“Paris is Burning” (1991) [Criterion Edition]

O. P. U. L. E. N. C. E.

OPULENCE!

You own everything. Everything is yours.

It is a known fact that a woman DO carry a handbag at dinnahtime!

Lookin’ lika a Banjee girl.

No one?

"Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene"

Gag.

R5 Oh honey... Honey, honey, honey...

You’re just an overgrown orangutan.

R5 Just realized you were quoting the site. I don’t like the term “Latinx” either.

[quote] It is a known fact that a woman DO carry a handbag at dinnahtime!

That's one of my favorite lines. When he said it, though, he was serious and so were the recipients of the message. He was right, you have to complete the look with a handbag.

My favorite participant in this is Dorian Corey; so wise, so regal, so brutally truthful.

My favorite quote from this film - and one that makes me feel the strangest combination of melancholy, hopeful, and humble is:

[quote] I always had hopes of being a big star. But as you get older, you aim a little lower. Everybody wants to make an impression, some mark upon the world. Then you think, you've made a mark on the world if you just get through it, and a few people remember your name. Then you've left a mark. You don't have to bend the whole world. I think it's better to just enjoy it. Pay your dues, and just enjoy it. If you shoot an arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you.

God, I would’ve loved to have played Dorian in a show or movie about her life. She’s like the LGBT’s Blanche DuBois (I know there’s a better character to compare her to but that’s the one that comes up for me).

Interesting quick watch - “The Mystery of Dorian Corey” - below. Boy did she have some skeletons in her closet; literally.

R5/R7 pls don’t derail. As an aside language moves with time no need to get upset about it. Don’t like it don’t use it. Whatever your particular opinion on it, the last thing anyone wants to sit thru is yet another “woke brigade” “PC gone mad” thread so spare us.

R10 Agreed.

You bitches are lucky to-day! I just found the nearly two hours worth of outtakes on YouTube! Please watch. It is just as deep and fascinating as this classic. In my opinion, they should have released it as a “sequel.”

It’s SO good.

Yet it is gag-worthy that Criterion makes a point to be woke, about THIS MOVIE, by using a word that 95% of the people in the film do not recognize.

And thanks for the link at R12!

R14 You’re welcome! I’m watching it again, lol. Hope you enjoy and report back.

I found other goodies on YouTube I’ve never seen or heard of.

Octavia in 2011. She looked great!

Dorian’s Mummy

When I watch the Dorian Corey interviews in Paris is Burning, I always remember there’s a mummified corpse in a trunk in her closet. Did they film those interviews in her apartment?

R20 Yep. It’s tragic that she had to carry that secret, especially because the claims are that she killed him while he was assaulting/robbing her. Apparently, she knew him too. She supposedly didn’t report it because a drag queen/transsexual woman wasn’t going to be given the time of day at that time; she would’ve been locked up.

I like Dorian a lot. However, I think people are really putting a sympathetic spin as to why there was a dead body in her apartment. Come on. Dorian is not exactly a tiny person. Do I think it was premeditated murder? No. Who does premeditated murder in one's own house.

If Dorian had been attacked and killed in self-defense, I think she should have called the police. Haul that body out of the apartment and provide some closure to the dead man's family.

[quote] Do I think it was premeditated murder? No. Who does premeditated murder in one's own house.

What was it then?

Dorian Corey looks like a DRAG version of Mrs. Garrett from The Facts Of Life.

R24 😂 She does!

Did they identify the body?

R26 From a Reddit thread I’m about to get into:

[quote] Police were able to identify the body as Robert "Bobby" Worley, who had a prior conviction for rape and assault. Worley had last been seen by his family in 1968. Clues found with the body (vintage beer can lids) suggested that he had been dead for at least fifteen years, but no one who had socialized or lived with Dorian during that time ever recalled her mentioning Worley, let alone confessing to killing him. Some of Corey's fellow drag queens speculated that Corey had shot Worley during a failed robbery. However, a reporter for New York Magazine was able to dig up some clues as to their relationship: Worley's brother Fred claimed that Bobby had called him while drunk, and rambled extensively to someone named "Dorian," having apparently fought with her. Lois Taylor also told the reporter that Dorian had written a short story about a transgender woman who killed her lover in revenge after he pressured her to have a sex change. However, without any kind of firsthand testimony from either Corey or Worley, it seems that the mystery of how he died- and how he ended up in her closet- will never be solved.

The original [italic]New York[/italic] article

I thought Freddy Pendavis was very cute and funny.

I didn't know for the longest time that Kim Pendavis was FTM.

R30 WAT? Neither did I! Where did you get this info?

Kim Pendarvis:

That’s Freddy, R30 .

Sorry, meant R31 . Freddy is at R31. Cisgender man.

R33 You’re right. Google search has him as Kim. This is Kim, no?

Yes, R34 .

"LaBeija? I wouldn't be caught DEAD in that house!"

Great film. Some people try to undermine it and minimize it because Jennie Livingston directed it.

Fuck those people.

What is wrong with you, Pedro, are you going through it? You're going through some kind of psychological change in your life? You went back to being a man?

Touch this skin, darling, touch this skin honey, touch all of this skin! Okay? You just can't take it! You're just an overgrown ORANGUTAN!

Sweetheart, with the cigarette. You're giving me a banji effect. This is banji.... You know, the girl you see on the street corner, talking about, "Yo man, I saw one of them thangs walking down the street."... One who can take her baby brother to school.... One who can hang out with the roughest and the toughest.

Butch queen!

"Cut the music - now I said... I *said*... MEN'S! GARMENT! TELL this child where are the men's garments?"

I remember my dad say, “You have three strikes against you in this world. Every black man has two - that they're just black and they're male. But you're black and you're male and you're gay. You're gonna have a hard fucking time.”

“ Learn it, and learn it well!”

R9, This is just what I needed for a good laugh, that diss on Lena Horne had me cackling!! It's a shame she didn't become a bigger star, I'd take her over Rupaul and all the tediously bland one note queens that have spawned off his show.

I wonder what she would make of today's queens?

[quote][R5] Just realized you were quoting the site. I don’t like the term “Latinx” either.

That's ok........I wasn't going to feel your skin.

R44 lol

Vin Diesel's twin brother was an intern on Paris is Burning.

R46 Wha?

r10, please don't hall monitor me, as I have no interest in whether my replies please you in the slightest.

As an aside, you might find a position as a nanny on Craigslist. Good luck!

IT BUTTONS ON THE LEFT!

[quote] It is a known fact that a woman DO carry a handbag at dinnahtime!

There's just no gettin' a-ROUND it!

She burned up a mink coat! I was, ohhh... devastated! She smelled the perfume in it that I liked to wear, which was 'Jungle Gardenia' (at the time)...

You see it on channel seven, between "All My Children" and "Jeopardy","Another World", "Dallas", and the whole bit. An evening bag is a must! You have to carry something! No lady is sure at night.

R48 since the thread subject is Paris is Burning I’d suggest you practice your reading a little better before you try it again. And did you just use ‘hall monitor’ as a verb? Get it together baby.

I did use it as a verb because as an aside language moves with time, no need to get upset about it.

I love this documentary. I find it truly heartwarming how these kids who were rejected by their loser parents found some form of love and a family.

r10, being a hall monitor may have been your fondest dream since the 6th grade, but no one here has voted you into that position.

Everyone here posts exactly as we please. If you don't like it, then that's just too bad.

R54 / R56 touché. Surely the irony of your complaining about the language someone uses and then throwing a tantrum about someone supposedly controlling what you say is not lost on you. Take your boring self elsewhere to one of the threads to complain about ppl using ‘latinx’ and give us a break thank you.

Yes, I'm burning, specially when I pee.