The movie was very informative, its good to know how things have come about and why. I am one that likes to know history. The documentary Paris is Burning was about ball culture and its role in the LGBT community and how they became about to have a world of their own were they are not judged about how they look who they want to be or do with themselves. The film follows drag queens, voguing, and dance competitions in New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. It also highlights the struggles of black New Yorkers in New York City who were subjected to the same discriminatory practices as drag queens. In addition to their representation of the ball culture, the film also highlights the history, culture, and politics of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Liberation movement, as well as its role in the LGBT community.

This week’s material was amazing !!!

I really enjoyed the topic at hand, Black women and black queer folks are a true force.Such creatives and good humans who just wanted a true shot at life.I hope to see a world where they are appreciated as humans and not content creators. The black communites deserve all the support and recognition they have contributed to this world. I feel like everyone who does not understand the importance and oppression of the black and brown communities should watch Paris is Burning.

The combahee collective really showed me how Black women have always taken matters into their own hands. They fight for their people while also having to deal with black men and their sexualization. The physicalogical toll black women go through just to be heard or understood is upsetting and heart breaking imagine scearming for help and everyone ignores you. This women are to be protected at all cost.

This week’s materials addressed the intersectionality of oppression, especially the synthesis of different kinds of it upon an individual. Racial oppression is a very unexplored and unexperienced thing for me, so I am glad I have a chance to learn the depths of it. I have always felt stigmatized about speaking of it because “I cannot relate” and “I should not stick my nose in someone else’s problems.” Then I saw the reverse side of the coin when reading The Combahee River Collective Statement, which embodies the struggle of black women. It states “the only people who care enough about us to work consistently for our liberation are us . . . the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” I very much agree with these statements, since those who went through the cause of their activism — would it be oppression, disease, or homelessness — are the most eager to fight it, because of how much they can relate to the victims of those things.

The film Paris is Burning has made quite a large impression on me since I barely ever watch documentaries other than scientific. This documentary captures the ball and vogue culture of the 90s in New York and shows its significance from a personal perspective of people who are part of this community. These balls served as a safe place for all people, and especially queer to express themselves and to feel good at least for a moment, before returning to the “realness,” where they constantly face oppression. It felt amazing to see such a space existing in the real world, where people just have fun and can try on different personas. I could even relate to some of the feelings of the interviewed people, as they opened up about their big dreams which seemed impossible to reach (because society has made them ineligible for these roles). Seeing so many people doing things I’ve always wanted to do made me somewhat jealous, but at the same time, I could see a large problem poking through all the fun. Even though there was controversy around the documentary, I’m very grateful that it exists for people like me, who are clueless about the experience of oppressed people.

Watching Paris is burning shows the life of trans, gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and others how they wish they lived themselves out if they had an opportunity to do so. The unique creativity and art that they had were inspirational. Watching the film was great, but you had a white director exploiting the ball dancers behind the scenes. Jennie Livingston came to Harlem, New York, with an entire white crew to use those who already had a hard life. According to the ones Jennie chose to focus on, there was nothing to gain from the film. What was said to advertise this film was about prostitutes, welfare recipients, and messengers. What this director did doesn’t sit well with me because the fact is that these people didn’t have a choice when it came to their living situations or how they grew up, let alone they were also identifying themselves with another sex. On a lighter note, Angie extravaganza had such an open heart to welcome anyone that had no one to talk to or anywhere to stay. She was the one to be around so she could give you some motherly comfort. It takes a lot for anyone to genuinely take that role, which is what Angie extravaganza did for anyone who needed her. It is selfish when you choose to learn and experience a culture, too, and profit from it—choosing to expose the hardship that these people have endured because of their social class.

I’m so happy that we got to see Paris is Burning for this class because I wanted to watch it for so long. I watched POSE which is a series about transgender people of color in New York and we get to see a little bit about the ball scene, the creation of houses, and the negative impact of AIDS on the LGBTQ people of color community, mainly the transgender community. Watching the series made me curious about this lifestyle they had because it was something I never learned about and completely new to me, so I wanted to learn a little bit more about this. It is very admiring how a strongly marginalized society was able to turn their misery into something as joyful as the balls in order to make their lives more meaningful. Being born into a society that treats you as less of a human being because of the color of your skin it’s terrible because you have to work harder to prove your worth. If you add being homosexual or transgender to being a person of color, makes you very oppressed, making it harder to earn job opportunities, having to deal with constant discrimination, and therefore having a poor life quality. The balls are amazing because there, people are able to forget for a moment about all of the sufferings and get to, at least, dress up as the people they wish they could be. About the excerpt from “The Feminine Mystique”, I think it’s terrible how this idea of the “perfect suburban housewife” was sold to women since it stopped them from having a successful and fulfilling career and made them seem like male servants.

The movie Paris is Burning was a little frustrating to watch because of the fact that a white director build on her name through the experiences of black trans women and queer folk and did not pay them adequately for their story. Exposure is good but without proper pay that becomes exploitation. So although I’m happy for the experiences shared by trans people of color and how much they contribute to society and ballroom culture and the pioneering of vogueing. How they found community and families and safety with each other it still is a little frustrating that someone else can benefit and profit from someone else’s story. Paris burning helped explain the stories and lives and legacies of trans women and their happiness and struggles and that was wonderful to see. The reading was insightful and made complete sense to me. I am excited to see where else this class takes its focus too.

In rewatching “Paris is Burning” I was really aware of the moments that highlight the ways that oppression is cuts across different groups. I think it demonstrates the way that, at least as society was then and now, for many some level of oppression is inescapable. When Pepper LaBeija is discussing other trans women’s desire to fully transition, and their assumption that doing so will somehow solve their problems, Pepper expresses the ways in which all women are oppressed. Trans women are not only oppressed because they are trans, they are oppressed because they are women too. I think this is also something Venus Xtravaganza illustrates in discussing the moralizing of her sex work. She discusses the way she sleeps with men for money, or food, the transactional nature of her sex work and she compares it to heteronormative relationships. While Venus may not have other alternatives, sex work being her only means of supporting herself as work as employment for trans women has always been difficult to find, she is at least cognizant of the systems of oppression. I think she very astutely demonstrates the ways in which perhaps a cis-woman of privilege might be conditioned to not even recognize the systems that oppress her. Perhaps this demonstrates the ways in which addressing the oppressions trans women of color face might alleviate other women’s oppression in ways similar to those discussed by the Combahee River Collective.