{"id":2628,"date":"2011-06-08T10:47:58","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T10:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/08\/opulence_you_ow\/"},"modified":"2024-12-02T18:57:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T02:57:18","slug":"opulence_you_ow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/08\/opulence_you_ow\/","title":{"rendered":"Opulence! You own everything!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ydA7-qCv570?si=JtIaJT3gnvgcCPjX\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>For a while now,<\/strong> I\u2019ve been joining some pals for a monthly movie night and last night we had a selection of mine, the 1990 documentary <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0100332\/\"><i>Paris Is Burning<\/i><\/a>. Every time I come back to this film, I love it just as much as the first time, and it strikes me as more and more poignant as time goes on. It captures a moment, but the further we get from that moment it\u2019s easy to see how much of an impact the whole <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ball_culture\">ball culture<\/a> has had as it leaked out into <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/RuPaul's_Drag_Race\">pop culture at large<\/a>. As <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Paris_Is_Burning_(film)#Critical_Reception\">well-received<\/a> as this was at the time, its success was a bit of a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Paris_Is_Burning_(film)#Controversy\">bitter pill<\/a> for the subjects of the story, who weren\u2019t able to share in as much of that success as they thought they would. Time has secured a legend for them outside the world of the balls, but the outcome only reinforces what many of them say in the film about their lot in life.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><i>Paris Is Burning<\/i> has always had a personal resonance, too, since it had a long run at the Loews Nickelodeon in Boston when I worked there during college. It was a particular favorite of all of us, and the music from the film (especially <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cheryl_Lynn\">Cheryl Lynn<\/a>\u2019s \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Got_to_Be_Real\">Got to Be Real<\/a>\u201d) is as deeply burned into my consciousness as the Loews policy trailer, which I&#8217;ve seen hundreds of times.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YcXO-iKaJ_Y?si=fVJM7p85dPGYsbZu\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cGot to Be Real\u201d, of course, is as amazing as the Loews trailer is excruciating.<\/p>\n<p>I was surprised how many people saw this film for the first time last night. It\u2019s so iconic to me that I just assume everyone else knows it inside and out like I do. It was a big hit, though, so movie-night mission accomplished. And here\u2019s Keith, securing his position as the mother of our film-series house by turning it out and showing how it\u2019s done on the runway, Baltimore style:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"vimeo-player\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/24814757?h=f0ecad509a\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For a while now, I\u2019ve been joining some pals for a monthly movie night and last night we had a selection of mine, the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning. Every time I come back to this film, I love it just as much as the first time, and it strikes me as more and more &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/08\/opulence_you_ow\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Opulence! You own everything!&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultracultural","category-ultragay","category-ultramedia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2628"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77493,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2628\/revisions\/77493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}