Thursday, May 10, 2012
SLOW BURN
Today's gay film was the documentary
Drag balls in NYC, all gay men, not the drag you think it is.
These balls are not the ones I heard about and never, ever even thought of attending in "those" days. They have many categories including "straight" (all these men are black gay men), sports, military, business. The point is to look just like the real thing. You know. Just like all of us. Dress for success.
Only here they really do not look like the "real thing". They look like queens who are acting out their idea of reality in a melodramatic way.
Here is where "vogueing" comes in. Strutting your stuff.
Some of this is intentionally ironic or camp. Other parts are not.
The documentary is pretty good. In the tradition of don't tell, show, and let the viewer draw their own conclusions, it is very well made.
And by now, 20 years later (can that be?) it is a historic document and all the more valuable for it.
Always interesting, sometimes upsetting, we here the spokespeople who tell us what is going on. They are the burners themselves.
I did not want to see this when it came out because I was so homophobic about drag then.
But then I watched it when the DVD came out, quite late actually. I enjoyed it and gave it a 3 out of Netflix 5. This time, I would give it a 4. It's climbing in the charts.
For more about all this see Ball Culture on Wikipedia. Very good rundown.
