The balls are much more than evening entertainment, they are the centre of the lives of this community. The men, transexuals, drag queens and transvestites prepare for days, weeks, months. Costumes, makeup, workouts, even surgery take place through scrounging, begging, borrowing, and occasionally through sold sexual favours. In effect they are always preparing for the balls (no pun), and some of them have been doing so for their whole lives. Much of the community live in "houses" - LaBeija, Ninja, Xtravaganza, Pendavis. These are communes which selectively welcome those who have nowhere else to go, giving them shelter and companionship. Gay children run away from home as they are rejected by their parents and are lost and vulnerable. They gravitate towards cities and the lucky ones find some stability and love in these homes. The unlucky ones presumably just disappear. The "houses" then draw battle lines and fight it out at the balls, dance-off style.
This is a persecuted subculture, to be both black and gay is a remarkable curse. It results in extreme pain, and consistent danger. It would be easier to pretend to be straight, though they could not also fake being white. Many of them have nothing, and come to the balls starving. In this safe environment they are able to let themselves go entirely and are judged on lines entirely different to those which usually condemn them. They have opportunity and from that are able to derive massive confidence where otherwise they only saw bleakness. But its not a haven of love, its competitive, and open to all the usual biases. The rules are strict and desire to win is fierce. One hilarious moment occures when a well built man with sculpted goatee wearing a well fitted suit and bow tie is accused of cheating for wearing an outrageous full length women's fur coat. He is supposed to be dressed as a man... Its hard to believe coats of that size are made for women. During the furore he squeals that the buttons are on the right size, proof that its a men's coat. Its not clear if he is disqualified or not. The joy and freedom that they experience seems like a triumph of the dispossessed. Outcasts reclaiming their right to enjoy life.
But its odd the direction that the imitation goes. The competitions are guided by the society that has ostracised them. They compete to be executives, to be college students, to be uniformed school children. There is a town and country category. The flair is there, but the challenge is to look as much as possible like their straight counterpart and suppress what makes them different. There is a bizarre moment when a transexual walks the catwalk nude in one shot, proud of her new body, and immediately afterwards is conservatively dressed competing in the uniformed schoolgirl category, flicking through an exercise book. While competing to be businessmen, they discuss how this is a world cut off from them. Without the background and the education they will never wear those suits and work in those board rooms. They are competing for the aspirational, but mundane.
Its bizarre, it appears they are not celebrating difference at all, but trying to fit into what they know they cannot. In doing so it is clear why the straight, white community would interpret this as grotesque mimickery. This is further exaggerated when transexuals attempt to compete in a mainstream modelling competition. For that segment in the LGBT community it is the height of achievement. Can they persuade the casual observer that they are female? This is something the balls have specifically prepared them for. Rejection is likely, and again danger isn't too far away. Though some do look very much like natural women. Octavia Saint Laurent, pictured below, is better looking than most of the women in the modelling competition.
The filming runs alongside the AIDS epidemic, but possibly due to the core focus of the film, the topic is passed over. Danger within the community already existed, so while this is a new possible cause of an early death, it is not unique. Venus Xtravaganza, of house Xtravaganza, is the clearest representation of that risk. Born Thomas Bellagatti, an extremely effeminate boy, she left her family and moved to New York as a 15 year old calling herself Venus. One of the few white people involved in the community, she looks very much like a young girl. Badly misguided, she occasionally works as a prostitute without disclosing her sex, and discusses in the film an occasion where it almost went wrong. Later her body is found under a bed in a New York hotel room, strangled, after lying undiscovered for 4 days (how that happens in a hotel isn't clear to me, but I suppose it wasn't the Ritz).
After the filming ends, into the 1990s, the AIDS epidemic rips through the community. Many died, including Octavia. However, Voguing lifted some out of poverty into international success, particularly in the Xtravaganza house who featured in Madonna's video, and some still dance and teach today.
The documentary itself focuses much more thoroughly on the happiness and inclusion brought by the balls, rather than the pain and torment out there for gay, black kids. While they couldn't hide their aspiration to be a part of the white community, the "ball" scene's own culture, had a dramatic global influence by infiltrating that same white community. Some of that influence is still present, and I'm sure every 10 years or so "Voguing" becomes fashionable again. It helps that its named after the leading iconic fashion-marketing machine. I'm not certain if the ballroom scene exists anymore in any real sense or if its just a relic or tribute to times past, sources differ. Despite recent swings in cultural views there are still considerable numbers of outcast gay teenagers lost in New York City, but Harlem presumably no longer prices well to accommodate them. As such, this is a record of a unique time and place of remarkable creativity and influence from society's rejects and therefore its pretty epic.
8 / 10