Paris is Burning (1990)

  I have to write a paper on this movie later today so this might come off as a bit of a ramble while I organize my thoughts.

This documentary explores the drag ball culture of late 1980s Harlem in New York City.  Most of the participants are young, black, and either disowned or runaways.  They flock to the drag balls as a way of finding new, more accepting communities, joining Houses under a drag mother and adopting their last name.  The film also highlights participants' struggle with survival in a society that would rather they be dead than different.

It's easy to forget how really new LGBT rights are.  When this was filmed, the word "transgender" didn't exist and "transsexuals" generally had to travel to another country to have reassignment surgery, consigning their previous life to ashes and adopting a new identity completely.  They faced a daily threat of death, even as they were fetishized by "straight" men as the ultimate taboo.  Being able to pass as a "real" man or "real" woman became a necessary deception.  People rag on Caitlyn Jenner but as I saw the bone-deep fear of some of these girls, I began to understand just how monumental a decision to be so public really was.

When I compare the experience of Venus Xtravaganza, murdered and left to rot under a sleazy motel bed, who would have been consigned to a pauper's grave because her family wouldn't claim her if her drag mother hadn't come forward to identify and claim the body in 1989, with Cecilia, a young trans woman from my American Sci-fi class who openly talked about her experiences and being with her partner in 2017, it gives me such hope for our progress as a society, as a people, in tolerance and understanding.

This is an incredibly important documentary, not because it is meticulously constructed (because it feels very shoestring) but because of the historical record it provides.  This film immortalizes its participants, validating their humanity, which is really all they ever wanted.