Also from my I ♥ the Internet file, Kottke alerts us that the entirety of Paris Is Burning is available on YouTube, for the time being at least. It’s probably fair to say this documentary changed my life. Somehow, confronted with a culture too rich and enormous for the ghetto it’s been relegated to, the film manages not to gawk or exoticize or judge. Jennie Livingston takes the world of voguing and drag balls completely on its own terms, no small feat at the pinnacle of the AIDS epidemic in GLBT America. For a post-adolescent gay boy fresh out of Christian school, this was a revelation. I can’t imagine that most people wouldn’t find a completely different and equally valuable story in it.
The snarkmatrix awaits you