I remember my dad saying you have three strikes against you in this world. Every black man has two, that they're just black and they're a male. But you're black and you're a male and you're gay. You're gonna have a hard fuckin' time.
This is one of the first voiceovers to appear in the film, against images of balls and the streets of Harlem in the 1980s. Though it is not attached to any particular speaker, it frames the rest of the film by showing how queerness, race, class, and other factors all intersect. It also emphasizes how ostracized the film's subjects were, even by their own families.
When they're undetectable and they can walk out of that ballroom into the sunlight and onto the subway and get home, and still have all their clothes and no blood running off their bodies – those are the femme realness queens... and usually it’s a category for young queens.
In this quotation, Dorian Corey explains the meaning behind "femme realness," or the ability to "pass" as a straight woman out in the world. Her description points to some of the discrimination that these performers faced outside of the balls, including sexual assault and violence. This quotation foreshadows the fate of Venus Xtravaganza, a femme queen eventually murdered while performing sex work.
Black people have a hard time getting anywhere and those that do are usually straight. In a ballroom you can be anything you want. You're not really an executive but you're looking like an executive.
Here, Dorian Corey illustrates the intersectionality that existed for most individuals in the ball culture scenes in that they were mostly people of color. On top of facing hatred for their sexual orientations, they also encountered racial discrimination in all realms including the professional sphere. Therefore, the ball culture became a haven for most of these individuals, where they could embody the fantasy of the white, straight, and wealthy upper class.
It's like crossing into the looking glass in Wonderland. You go in there and you feel 100% right.
Bystanders on the streets (or ball attendees) are frequently interviewed for their own insights into the meaning of balls. Here, a bystander explains how participating in a ball – or even simply attending one – brings about a transformation for otherwise persecuted and ostracized individuals. He frames balls as an entirely different world, one in which nobody is discriminated against for race, class, gender, or sexual orientation.
If everybody went to balls and did less drugs, it'd be a fun world, wouldn't it?
Here, Dorian Corey quips about the truly innocuous and fulfilling nature of balls. She compares participating in balls to an "addictive high," but notes that this particular high is "good for you." She then muses that balls are a benefit to society for the feelings of escape, fantasy, acceptance, and aspiration that they offer to performers.
Shade comes from reading. Reading came first. Reading is the real art form of the insult.
One of the most important terms in the film is "shade," and Dorian Corey explains the etymology behind it by comparing it to "reading," or exaggerating someone else's flaws in an insulting (but still playful) way. Shade is more subtle, sometimes appearing without words altogether and simply communicated through looks alone. Corey's explanation shows how these terms have evolved over time and how ball culture employs its own "language."
If you have captured the great white way of living or looking or dressing or speaking, you is a marvel.
In this voiceover, someone comments on the importance of race in ball performances. They explain how the goal of the "wealthy" categories is to appear as convincingly white, straight, and rich as possible. Because of all the discrimination faced by non-white, lower-class individuals, the ability to embody whiteness is supremely difficult and therefore considered a skill of only the best and most talented performers.
I don't like to hustle anymore. I'm afraid of what's going on, the AIDS, and I don't want to catch it.
In this quotation, Venus Xtravaganza explains that she is not interested in "hustling" anymore – or working as a sex worker. Her reasoning is based on what was, at the time, the growing knowledge of HIV and AIDS in the queer community. As it happens, many of Venus's mentors would die of AIDS complications, including her "mother," Angie Xtravaganza. The film focuses on the way that AIDS devastated the queer community and killed a number of notable figures.
I don't want to end up an old drag queen with nothing going for me but trying to win a grand prize at a ball.
Octavia Saint Laurent, a young queen who competes in "femme realness" categories at balls, explains here that she aspires to transcend ball culture and become a model in the "real world." Octavia represents a number of performers who idolized supermodels and attempted to move beyond the confines of the ball into the mainstream.
But that's part of life, as far as being a transsexual in New York City and surviving.
When Angie, in 1989, tells the camera that Venus was murdered in a hotel while performing sex work, she makes this frank and somber statement. As one of the last comments made in the film, Angie reminds viewers what discrimination and violence these members of the queer community faced on a daily basis, suggesting that to exist in the "real world" as a queer person is to put oneself in danger. The film suggests that one of the only safe havens for queer people at the time were the balls, which by 1989, had started to disappear.
