Paris is Burning: A Critic of Gender

Examining drags, where femininity and/or masculinity are performed by opposite sexes, gains importance for providing a new insight into gender issue. The films focusing on the life in drags are considered to be significant tools to understand issues related to gender. Paris is Burning, a film directed by Jennie Livingston, is an invaluable source for attracting attention towards drags, transsexuals, gender and relatively race in this regard. The film focuses on the drag balls where black gays and transsexuals living in New York perform femininity as drag queens by giving crucial clues about how those people define and evaluate femininity and gender. In this article, the film, Paris is Burning, will be analyzed on the basis that whether the attitudes of gays and transsexuals in the film will bring a revolutionary perspective, which is the rejection of the norms of heterosexist and patriarchal culture, into gender issue.