User:Chloe asmith/sandbox

Article Evaluation

Week 11

Potential Topic Ideas:

Paris Is Burning: The "controversy" and "critical reception" subsections of this page, could possibly be combined and definitely need to be further explored. I would like to explore the potential problem of a white women directing Paris Is Burning and how we, as viewers, are influenced by her perspective. In addition, I would like to go into the familial-type relationships created by the houses and how these relationships influence the mourning process.

Kiki: This page hardly has anything and would be a massive project to tackle.

Lesbian Feminism: I contemplated writing on this since we discussed a few articles in Queer theory, but it appears to be pretty well explored and unbiased.

Adding to Paris Is Burning:

Authors including Kimberly Chabot Davis, have also criticized Paris is Burning as being sensational and racially problematic due to the directors position as a white woman. She states, "the power wielded by the camera, over both the audience and subject, has been a central concern in the history of documentary film."

Week 12

I have decided to choose the Wiki page Paris Is Burning (film) to contribute to. I would like to discuss more the implications of having a white Jewish woman as the director and producer of the film, and what it means for the viewer. It is important to discuss the potential bias or distortions created by this disconnect in identity and experience. I would also like to discuss the familial kinship created within these communities and how it influences their processes of mourning.

Bibliography

Butler, Judith. "Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion" In Bodies that Matter: On the Duscursive Limits of "Sex" by Butler. New York: Routledge, 1993. pp. 121-140.

Hooks, Bell. "Is Paris Burning?" in Black Looks: Race and Representation by Hooks. Boston: South End Press, 1992. pp. 145-156.

Davis, Kimberly Chabot. "White Filmmakers and Minority Subjects: Cinema Verite and the Politics of Irony in "Hoop Dreams" and "Paris Is Burning". South Atlantic Modern Language Association.

Harper, Phillip Brian. “‘The Subversive Edge’: Paris Is Burning, Social Critique, and the Limits of Subjective Agency.” Diacritics, vol. 24, no. 2/3, 1994, pp. 90–103. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/465166.

Thrasher, Steven. "Paris is (Stil) Burning." Out, vol. 19, no. 10, Jun, 2011, pp. 107-111''. ProQuest'', http://search.proquest.com.proxy.library.ohio.edu/docview/869749965?accountid=12954.

Kruks, Sonia. “Simone De Beauvoir and the Politics of Privilege.” Hypatia, vol. 20, no. 1, 2005, pp. 178–205. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3810848.

Week 13

I will more than likely suggest combining the following sections on the page Paris Is Burning (film) due to their similarity in both theme and tone.

Possibly creating a section titled "Controversy surrounding the film" that includes the already written sections on awards and law suits. The "Critical Reception" section could then focus on theoretical critics.

I found that Paris Is Burning doesn't include the topics of kinship or realness and will include this alongside my exploration of Livingston's position as director.

Added to Paris Is Burning (film) talk page: "I'd like to revise the Critical reception and controversy section on this page. I think it would be best if we focused on awards, financial revenue, and controversy surrounding the film under the section "controversy". The "Critical Reception" section can then be used to talk about potential critiques surrounding the film and its exploration of gender, sex, and sexuality. 64.247.83.84 (talk) 02:59, 19 April 2018 (UTC)"

Controversy (Revised)
The film received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts during the period when the organization was under fire for funding controversial artists including Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano. Aware that publicity surrounding her project could result in revoked funding, Livingston avoided releasing many details about the project outside of her small circle of producers and collaborators.

Several of the most heavily featured performers wished to sue in 1991 for a share of the film's profits. Paris DuPree sought the largest settlement: $40 million for unauthorized use of her ball. The producers stated that they had always planned on compensating the principal participants. All dropped their claims after their attorneys confirmed that they had signed releases. The producers then distributed approximately $55,000 among thirteen of the participants.

Upon release, the documentary received rave reviews from critics and won several awards including a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, a Berlin International Film Festival Teddy Bear, an audience award from the Toronto International Film Festival, a GLAAD Media Award, a Women in Film Crystal Award, a Best Documentary award from the Los Angeles, New York, and National Film Critics' Circles, and it also was named as one of 1991's best films by the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, National Public Radio, Time magazine, and others.

Paris Is Burning failed to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature that year, adding to a growing perception that certain subjects and treatments were excluded from consideration for Oscars, and leading, in part, to a change in how documentaries are nominated for the Academy Awards.

More than two decades later, Paris Is Burning remains an organizing tool for gay and trans youth; a way for scholars and students to examine issues of race, class, and gender; a way for younger ball participants to meet their ancestors; and a portrait of several remarkable Americans, most of whom have died since the film's production.

Critical Reception
Authors including Judith Butler and bell hooks have criticized Paris Is Burning. In Is Paris Burning?, bell hooks, a feminist writer who is not LGBT-identified, criticized the film for reinforcing the socialized idea that white femininity is the proper gender expression to aspire to. She states, "The femininity most sought after, most adored, was that perceived to be the exclusive property of white womanhood” Other authors such as Judith Butler and Phillip Harper have also pointed towards the Queens desire to perform and present “realness” . Realness can be described as the ability to appropriate an authentic gender expression . When performing under certain categories at the Ball, such as school girl or executive, the queens are rewarded for appearing as close to the “real thing” as possible. A main goal amongst the contestants is to perform conventional gender roles while at the same time trying to challenge them.

hooks also questions the political efficacy of the drag balls themselves, citing her own experimentations with drag, and suggesting that the balls themselves lack political, artistic, and social significance. hooks criticizes the production and questions gay men preforming drag, suggesting that it is inherently misogynistic and degrading towards Black women.

In her book, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex", Judith Butler responds to hooks' previous opinion that drag is misogynistic, stating:"The problem with the analysis of drag as only misogyny is, of course, that it figures male-to-female transsexuality, cross-dressing, and drag as male homosexual activities- which they are not always- and it further diagnosis male homosexuality as rooted in misogyny."Both hooks and Harper criticize the filmmaker, Jennie Livingston, a white lesbian woman, for remaining visibly absent from the film. Although the viewers are able to hear Livingston a few times during the production, the directors physical absence while orchestrating the viewers perspective, creates what Hooks calls an “Imperial Oversee(r)”.

In addition, hooks questions Livingston's depiction of the drag balls, arguing that it reduces the experiences of drag Queens to a mere spectacle:"Much of the film's focus on pageantry takes the ritual of the black drag ball and makes it spectacle. Ritual is that ceremonial act that carries with it meaning and significance beyond what appears, while spectacle functions primarily as entertaining dramatic display... Hence it is easy for white observers to depict black rituals as spectacle."In White Filmmakers and Minority Subjects: Cinema Vérité and the Politics of Irony in Hoop Dreams and Paris Is Burning, Kimberly Chabot Davis, also criticizes the film as being sensational and racially problematic due to the directors position as a white woman. She states, "the power wielded by the camera, over both the audience and subject, has been a central concern in the history of documentary film".

Judith Butler draws upon this film to comment on the role of interpellation in the social construction of gender. The Author describes interpellation as the idea that individuals and their gender identities are not fully formed until another person acknowledges them. Davis argues that as the film director, Livingston has the power to create the drag queen and manipulate viewers assumptions of gender.

References