Paris is Burning

Love, love, love this documentary. Sad that almost everyone who participated in it died. What happened to Sol Pendavis (I think?) who talked about pulling stunts? Is he alive? This has to be one of the best documentaries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWuzfIeTFAQ&feature=g-upl



• Back in the 90s it was impossible to take a class on gender or sexuality and not see this film. I swear I must have sat through it a dozen times before graduating. I watched it last year for the first time in at least a decade and was absorbed from beginning to end. It really is a remarkable film.

• I didn't even know what a drag queen was until I saw this.

• I can't watch it knowing Dorian killed a trick and put his body parts in a trunk in the closet.

• The people in the movie ended up hating how they were portrayed and hating the director.

• I love this documentary too. We'll never know why Dorian killed Bobby Worley but he had been previously convicted of raping and assaulting a woman.... New York Magazine article:

  http://books.google.co.uk/books%3Fid%3DOeQCAAAAMBAJ%26pg%3DPA50%26lpg%3DPA50%26ots%3D9P9lNELRMV%26dq%3Ddrag+queen+and+the+mummy%26output%3Dhtml_text

• R4 - that's definitely not true. They loved the spotlight when it came out although some of them had to deal with coming out to their families. The only issues they had were with money - all of them thought that the movie was bringing in tons of cash but they didn't really know how film distribution works. The director all gave them some money - but they wanted a lot more and became bitter and very vocal about it. She gave them 15 minutes of fame - they should have been happy to be associated with the film.

• Bobby, that is.

• Dorian's monologues are like excerpts from a one-(wo)man show I'd love to see in full. I wonder if she considered writing a memoir.

• There's a good thread about this movie over at Lipstick Alley. One bit of tea I never knew before was that the late Kim Pendavis was FTM.

  http://i2.listal.com/image/192749/600full-kim-pendavis.jpg

• I remember seeing the stunt-pullin' Pendavis when NY Fox 5 was doing man-on-the-street interviews back in 2004 (?) when the FAO Schwarz toy store closed. It freaked me out, but it was good to see him snatching an extra 10 seconds of fame. I think Willi Ninja was the only one who used the fame to get a few extra coins. He and Octavia St Lauren lived the longest. Both died around 2006. Aside from the characters, the old New York is dead. The amazing street culture is gone. Wealth is a requirement. Some of the most memorable scenes are on the piers, down in the village, uptown near the old Elks Lodge, etc.

• BUTCH QUEEN! BUTCH QUEEN!!!!

  DL%27s%20secret%20motto

• I had only seen this a few weeks before they described Mitt Romney as being "Presidential" during the debates and my first thought was "Executive Realness" and "Town and Country/You own everything". And I think Obama was throwing shade in the first debate according to this clip (skip to 30 sec)

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DZ2lEtUqxg44

• I've wanted to see this again for years, but the only copy I could find to download was ridiculously low resolution. This thread made me look again for a better copy and I found one. Thanks thread!

• R12, thank you for your election year interpretation/application. Everyone was bemoaning Obama's 1st debate performance. But he WAS throwing shade -- too nuanced for most (unfortunately). You hit it on the head.

• When I saw this I thought the people in it were kinda pathetic. Now that everything has been dumbed-down and homogenized I see the wit and creativity in what they were doing.

• Come on now! It is a known fact that a woman DO carry an evening bag at dinnertime!

• R13, R14, can you explain it to me? I guess it's too nuanced for me.

• Loved it. And I agree, fun NYC is gone.

• [quote] I remember seeing the stunt-pullin' Pendavis when NY Fox 5 was doing man-on-the-street interviews back in 2004 (?) when the FAO Schwarz toy store closed. It freaked me out, but it was good to see him snatching an extra 10 seconds of fame. I found an interview with Freddie Pendavis. Still looks good and I'm so glad he seems to be doing good (or at least was doing good in 2007). I'm becoming obsessed with the ball culture and the movie and I'm a twenty-something lesbian from Europe! What is happening to me?

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk0G7LETp-Y

  OP

• I swear Freddie also shows up in the crowd shots of Wigstock.

• Drag culture is just extremely entertaining. I've loved glitter and disco music ever since I'd play Barbies all day with the girl down the street, while we listened to her sister's 45s.

• WORK. PARIS. DUPREE.

• paris is burning?... its probably the chlamydia and urinary tract infection she caught off rick salomon

• Earlier poster here - I remember when this came out - 90/91? in NYC. The cast were overnight underworld stars. But - I remember how fucked up many were. I remember seeing David Xtravaganza nodding off on heroin many times and Angie Xtravaganza slapping his face to keep him from going under. He eventually OD'd, if I remember correctly. My ex-boyfriend was asked to be in the House of Xtravaganza - but he declined as the whole world was just so sad in the end. For OP - I thought I'd throw in my experiences of that time - I met several of the people in the documentary in NYC, mainly at the club Sound Factory, where Madonna chose her dancers for her tour and "Vogue" became internationally known.

• The movie wasn't that underground though, didn't it win the Best Documentary Oscar? I'll bet it was reviewed glowingly on Siskel and Ebert too. I can't remember if I rented it or first saw it on tv (maybe A&E) though.

• "The movie wasn't that underground though, didn't it win the Best Documentary Oscar?" It played at an arts theater in my yuppie home town, where it pulled good houses. It must have had some kind of national distrubution, it wasn't just playing a few houses in big cities.