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.
Tag: lgbt
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My Own Private Idaho
In this loose adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV,” Mike Waters is a hustler afflicted with narcolepsy. Scott Favor is the rebellious son of a mayor. Together, the two travel from Portland, Oregon to Idaho and finally to the coast of Italy in a quest to find Mike’s estranged mother. Along the way they turn tricks for money and drugs, eventually attracting the attention of a wealthy benefactor and sexual deviant.
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Pink Lady
A depressing, sweet tale about the relationship between two former school girls that cannot survive in a strict, ignorant world.
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For a Lost Soldier
In the occupied Netherlands near the end of WWII, a young teenager, Jeroen Boman (Maarten Smit) is sent to the Dutch countryside to avoid the war in Amsterdam. While living with his adopted family, Jeroen meets and becomes friends with a Canadian soldier named Walt Cook, who is stationed at the same town he is staying at. Joroen and Walt spend a lot of time playing around and eventually a romantic relationship develops between them. The boy’s sexual curiosity leads him to have a sexual experience with Walt, an encounter that is shown with some vague detail but without actually showing any nudity, even though sexual intimacy between the two of them is implied. Overall, the movie handles this difficult subject with an elegant style and feeling, without having the adult-child relationship overwhelm the viewer and thus allowing the movie to be seen as just a wartime relationship between two people that marks an important time in a young boy’s life.
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Gayniggers from Outer Space
Extraterrestrial beings travel the galaxy to free men “oppressed” by females to make way for an entirely-homosexual society.
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Changing Our Minds: The Story of Dr. Evelyn Hooker
The life and work of the woman described as “The Rosa Parks of Gay Rights”. During the repressive 1950’s, Dr. Evelyn Hooker undertook ground breaking research that led to a radical discovery: homosexuals were not, by definition, “sick.” Dr. Hooker’s finding sent shock waves through the psychiatric community and culminated in a major victory for gay rights: in 1974 the weight of her studies, along with gay activism, forced the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its official manual of mental disorders. Startling archival footage of the medical procedure used to “cure” homosexuality, images from the underground gay world of the McCarthy era, and home movies of literary icon Christopher Isherwood bring to life history which we must never forget.
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Wittgenstein
A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose principal interest was the nature and limits of language. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, through the era of the first World War, to his eventual Cambridge professorship and association with Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The emphasis in these sketches is on the exposition of the ideas of Wittgenstein, a homosexual, and an intuitive, moody, proud, and perfectionistic thinker generally regarded as a genius.
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A Touch of Fever
Tatsuru and Shinichiro’s relationship shifts from casual to complicated as love and emotions blur the lines between their work and personal lives.
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And the Band Played On
The story of the discovery of the AIDS epidemic and the political infighting of the scientific community hampering the early fight with it.