Paris Is Burning, directed by Jennie Livingston, is an observational documentary shot in the late-1980s New York ballroom circuit, where rival houses compete at nightlong balls across categories, judged for craft, performance, and, crucially, “realness.” Livingston intercuts kinetic floor footage with intimate interviews from community figures including Dorian Corey, Pepper LaBeija, Willi Ninja, and Angie Xtravaganza, building a clear portrait of house structure, runway categories, and the codified language of voguing and “shade.”
The film’s subjects and aesthetics traveled quickly into fashion and pop culture. Voguing, refined on ballroom floors by artists like Willi Ninja, surfaced first in Malcolm McLaren’s 1989 “Deep in Vogue,” and then at global scale with Madonna’s “Vogue” (1990), whose video was choreographed and fronted by José Gutierez Xtravaganza and Luis Camacho. The film’s spare, interview-led construction lets participants define their own terms; as Corey reflects, “If you shoot an arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you.” In 2016 it was named to the National Film Registry.
The ballroom emcee’s cri de théâtre, “O-P-U-L-E-N-C-E. Opulence. You own everything.” became a durable catchphrase, while Ninja’s runway coaching and editorial work connected the scene to high fashion. Paris Is Burning won Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, positioning this once-underground lexicon: houses, categories, realness, vogue—in the broader record of late-20th-century style and performance.
