Out in the Mountains

Throwing Shade:

a Review of Paris is Burning

Richard Cornwall

To throw shade is to practice an art form,

the art of reading someone’s strengths

and flaws, then puncturing their pose
with over-compliment, with elegant sar-
casm. What is this doing in Vermont?
Why do two back-to-back shows on a
Sunday afternoon and evening at that
height of sophistication, Middlebury Col-
lege, draw large, appreciative audiences?

Of course, we do suffer from cel-
ebrityitis, over-infatuation with anyone
who has achieved a lot of national media
copy, so we were impressed that Jennie
Livingston was living in Middlebury with
her panner who was Artist-in-Residence
at the College. After all, it is ex-
traordinary when a new, young filmmak-
er’s first film ends up getting commercial
release, and, after a year of nonstop
showing at the Forum in Manhattan,
makes it to Burlington, and Jennie and
three others who worked or are shown in
it tour the country promoting the frlrn.

But this only explains the large initial
turn out. It does not explain the upscale
hetero audience’s genuine warm glow
from appreciating the realness of extreme
deviance from upscale, white, male, het-
eroid life. No, this film succeeds by mak-
ing its definitions come alive:

Send a Valentine to
someone who you
have had a crush

on...
and have never
dared!

a “House” is a family for those who don’t
have any, not a sitting-by-the-hearth fami-
ly, but the mutual bonding of a gay street
gang run by a “Mother” (“house” is also a
verb meaning to take possession and shel-
ter some object, like Adidas, formerly
used by someone else);

a “Ball” is a dance competition type of
street fight between houses (Willi Ninja,
one of the especially succulent men in this
film, says “we come out to assassinate”);

“Throwing shade” is the most frequent
weapon used by house members — to
throw shade well, you focus on all the de-
tails (i.e., read your opponent) and pick
out the telling detail;

“Vogueing” is organized shade, done on
the dance floor, with judges to watch that
you do not interfere physically with your
competitor and to declare the winner of
the contest;

“Mopping” is stealing, as in Madonna ex-
propriating dances from the House of
Xtravaganza, or eating at Roy Rodgers
where it is “done your way” and you leave
without paying; or the “realness” competi-
tions at the balls where the contestants
choose their categories and do it their
way, that is, they become for 30 seconds a
real executive, or a Marine or a Ford mod-
el with tits and lashes and definitely the
walk, without paying the white male cul-
ture they imitate and do aspire to.

Was Jennie mopping in using the boys,
men and women of the houses to advance
her career and to entertain us? Of course,
all economic interaction has elements of
expropriation. But the beauty here is that
though white and educated, as a queer
woman, Jennie was able to hear much of
what was said, probably to be surprised by
some of it, but to appreciate it and let the
deeply human qualities come through, so

that we, the upper class audience who
generate the revenue for this film, also
become involved, become more than vis-
itors to a zoo. Yes, Paris Dupree, Leg.
endary Mother of the House of Dupree,
was correct in feeling exploited in not
getting paid up front for an interview. Al-
though several of the stars of this film
have gotten some fringe benefits from
the publicity it has generated, none have
been paid cash. On the other hand, a big
chunk of the budget for this film has al-
ready been paid to singers, agents, etc.,
who are plugged into our power-property
rights system well enough; but Paris,
wise Dorian, beautiful Octavia and many
others must rely on Jennie’s charity to re-
ceive a share of any surplus that results
only after these other claimants have
gotten their pieces. No other fact captures
the inequity of our system more nakedly,

The members of the houses have to work
most of the time. There are many types
of work, but most are hustlers, many are
hustlers for straight men. The extent of
gender fuck is breathtaking: noses re-
constructed, breasts implanted, cheeks re-
shaped. Yet the beauty of the construc-
tion of this film is that it seduces the
viewer to enter the lives of the drag
queens that Jennie got to know. We ac-
cept it when Octavia and Venus share
their outlandish dreams: to live a nonrtal
happy life, to get married in church in
white, to be a complete woman. We enter
their spiritual world, seeing that the balls
on Sundays (the day we watched this
film) are a genuine alternative in New
York to the white church on the hill in
New England.

Jennie Livingston set out to make this
film only after getting to know its actors.
The House of Dupree, i.e., the gay street
gang run by Paris DuPree, with its poster
advertising the ball-competition it or-
ganizes each year entitled Paris Is Burn-

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