Socioeconomic Status
The primary objective for a majority of categories within balls is to successfully embody the image of a rich, straight, cisgender white person. Sometimes this even means stealing designer clothes to wear to the ball because the majority of performers are poor or, as Pepper LaBeija implies, homeless. Balls present these performers from low-class and unstable backgrounds with an opportunity to be something they are not, and many times their efforts are so pronounced that they can "pass" as that wealthy, heteronormative demographic out in the real world.
Vogueing
Today, the majority of people might credit Madonna with the invention and popularization of vogueing due to her 1990 hit single "Vogue." However, Paris is Burning shows how vogueing already had a rich history in ball culture decades before Madonna became a pop icon. The explosive interest in vogueing post-Madonna showcases how mainstream culture often appropriates queer or minority culture at the same time it continues to discriminate against members of these communities.
Inclusivity
The film features a time jump from the early 1980s to 1989, and shows how a number of things have changed for the performers who were interviewed in the first half of the decade. It features footage from news media talking about voguing and the AIDS crisis, a testament to how queer culture had just begun to enter the mainstream social consciousness. While some performers benefited from this nascent inclusivity (like Willi Ninja, the vogueing master), others lament how the balls have changed since the "underground" element disappeared and since the AIDS epidemic ravaged the queer community. In many ways, growing tolerance for queerness in the United States is featured as a double-edged sword for the integrity of a specifically queer culture.
Terminology
Throughout the film, performers define certain words for the viewer in order to acquaint them with the details of ball culture. These words already have definitions with which viewers are familiar – words like "shade," "legendary," "realness," "reading," etc. However, these terms mean entirely different things when understood within the context of queer culture. "Reading," for example, does not refer to reading a text. Instead, it is a form of insulting someone for the way they look or behave. That the balls essentially have their own lexicon is a testament to their influence in the 1980s queer community.
