Every Friday Chris hand-selects a streaming recommendation for your weekend.
This Week’s Featured Flick
Paris is Burning on Netflix
NETFLIX DESCRIPTION
This Sundance prize-winning documentary is an intimate portrait of 1980s Harlem drag balls: a world of fierce competition, sustenance, and survival.
Paris is Burning presents a glamorous, intimate and occasionally tragic glimpse into a world uniquely of a time and place. Filmmaker Jennie Livingston documented drag culture, also known as the ball scene, in 1980s New York City. The city was dangerous for anyone back then, let alone homeless queer youths, but when these kids are at The Ball, throwing shade or walking the runway or voguing, nothing else mattered. The costumes are as beautiful and outrageous as you would expect, and the dancing is infinitely GIFable, but the documentary’s real charm is the underlying theme of family that runs throughout. Young gay teens, many of whom have runaway or been kicked out of their homes, found camaraderie in the “houses” that formed out of the ball scene.
Even if you don’t typically consume documentaries I think you’ll be captivated by Paris is Burning. I’ve been known to loose entire afternoons watching clips on YouTube. Give the film just ten minutes, and I guarantee you’ll finish the whole thing.