Sally's Black, Brown, & Queer on Film

 The film we watched this week Tangerine is a little bit like a documentary. Sometimes, I forget that this is a movie with a script. Sometimes I feel that this is the true story of those protagonists. Shooting only with iPhone5s in my opinion makes this movie more atmospheric, just like someone recording a vlog for them in the back.     When it comes to the content of the film, the overall impression I have after watching it is that marginalized people are no different from mainstream cultural groups, they also quarrel and fight. Sometimes people think that if marginalized groups are not accepted by mainstream culture, they should be silent, and they should disappear from the public's sight. This is obviously wrong, but there are really many people who have this idea. When I watched this film, I didn't think that they were two transgender people, but that it was a “grievance” between two girls. I used to think that the two girls didn't have a deep friendship, but when Si...

  In Paris Is Burning , the one that impressed me the most was Venus Xtravaganza. The murder of her made me deeply sorry. When I heard her voice for the first time, I felt that her voice was really gentle. There is a passage that I like very much, that is, she said that she wanted to be a well-known model in the fashion industry, and she thought about a lot of things. I was very excited to see that section, and I saw light in her eyes. However, her final death was something I never expected. This also reflects the ruthlessness and cruelty of society at that time. Even the murderer hasn't caught it yet.     In addition, some of the actors I knew didn't like the documentary about Paris Is Burning . One of the actors commented that Paris Is Burning is a crazy movie. It can be seen that this documentary is not liked by most people. They believe that, on the surface, this documentary seems to help the queer group enter the public's sight, but in fact, some of the words and la...

    After seeing this film, I felt depressed and suffocated from head to toe. The dim and cramped toilets, the curly hair falling on the floor, and the boy's silent struggle. These images constitute the pain of a family and also show us the tragedy of a society and an era.   The scene that impressed me the most in this movie was the dialogue between the boy and his mother. As a teenager, it is the age when children explore love, pursue beauty, individuality and independence. The boy in the movie is not valued by his mother. He wants to become a straight-haired singer. Trying to straighten his curly hair, there was light in his eyes at that time, perhaps because of his love for his own image, or perhaps his longing and yearning for the future. But even a simple wish to straighten the hair broke in the cruel reality. Whenever the boy straightened his hair, his mother would rush into the bathroom frantically to take the boy away, criticizing and scolding him. There is only o...

     After seeing these videos, I was most impressed with the story shared by Cakes Da Killa, and at the same time it was the most profound. Cakes Da Killa told us about his childhood growing up in New Jersey and being gay in the hip-pop world, and shared some of his own thoughts and opinions. This is an inspirational but a bit sad story.   As a gay, Cakes Da Killa’s childhood experience was full of ups and downs. He had already started rap during school, but did not have creative freedom. He had already started rap during school, because he was told by his classmates that homosexuals can't rap, he wrote some rhymes to diss straight people. In the eyes of heterosexual children, homosexuality is heterogeneous, special or even inferior. Maybe those naive children who have not yet formed a worldview didn’t intentionally hurt him, but the environment, inherent ideas, and surrounding public opinion made them prejudice against homosexuality and made maliciousness deeply ro...

  Hi! I’m Xiyue Zhang, and you can call me Sally. I’m a sophomore in film major and music minor. I’m from China, and everything is pretty good here. Actually I didn’t know what I can do in film for a long time. But recently, I start to learn some filmmaking abilities and find a job to get some experience and improve my skills. I really like sound part in film. I also have a hobby which is dubbing.