Synopsis
Where does voguing come from, and what, exactly, is throwing shade? This landmark documentary provides a vibrant snapshot of the 1980s through the eyes of New York City's African American and Latinx Harlem drag-ball scene. Made over seven years, PARIS IS BURNING offers an intimate portrait of rival fashion "houses," from fierce contests for trophies to house mothers offering sustenance in a world rampant with homophobia, transphobia, racism, AIDS, and poverty. Featuring legendary voguers, drag queens, and trans women — including Willi Ninja, Pepper LaBeija, Dorian Corey, and Venus Xtravaganza.
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Cast
- Pepper LaBeijaSelf
- Octavia St. LaurentSelf
- Venus XtravaganzaSelf
- Dorian CoreySelf
- Willi NinjaSelf
- Paris DupreeSelf
- Freddie PendavisSelf
- Sol Williams PendavisSelf
- Junior LaBeijaSelf
- Angie XtravaganzaSelf
Recommendations
- 100
Entertainment Weekly
Paris Is Burning is the most passionately empathetic piece of documentary filmmaking I’ve seen since Streetwise, the brilliant portrait of homeless teens in Seattle, and The Decline of Western Civilization Part II, Penelope Spheeris’ sly and galvanizing heavy-metal collage. - 90
Los Angeles Times
Wildly entertaining, deeply humanitarian and fundamentally educational film. - 89
Austin Chronicle
As much a movie about class, race, and sexual orientation as anything you've ever seen. - 88
Washington Post
Paris Is Burning, Jennie Livingston's brilliantly entertaining documentary look into the New York subculture of drag queens and transsexuals, is a rapturous, desperate ode to self-invention. - 83
The A.V. Club
Paris Is Burning encapsulates New York at the end of the '80s, examining how a group of outcasts made a home there, using theft and ingenuity. - 80
Washington Post
Touching and funny eye-opener of a documentary. - 75
Chicago Reader
One emerges from this film not only with a new vocabulary and a fresh way of viewing the straight world but with a bracing object lesson in understanding what society “role models” are all about. - 75
Chicago Sun-Times
What I saw was a successful attempt by the outsiders to dramatize how success and status in the world often depend on props you can buy, or steal, almost anywhere - assuming you have the style to know how to use them.
