One of the focuses of this week’s film and articles is social hierarchy and its manifestation in film and film production. The judgment of filming about a group that the filmmaker does not belong to always hunts me. Personally, I don’t believe it is impossible to represent another group from an “outsider”, no matter which one group is more mainstream. When I first saw this film, it did not leave me any racial or social impression of the filmmaker. I wasn’t aware whether the maker is a female or male, black or white. I think that is a good thing for a female white director directing a film about black queer culture.
For a documentary, it is actually unavoidable to have the filmmakers’ perspective mixed with the presentation of the images. Standing from a filmmaker’s perspective, I learned a lot from bell hooks’ reading. The relationship between the recorder and the person being recorded on screen is dependent on the subject of the film. Sometimes, the recorder (and the identity of the recorder) can recede and be invisible but sometimes, the recorder needs to acknowledge his/her influence on the subjects.
B COLE’s article is also interesting. It is a balance to hooks’ article, I feel. It says, by checking people’s knowledge on certain social issues “creates a call-out culture that reinforces hypermasculine negativity.” (B COLE) I feel hooks’ article could have added more suggestive solutions to how Livingston can make this film fairer to the black community (and I believe by simply adding another black co-director is not the best way). (To B COLE, hooks’ article MIGHT be another act that reinforces white suprematism.)
zx.lyu 
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this film! I was also really drawn to the B Cole quote about how call-out culture reinforces hypermasculine negativity, but I did not at all realize that connection to the bell hooks article until you pointed it out! For the most part, I have to agree, it seems like bell hooks’ article was very negative with not a lot of constructive feedback on solutions to the problems she brought up. However at the end at least, in her discussion of Dorian Carey (I think that was their name), I think we can draw some suggested/implied inspiration. The way she talked about Dorian Carey’s criticism of the film made me think that if the filmmaker had included more critiques and conversation from the subjects that really wrestled with the complexities of the culture and the way it challenges and reinforces dominant culture it would have been less problematic. hooks does not explicitly draw this conclusion, and I definitely would have preferred to have heard more from her about Dorian’s character, but her discussion of them did help for me. If we are to begin a culture of calling in instead of calling out and meeting people where they are at like B Cole suggested, I think in this scenario we can start by acknowledging the value of hooks’ criticism and praise of the film, and drawing constructive conclusions. Anyway, thank you for your words and for starting this conversation by connecting those two articles!
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Looking at this quote: “To B COLE, hooks’ article MIGHT be another act that reinforces white suprematism.”
Honestly, I felt that a lot of hooks’ article, though trying to dismantle white supremacist and heteronormative views, was coming from the perspective of those very views. Especially on gender norms, I felt like hooks’ arguments inadvertently reinforced very heteronormative (or cisnormative? binary-normative?) ideas of femininity and masculinity. Thinking of this through the lens of B. Cole’s article puts an interesting spin on this.
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Your perspective on Paris is Burning is intriguing! I agree with you; “For a documentary, it is actually unavoidable to have the filmmakers’ perspective mixed with the presentation of the images”. We can see it manifested in various ways throughout the film. I wonder, are there films that accurately and positively represent queer culture? Are there queer documentaries that work to dismantle the white supremacy and social hierarchy which tends to plague Western filmmakers?
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