KIKI – PARIS IS STILL BURNING

ESSAY: Isn’t it bad to call someone a ‘cunt’? – The words reach me and the rest of the cinema audience very fast. The screen is shut down. The film ‘KIKI’ has just ended. Up in the spotlight stands a woman and punctuates her sentence with a smile.

 I’m finding myself in Bremen after a CPH:DOX special, non-festival screening, at a Q&A session with the Swedish film director and artist Sara Jördan. She is comfortingly forward as she recounts her own question posed in the beginning of a 4-year-long relationship with both the New York’s Kiki Ball scene and her film’s co-writer – Twiggy Pucci Garçon. The answer was: ’No, honey. It’s the highest form of compliment.’

Director Sara Jördan and co-writer Twiggy Pucci Garçon at Sundance Film Festival 2016 // by Daniel Bergeron, from KIKI MOVIE

 

 Twiggy Pucci Garçon started out as a dance performer and instructor. He and people in the Kiki subculture specialize in a style that among dancers, needs no introduction – voguing. (Madonna fans will recognize it from her dance-pop song from 1990 where she borrowed ‘voguing’ both for the title and the style). Having been formerly homeless himself in 2009, Twiggy became one of the most powerful advocates for LGBTQ community – among many other issues – speaking up against youth homelessness. The titles and achievements enumerated in his Facebook ‘bio’ overflow one page, so saying that he is the local Kiki gatekeeper is both an understatement and necessary knowledge. He and Sara met four years ago at a party. From one word to another he pitched an idea for a film that she said ‘yes’ to. They decided to set out on a mission to expose Kiki’s safe space for LGBTQ homeless youth of color to the broader audience once more. What did they hope for?

VISIBILITY AND VULNERABILITY

The first thing we should know is that Kiki  is a network of smaller LGBTQ groups called Houses. This self-organized community combines a prosocial movement on one hand, and a celebration of femininity on the other. It’s also about fun. And, balls, which in other words are: dance competitions between the houses. While the film follows seven transgender and gay performers who reach out in a creative attempt to share their individual stories, it also presents political goals and struggles of the group leaders, called ‘house mothers’. Twiggy holds that position too – he is the founding mother of The Opulent House of PUCCI.

A film still with one of the seven characters – Christopher Waldorf – dancing on the street. // Courtesy of Sundance Institute

 

‘KIKI’ came to European cinemas in tragic synchronicity – in the wake of the Orlando shootings at the gay nightclub Pulse. So, in some way, the political atmosphere made it seem ambiguous whether the film was created as an expression of trust in society’s unification around human rights activism or rather as an appeal to carry on the fight in polarized, isolated groups. Perhaps there was no pre-designed statement but the film definitely makes the audience reflect upon one, as filmmakers capture the moment when gay marriage becomes legal all across The US in summer 2015. The new law, just like the film, gave and will give LGBTQ community more opportunities for becoming visible in the society. However, just as the visibility provides a chance for some problems to become widely recognized and addressed, it also opens up a new issue in regards to public exposure. The 2015 statistics suggest that the new legal inclusion became a reason for a subsequent conservative radicalization. The already vulnerable groups – especially the transgender women of color – who have come forth to take part in society on equal terms have become targets of more hate crimes in 2015 than in 2014.

Therefore the act of several queer kids stepping out of a ‘safe zone’ and releasing their intimate portraits into the world should draw even more admiration and curiosity from anyone. Whether they decided to be the exposed, mostly out of trust in society or mostly out of compassion for their own community is unknown, but they certainly must feel both. In the times when it is said that the term ‘queer’ has lost its political meaning, cultural enterprises like ‘KIKI’ are there to bring back the dialogue. What is it about today? Sara lets her collaborators lay bare and speak of the various conflicts they face both as individuals and a group, and explain what dancing has got to do with it…

The writer/director duo decided not to make plain ‘facts and figures’ a part of the story, even though there are many reasons to believe that statistics must have turned up during film’s pre-production research. However, for a regular, curious know-it-all with a passion for hard data, it does not require a lot of digging to find out everything translated into graphs. For instance, National Report on Hate Violence  – an American organization that releases official annual reports on the documented hate crimes against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community – opens the 2015 report (the simplified version for the media) with those short, easy-to-read but difficult to digest lines: 

– In 2015 there were 24 reported hate violence homicides, a 20% increase from 2014.

– Transgender and gender-nonconforming people of color made up the majority of homicides.

– People of color and undocumented survivors were more likely to experience physically violent forms of hate violence.

– Of survivors who reported hate violence to police, 80% said police were indifferent or hostile.

Kiki ball scene is an offspring of the New York’s ballroom culture that was also portrayed in the famous documentary entitled Paris is Burning, back in 1990. ‘KIKI’ – the 2016 film – is an up-to-date report on the community’s struggles and successes. Kiki – the cultural phenomenon – is not only connected to voguing competitions but also about ensuring proper care (especially health care) for the members of individual houses. Those most vulnerable to negligence are young homeless trans men and women, who by means of multiple operations transitioned from one body to another. In the film, they share generously and many admit to – briefly speaking – having been thrown out of their family homes as minors by prejudiced parents. Throughout the course of the documentary, we learn that this situation can be followed by many consequences with different levels of severity, among which are: difficulties with maintaining the right dosage of necessary medication, unemployment, alienation, diseases, crime, sex-work-related issues and hunger. It isn’t affordable for the government to institutionalize or take care of the homeless LGBTQ people that constituted about 40% of all homeless in America in 2015*. The safety of those kids relies on the voluntary community health work, mentorship and grassroots activism like the one of Twiggy Pucci Garçon.

A clip from ‘KIKI’ where Divo Pink Lady – another of the seven major characters – is dancing in two different set-ups. At first, in a public space and then, on a meeting of the House. // KIKI MOVIE

COMING-OF-AGE AS INDIVIDUALS

Realness is one of the core leitmotifs of the ball scene as it is presented in both films: ‘Paris is Burning’ and ‘KIKI’. The discussion of what is an authentic-looking expression of a certain social role comes about through serious but playful dressing-up competitions, where being a skilled performer mixes with trying to expand one’s gender expression ‘vocabulary’. The jury can grant an absolute validation by giving you top marks or else, an idea of what to work on in the future. Each ball seems to bring new answers to the ‘question’ of realness

The ‘mimicking’ competitions are as much the focus of any ball as dancing. The categories set the type of expression that will get evaluated e.g.: ‘high fashion’, ‘schoolboy/girl realness’, ‘executive realness’ or even long ones like ‘single, middle class, working mom after work in a supermarket’. They are designed to describe either certain gender stereotype or social status (if not both). For instance, ‘executive realness’ is a category where the challenge is to create the best possible illusion of being an office executive, while ‘schoolboy realness’ is about delivering an impression of the most adopted, popular, American youngster. Therefore, the categories seem to have their fair share of potential for both creative interpretation and a discussion on political issues like e.g. equal distribution of opportunities.

Exposing the theatrical nature of the way a person defines one’s identity in the eyes of others seems to be ‘the name of the game’. The performers pick up on the qualities that are used by society to categorize, accept or exclude one another, no matter whether it’s based on gender, economy or class. Thus, kiki balls give space to reflect on those whose right to make a loving family is recognized as more credible, those who are acknowledged as the rightful recipients of medical help or compassion and those who have a chance to compete for a job on equal terms.Therefore, it is interesting to follow ‘KIKI’s plot and see in what shape or form the 2015 balls bring about an answer to the following question: Whose right to be ‘the original’ is acknowledged and conversely, who only has the right to imitate?

Gia – one of the leading characters who charms with her outspoken nature – generously reveals that becoming a transgender woman is a process filled with self-questioning and realizations that mature slowly. Some of her words tugged on the strings of my imagination with a surprising force and made me – a person ignorant of the struggle and the scope oppression of transgender people – relate to transitioning. She made me search my experience and there, find a mirror to her own feelings, which felt like a magical, bonding moment or, would have felt like it if there wasn’t a cinema screen between us. She compared the process of transitioning with the identity crisis that every teenager goes through – a tedious and long time of self-doubting and mistakes, one full of things you will come to regret but couldn’t have done without in order to find out whom you are not and slowly become comfortable with listening to yourself day by day.

A film still portraying Gia Marie Love. // Courtesy of Sundance Institute

 

THE WEIGHT OF THE TASK

The journey begins and ends with Twiggy and his fellow ‘founding mother’ Chichi. We get to know that they travel around the world in order to help spread Kiki culture. As promised, we see them setting out for Dublin at the end of the film. However, the way they manage later is never shown. As a filmmaker, I would speculate that the reason for this climax-less cliff hanger is that Sara wanted us to individually reflect upon (and weigh) the risks and benefits of this work. Did the vision of their upcoming job in Dublin leave us a little scared or hopeful? – it’s up to everyone to answer themselves (despite the unforgiving 2015 statistics).

None the less, there is no doubt that the personal development of Kiki performers portrayed in the film seems impressive. The performers don’t only invite everyone to look at them but they also want to be seen – and naturally seen as individuals. In addition to that, (with seemingly effortless deliberation) this subculture does a lot of work for feminist rhetoric by reclaiming the language that allows speaking shamelessly, positively, even proudly of female body and sexuality. Kiki makes such characteristic limitations of our times visible and so, seems to be aiming to make any woman feel good about herself. ‘I felt better in the Kiki community, than in the outside world. This subculture is based on matriarchy in the end.’ Sara admitted bluntly, once again displaying her brilliant courage with a pinch of graceful shyness. 

* The Guardian

CPH PRIDE 2016 QUICK LINKS:

GAY PRIDE WEEK (16. – 21.08) in Copenhagen is slowly coming to an end. To catch up with what’s left to see and do click HERE and HERE

PRIDE PARADE (20.08) HERE

LGBT ASYLUM** (20.08) invites everyone to walk the parade with them to create awareness about the subject. For more information about this click HERE

**LGBT Asylum is an organisation that works for LGBT refugees who flee due to a violation of their human rights. Generally speaking, it takes care of the rights of the LGBT people in Danish asylum system

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Film writer and - outside of Vink - an artist working with the Copenhagen-based group Unknown Twins. I like working with still photography, moving image, installations and language. I like tall people.