Tragedy and triumph often walk hand in hand — and the news today within the world of all things gay proves there’s no exception to this yin-yang cosmic law.
We only wonder if somehow the following two events might be connected:
First the bad news: A pair of ruby slippers worn by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz has vanished from a Grand Rapids museum. Police believe that someone snuck into the Children’s Discovery Museum through an open window late Saturday or early Sunday and broke into the display case holding the slippers.
The slippers belong to a Los Angeles man who loaned them to the museum for several weeks. “The slippers are a major attraction at our museum,” museum director John Kelsch said in a news release yesterday. “It is our hope that the slippers can be recovered immediately.”
Thankfully, four pairs of ruby slippers were created for use in the making of 1939’s Wizard of Oz. One pair is on display at the Smithsonian and another was sold to some crazy queen at Christie’s auction house several years ago for a stunning $666,000!
(We’re not sure where the fourth pair is — perhaps Fort Knox?)
But dab your eyes for the good news! You may also want to strike a pose because finally, on September 6, after many years of requests, demands and hissy fits, Buena Vista Home Video is set to release the DVD version of the fabulous 1991 drag-ball documentary Paris Is Burning.
For those too young to recall, Paris Is Burning explored New York City’s outrageously recherché “ball” circuit where black and Latino queens, trannies, and transsexuals competed to see who could concoct the most outlandish outfits and give the most outlandish attitude on the runway. These early 90’s drag events took place in rented halls — usually tawdry old buildings originally intended for war veterans or the Rotary Club — and were known as balls.
Of course, outfits, no matter how outlandish, are nothing but material draped and wrapped around a model. It’s the ‘tude, the shade, the “flawless woman-ness” with which the fashion extravaganza was worn that made the outfit win a drag-ball’s bitchily coveted top prize. And Paris Is Burning’s most glorious high notes document the way those ensembles were vogued on a catwalk — by prancing, break-dancing, and striking a pose for imaginary cameras — as the crowd called out their approval (Work it, girl!) or dismay (Butch queen! Butch queen, get off the stage! You’re giving us bangy boy realness!)
This was the thrilling Vogue phenomena that had been limited to the urban black ghetto until Madonna — always a quick study — fell in love with the whole male-as-female swank of the thing and ransacked the vogue walk and vogue talk for one of her biggest-selling singles — and what those of us at Nightcharm think of as the best video of her career.
Voguing was best defined by one of its surprisingly thoughtful practitioners, Muhammad Ultra-Omni, in Guy Trebay’s recent (and very fabulous) New York Times piece on the resurrection of the voguing balls:
“Voguing is truly an evolution of ancient African dance forms rehearsed and refined into a form of first-world party artistry,” explained Ultra-Omni.
Yes, it’s all that, darling — and so much more! What was most important was the manner in which this artistry was categorized, by the ball judges, usually older queens, or sometimes simply louder ones. Each participant competed within a genre or style — Flawless Womaness, Bangy Girl, First Time in Drags — that required full domination and embodiment of the type while working the catwalk.
As Trebay explains in his article:
Throughout their history, ball children have strutted down improvised runways in categories like “executive realness,” “femme attitude” and “sex-siren effect.” The costumes they donned were most memorably of the feather boa sort. But, just as often their “drag” runs to “executive” suits and wingtips or else do-rags and Timberlands worn by Down Low types.
The clear high point of the evening, for this observer at least, was reached when Warner McPherson, also known as Hershey Ultra-Omni, pranced onstage with his lean body oiled and naked but for a G-string kitted out with plastic Wal-Mart foliage. In a blur that lasted less than three minutes, Mr. McPherson miraculously managed to conjure the entire history of voguing in a performance so stylized and manic that inspired is hardly an adequate word. It was possessed.
Take our advice and get your hands on a copy of Paris Is Burning so you can revel in the origins of those pre-RuPaul edicts: “Work it! Bring it! Serve it! Show them girls how it’s really done!”
And then say a little prayer for the recovery of “the shoes.”
Three pairs of ruby slippers in this world just aren’t enough glitter and sparkle to go around. And again we say:
“Work it! Bring it! Serve it!
