Creatively shot, brimmed with productive interviews, and collapsed with provoking content, Paris is Burning is the too short, but fairly overlooked and well-assembled accounting of the New York drag queen lifestyle during the mid-to-late 80s.
Even though I didn’t find Paris is Burning to be a documentary masterpiece like most do nor was I that frequently locked into its presentation—as with most documentaries I watch—I think it’s an important piece of nonfiction due to its solidification of the 1980s drag era as a time when gay men, primarily, African America gay men could discover an outing and a purpose within a select community amongst an exterior world that’s too discriminate and too naive to accept the differences of others.
Verdict: B-
“Paris is Burning” is now available to stream on Netflix.
