conducted with the members of the ball community who included Pepper LaBeija,
Angie Extravanganze, Dorian Corey and Willi Ninja. The film has been renowned to be a highly
meaningful one since it s articulated ideas about homophobia, sexual identity as well as racism.
Argument
In spite of the fact that the movie is not focused on entertaining the audience but to
educate them and bring their attention to injustice that takes place to the black, Latino,
transgender or homosexual group of people, Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning is thoroughly
engaging. The film has beautiful demonstrated both the tragedy as well as upliftment. The chief
audience of the mentioned film includes people from various cultural backgrounds, sexual
orientation as well as ethnicity (Raphaël, Pech and Stewart). The documentary has the potential
to be highly a motivational and encouraging to them.
An intriguing part of Paris is Burning is the structure of the drag balls, where those who
recognize as either homosexual or transgender participate in a competition. Each of the
contestants ha utilized a specific category as well as is judged on the realness of their drag. In
spite of the fact that there prevails sadness in the fife of the individuals shown in the
documentary since they seek to be accepted in the society, the nature of the supportive ball

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within the community is truly inspiring. The ball had provided the community with the chance to
express their feelings that they possess toward a specific group of the society, through style as
well as through dance. The film can be described a celebration of resourcefulness of a group that
is operating against the dominant culture. In the film, the structure o the ball culture has
encompasses a system of houses that is a mother surrounded by a group of unaccepted
individual. The houses can be considered to be a substation for the biological family of each of
the community member.
While arguing about the fact that if the documentary ha engaged as well as succeeded in
its goal a good number of factors needs to be evaluated. The chief aim of the documentary was to
demonstrated how the members of the community reacts about the behaviour demonstrated
against them. This has been efficiently depicted throughout the film. The sadness of experiencing
the lack of acceptances due to sexual orientation and race was highlighted in the film. This in
turn explores the social injustice which was experienced by the transgender as well as the
homosexual community. One of the line said by Dorian Corey was highlighted the fact. He said,
‘in real life you cannot get a job as an executive unless you have the educational background and
the opportunity. Now 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 that do are usually
straight.” Additionally, the ball culture ha highlighted “Voguing” which is a dance move that is
invented by the Latino gay men as well as coloured individuals.
While a good number of people across the world is aware of the dance form since
Madonna had made the dance famous, very few of the individuals are not aware of the origin of
the dance form (Alexia, et al). Through the film it has been demonstrated that the origin of a well
known dance form is not at all widely credited to the people who have create the same. Equally,

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often used words like, ‘fierce’, “shady’ or “yassss Queen” that are often used in the social media
platforms posses their origin in the ball scene, something majority of the people are not aware
off. Goo number of new ideas was fostered due to the free environment where both support as
well as collaboration was seen to be dominant. With the help of this documentary, efforts has
been made to enhance the awareness of the common people about the specific community.
Conclusion
As per my opinion, the documentary Paris is burning has appropriately demonstrated the
unacceptability of the drag community in the society and how they possess the potential to
overcome the same. The film addresses identity, social identity as well as oppression from the
society, that seems to be both liberating as well as confining for these individuals.

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Reference List
Baudic, Alexia, et al. "Seasonal variability and source apportionment of volatile organic
compounds (VOCs) in the Paris megacity (France)." Atmospheric Chemistry and
Physics16.18 (2016): 11961-11989.
Canet, Raphaël, Laurent Pech, and Maura Stewart. "France’s burning issue: Understanding the
urban riots of November 2005." Crowd Actions in Britain and France from the Middle
Ages to the Modern World. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2015. 270-292.