Paris Is Burning By Jennie Livingston: Film Analysis

Throughout Paris is Burning, Jennie Livingston chooses to keep a tight focus on the Manhattan drag ball scene. Taking up the majority of the documentary, drag becomes a crucial part to the audiences’ impressions of the film. Discussed and explored by many theorists and critics, drag is often seen as an influential part to our understanding of gender. One theorist in particular, Judith Butler, has argued that drag is the ‘very distinction between the natural and the artificial’. That is, gender and biology are not necessarily linked. In fact, as Butler argues in Gender Troubles, gender is a learned performance, something that is affected by society rather than our biology. As shown in the film, although born male, these men perform femininity

It is for this reason that drag is so interesting to both Butler and Livingston. Not only does it question the link between gender and sex, it also breaks away the idea of there only being 2 categories of gender; male and female.

Livingston strengthens this argument through the use of the ball’s categories. To do this, Livingston breaks up her film with the use of titles, making it clear to the audience what category they're about to witness. Not only does this emphasise the complexity of these balls, but it also makes us aware of the various forms of gendered performance. One category in particular, named ‘voguing’, strongly supports Butler’s theories on gender. Voguing, the art of dance and modelling, is a category that Willi Ninja has succeeded in mastering. Consequently, Willi Ninja often teaches women how to model, this is despite the fact that he is male. This is a clear example of how gender is simply performance. Willi Ninja seems conscious of this in the film, exclaiming ‘do not believe just because I’m a guy that I can not do it. In order to be a teacher and show girls how to do it, I have to know how to do it’. Through this