“For in many ways the film was a graphic documentary portrait of the way in which colonized black people (in this case black gay brothers, some of whom were drag queens) worship at the throne of whiteness, even when such worship demands that we live in perpetual self-hate, steal, lie, go hungry, and even die in its pursuit. The “we” evoked here is all of us, black people/people of color, who are daily bombarded by a powerful colonizing whiteness that seduces us away from ourselves, that negates that there is beauty to be found in any form of blackness that is not imitation whiteness. ” (hooks, 1992. Pg. 149)
I chose this picture because in the documentary, Paris is burning, Octavia Saint Laurent worships the throne of whiteness. She believes that the only way to happiness is through looks and material goods. On her wall she displays images of white women in hopes to be like them, to acquire their beauty. Octavia is obsessed with her image and how it is going to take her to certain places in life.
Race, Media, and Representations 