Paris Is Burning Offers Insight Into the Black and Latinx Ballroom Scene in 1991
Jennie Livingston's 1991 documentary Paris is Burning paints an intimate portrait of the Black and Latinx queer folks that made up the Harlem ballroom scene. The doc offers insight into how members of the scene used these spaces as way to build up self-worth and community, things that they were denied by not only heteronormative society, but white and wealthy LGBTQ+ folks as well. In addition to its lasting legacy and timeless quotes, the film changed LGBTQIA+ cinema forever, paving the way for fictional TV Dramas like Poseand the competitive HBO Max reality series Legendary.