Jennie Livingston's fascinating documentary film about the subculture of queer "voguing" balls among a mainly black and latino community of queer kids, transexuals, hustlers and drag performers. At the heart of the film is the notion of performance and "passing," whereby participants in the balls are judged on their ability to 'pass' or connote "realness" within a performance of a gender and/or class identity (and sometimes also racial identity). The abiding irony that the film deals with is the relationship between notions and values of "realness" in performance, which is obviously the opposite of one's authentic and physical identity and situation. The film also engages in questions around exploitation, not only the willing or situational sexual exploitation in which many of the characters participate (i.e. forms of hustling and prostitution, as well as shoplifting which they call "mopping"). But, exploitation around representation is also at issue here, in terms of who is telling whose story. On one level the film is created by an outsider: a white, middle class, college educated woman, who presents her documentary in an ethnographic form of representing the (ethnic and cultural) other and attempts to translate this culture and its values to an outside world. But, just as our postmodern hackles of exploitation begin to be raised, there is a kind of implicit turning of the tables, when some of the subjects express their hope and desire that this documentary will lead to the fame and mainstream acceptance many of them say they seek. So, who is exploiting whom? Is the documentary film itself the site of Delaney's cross-class contact?
Speaking of exploitation, it is hard to watch this film and not think about the ways that mainstream culture exploited "voguing" as a trend and assimilated it, decontextualized and deneutured as a dance craze, first celebrated by Malcolm McClarren and quickly taken as a hit song and video by Madonna.
-S.T.
