For many of those interviewed by Livingston, the drag ball circuit or scene, offers a sense of belonging and community. Because of their "otherness" in terms of race, gender-identification and/or sexual orientation, these individuals are marginalized by society. Yet at the balls they feel free to express themselves. As black men, such expression can potentially be of challenge to the status quo: "For black males to take appearing in drag seriously, be they gay or straight, is to oppose a heterosexist representation of black manhood," notes bell hooks. "Gender bending and blending on the part of black males has always been a critique of phallocentric masculinity in traditional black experience." [2]

Yet hooks also notes that the subversive power of black males in drag can be altered when such images are informed by "a racialized fictional construction of the feminine that . . . makes the representation of whiteness as crucial to the experience of female impersonation as gender." [3]

Evidence of this alteration and its implications abound in Paris Is Burning. "To be real is to look like your straight counterpart," notes one of the black participants in the ball scene. Another notes that it is every minority's dream to "live and look and work as the white person." Still another states that if one has "captured the great white way of living and looking" then one is a "marvel."

This "great white way" is epitomized for the ball circuit participants by '80s television shows like Dynasty and by white "supermodels." Accordingly, bell is adamant that what viewers are witnessing in Paris Is Burning is "not black men longing to impersonate or even to become like 'real' black women but their obsession with an idealized fetishized vision of femininity that is white." [4]

Thus for many of those who participate in the balls, liberation from marginalization and disempowerment is achieved by becoming just like a wealthy white female.

Theologically, such an outlook implies that liberation is about looking beyond one's own intrinsic, God-given worth and seeking to imitate another who by their external appearance and circumstances represents that which is worthy and good.

It thus implies that God gives this worthiness and goodness to some, while denying it to others, and that the hallmarks of such worthiness and goodness are outward signs of wealth and power. Furthermore, it reduces our struggle for liberation to a personal, individual striving for economic betterment.

The achieving to be just like a wealthy white female is also problematic for hooks as she observes that the "longing to be in the position of the ruling-class woman . . . means there is also the desire to act in partnership with the ruling-class white male." [5] Thus the oppressive power structure--the "brutal imperial ruling-class capitalist patriarchal whiteness" [6]--which ensures that those who populate the ball circuit are disempowered and marginalized, remains unchallenged.

Indeed, the power structure is viewed as something to aspire to, as the exclusive club that one must strive to join. There is no (or little) sense of awareness of the systematic injustice and oppression at work, no desire to band collectively in order to expose, undermine and transform this system into one that ensures that no one suffers marginalization and disempowerment.

For hooks, the glow from Paris Is Burning does not come from the flames of a transformative fire, but rather from a sacrificial altar to a false god. The film, she notes, portrays "the way in which colonized black people (in this case black gay brothers, some of whom were drag queens) worship at the throne of whiteness, even when such worship demands that we live in perpetual self-hate, steal, lie, go hungry, and even die in its pursuit." [7]

Yet there is a dissenting voice lifted up in the film. In her discussion of Paris Is Burning, hooks notes that the elder black drag queen Dorian Carey tells viewers that "the desire for stardom is an expression of the longing to realize the dream of autonomous stellar individualism." [8]

Carey laments that the ball scene is now no longer about what you can create, but about what you can acquire. He understands the way that consumer capitalism has undermined the subversive power of the drag balls, in much the same way, I'd argue, that capitalism has undermined the subversive power of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) movement in general. Conformity masquerades as liberation.

What then might a queer theological understanding of liberation look like? I use the word "queer" as defined by feminist theologian Mary Hunt, as meaning "all whose sexual identities and practices fall beyond the parameters of 'hetero-patriarchy'." [9] Hunt insists that queer theology with feminist input, "signals a new way to bring together people from a broad spectrum of 'sexual outlaw' positions and invite their theological reflections." [10]

Theologically, liberation is "the struggle for freedom from oppression as subjugated people become conscious of their situation and work to transform the conditions of their existence." [11] It's important to note that such transformation includes personal and social change. Within the Christian sphere, theologians of liberation emphasize "the biblical theme of God's action on behalf of enslaved, poor, and outcast persons as a central paradigm for faith." [12] A key tenet of liberation theology is God's "preferential option for the poor," which is understood as "a call to solidarity with suffering persons, including those oppressed by unjust power relations structured around gender." [13]

One of the reasons I am drawn to Paris Is Burning and, in particular, to bell hook's critique of it, is that I see hook's analysis similar to my own of the wider GLBT community/movement. It was hook's viewing of Paris is Burning that was instrumental in her articulation of her critique. For me, it was a "fashion spread" in OUT Magazine's April 2000 edition entitled "Burmese Dreams." What made this particular marketing ploy especially repugnant was the fact that OUT Magazine editors not only approved the putting of brown face paint on a Caucasian model, but also showed this model holding various tools and implements used in Burma's slave labor camps. These camps, established by Burma's brutal military dictatorship, and populated by an estimated six million men, women and children, serve the interests not only of the corrupt military regime, but also of Western corporations which profit from the military's trampling of human, labor and environmental rights.

In an article I wrote for Lavender Magazine I lamented that "the selling out to corporate rule is a betrayal of all that makes our journey as GLBT people and as authentic human beings unique--heightened conscious insight, increased creativity and inclusivity, and greater compassion." [14]

I also responded to this "sell-out" by establishing a network of GLBT activists called Queers United for Radical Action (QURA). One of QURA's primary aims is to inform its members and the wider GLBT community on the threats to democracy, human life and the environment posed by corporate globalization, militarism and environmental degradation.

One way that we seek to do this is by establishing working connections with other justice, peace, labor and environmental organizations within the Twin Cities. This bridge building is itself a "radical action," as it helps facilitate an awareness of the root or source of the problems facing not just sexual minorities, but all who are oppressed by "brutal imperial ruling-class capitalist patriarchal whiteness." [15] Although QURA is not a "religious" group, within my own life and work I understand the activity of bridge-building as an intrinsic component of God's liberative action in and through people.

How would God's liberating action look in the community depicted in Paris Is Burning? First, the competitive aspect of the balls would be absent. People would come together not to compete but to share, compare, learn, and celebrate. These qualities would be valued for what they are. They would not have to be legitimized by and through competitiveness. Everyone would be considered special and a winner by virtue of their own unique gift of self.

Free of competitiveness, there would be a return to creativity--a lifting up of the beauty and giftedness within as opposed to the outward seeking and acquisition of the perceived beauty and gifts of others. Such lifting up would be challenging as it would reach out to and empower others to similarly free themselves from imitating standards and norms set by entities bent on domination, control and exploitation. Connections would be made with others who have suffered at the hands of this system, stories would be shared, and suffering and hardship utilized as vehicles to self-understanding and social solidarity.

Imbued and motivated by God's liberation, the drag queen ball circuit would serve not primarily as a refuge, but as an empowering force for positive transformation--for both individuals and the wider society. Indeed, in time the wider society would become the drag queen ball circuit, just as it would become the home for other groups who had once been forced to construct ghetto-like subcultures. Fantasy, within this re-envisioned society, would be employed for purposes of exploration, not as means of escape. Furthermore, the ever-expanding self that such fantasy would allow to emerge would be cherished, respected, and honored; its journeying path would be celebrated and made way for by all.

(c) Michael J. Bayly

1. Paris Is Burning, dir. Jennie Livingston, 76 min., 1990.
2. hooks bell, "Is Paris Burning?" from Black Looks: Race and Representation, South End Press, 1992, 147.
3. Ibid., 147.
4. Ibid., 148.
5. Ibid., 148.
6. Ibid., 149.
7. Ibid., 149.
8. Ibid., 155.
9. Mary Hunt, "Queer Theology" in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, ed. Letty M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996) 298.
10. Ibid., 299.
11. Joyce Ann Mercer, "Liberation" in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, ed. Letty Let M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996) 168.
12. Ibid., 168.
13. Ibid., 168.
14. Michael Bayly, "A Lose/Lose Situation," in Lavender, Vol. 6, Issue 133, June 30, 2000.
15. hooks bell, "Is Paris Burning?" from Black Looks: Race and Representation, South End Press, 1992, 148.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

FILM

Paris Is Burning. Directed by Jennie Livingston. 1990

BOOKS

hooks bell, "Is Paris Burning?" in Black Looks: Race and Representation, South End Press, 1992.

Hunt, Mary E., "Queer Theology" in Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, ed. Letty M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson, 298. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. Mercer, Joyce Ann, "Liberation." In Dictionary of Feminist Theologies, ed. Letty M. Russell and J. shannon Clarkson, 168. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.