Sinners, Venus, and Cowboy Carter: Legacy, Resilience, and the Fight Ahead
I saw Sinners last Wednesday. Then I saw the documentary “I’m Your Venus” on Thursday, and went to the Cowboy Carter concert at SoFi on Friday. All the while (well, on Friday and Saturday), young filmmakers transformed my apartment for a short film.
It’s like the universe is screaming at me, affirming the name change of this Heritage Lab and reminding me that life has never been easy for Black people and queer people in America - but we survive and even manage to thrive anyway.
It’s strange how this arrangement worked out. Themes in Sinners bled into the reality of Venus Xtravaganza. Venus Xtravaganza took us back to the world of underground drag balls in 1980s New York, where so many cultural references were born. Cowboy Carter (and Renaissance) is a celebration of the black women (cis and trans) that inspired the ballrooms, black culture, defiance, and pride. All three are history lessons. They remind us of where we come from, and give us a good, solid hint of where we’re going. Sure, they all make us cry, but all three also give us hope.
I am scared right now.
The American government has historically given fascists great ideas about how to scare, control, and destroy the people that they hate. America at one point admired Nazis and thought Stalin was cool. Apartheid in South Africa only became problematic when it hit the pocketbooks of American corporations. Today, America is actively supporting the Israeli government’s attempt at colonialism and active genocide of Palestinians. We love a good war. We love a good fascist, even if we have never been quite fascist ourselves until now.
My mom has been trying to get it through my skull that this isn’t new. Maybe America was never fascist, but this country has put everyone who isn’t rich, cis, straight, white, Christian, and/or a man through the ringer. Most Black Americans here today had ancestors that were enslaved. After slavery, we had a brief period of betterment through the Reconstruction era, and then there was Jim Crow. Regardless of the period, there were the lynchings, other forms of terrorism, and segregation. Every time we tried to do something to better ourselves, to be Americans the way white Americans defined it, our shit got burnt down. Our businesses became mockeries (check out the history of Black people and watermelon). Our land was taken. Banks wouldn’t give us loans. White feminist groups generally ignored Black women’s issues.
We got redlined. The government has tried to make access to education and jobs more equitable, and now we’re seeing that rolled back. The police attack and kill us for no reason other than hatred and paranoia, making many of us afraid to rely on them for anything. For a while there, we were the first to die in horror movies. Movies highlighting us were limited because no one would watch them if the cast was primarily Black. Our jails are full of Black men and women, who are then exploited by corporations and paid little to nothing for their work, modern-day slavery. The majority of homeless people in Los Angeles are Hispanic/Latino/a and Black folks.
We have been victims of racial violence and disinvestment since we got here. And yet we rise. We defy. We move forward anyway. We learn, we succeed, we represent excellence. We keep going. Things are scary right now, but Black people have survived an ongoing dystopia in this country. Things are bad and are only going to get worse, but whether we decide to stay here or leave, we will survive.
Act I: 1932 – Sinners (Potential Spoiler Alerts, read at your discretion)
There are a lot of historic wins with this film commercially, but that’s not really what this article is about. If you want to learn more about those, check it out here. There are also a lot of symbolic aspects to this film that are incredible, more about those here (spoilers ahead). We’re not exploring those here. What we are exploring here is resilience through art.
Michael B. Jordan plays a pair of twins born in Jim Crow Mississippi. Like many Black people, they went out to seek their fortunes up North in Chicago. Chicago and other northern cities represented the ability to make something of yourself regardless of color. The reality is that it was a gilded promise. Maybe Jim Crow wasn’t rampant in the North, but de facto segregation was, and in many ways made it just as difficult to get ahead as it was in the South. The brothers got their money through clever ruthlessness and went back home to work with “the devil they know.” They bought a place, convinced people to work with them, and opened a juke joint in one glorious day. They knew the dangers of going home. They knew the threat of working against the desires of the Klan. They knew they could lose everything and yet, they did it anyway. Through the juke joint, they contributed to the past, present, and future of Black influence in popular music. They created a place of joy, celebration, and heritage through this juke. They did this - and Black people have always done this - with damn near the entire country looking down and/or wanting to murder them. They danced and sang, dreamed, schemed, and created with a foot on their necks.
Our people are resilient, intelligent, and creative. We survive against all odds. To this day, we manage to fight our oppressors in the morning and laugh in the evening. Dancing is done on the weekends.
Act II: 1988 – I’m Your Venus
Despite some controversy around Paris Is Burning, the documentary is considered by many, including myself, as a foundational film. It explores the ballroom scene of 1980s New York and is integral to understanding the struggles, beauty, and cultural significance of drag queens and/or Black and Latino transwomen. Vogueing came from the ballrooms. Reading came from the ballrooms. Hell, RuPaul’s Drag Race wouldn’t exist without the ballroom scene. Their existence is felt around the world today.
As you can imagine, living as Black and/or Latino/a gay men and transwomen in 1980s New York during the AIDS epidemic AND the crack epidemic wasn’t exactly a piece of cake. Many folks in the scene were ostracized and homeless. The creation of houses, like House of Xtravaganza, provided crucial support systems for folks who had nowhere else to go.
That brings us to the new documentary “I’m Your Venus”, produced by Jennie Livingston, Dominique Jackson, and others. The documentary follows the life and death of one of the breakout star of Paris is Burning, Venus Xtravaganza. She was full of life and had dreams, the same way that we all do. She was vibrant, iconic and touched so many people. She was brutally murdered two years before Paris is Burning was released. I wish it was an uncommon tragedy, but the reality is that transwomen are 4x more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than a cisperson…today. So, go back about 36 years and add the lack of support for those with AIDS, regular discrimination and violence against gay people, and racial violence against people of color…shit is bleak.
And yet, transwomen and queer artists of color like Venus Xtravaganza found joy, even while fighting for the simple right to exist. She was not forgotten. Her mark is permanently affixed to American pop culture, whether people know it or not.
The documentary goes into the search for her murderer, but also sees her brothers grapple with her life and the role they played in it. Ultimately, they changed her name to Venus Xtravaganza on all her records, got her a new tombstone, and designated their grandmother’s house, where she was living when she died. The documentary ends with a celebration of her life. There are many tears, so much heartbreak, but there is also laughter. There is dancing. The community is resilient.
Act III: 2025 – Cowboy Carter
Tina Knowles had a gay nephew who went by “Uncle” Johnny. He introduced her kids, Beyoncé and Solange, to house music, made Beyonce’s prom dress (“Uncle Johnny made my dress”), and was an active costumer and designer in the local Galveston, TX drag scene. He died of AIDS in 1998.
Fast forward to Beyoncé’s Act I and Act II: Renaissance and Cowboy Carter. Both albums pay homage to Uncle Johnny in genre and representation. Beyoncé doesn’t shy away from the impact that Black women (again, cis and trans), Black gay men, and drag queens have had on her career. Her existence is not a solitary rock in the middle of the ocean, but a stepping stone path that stretches behind her and beyond her. Her career continues the legacy of Black storytelling through music. It also highlights - again - the ability to find joy even in the bleakest hours. Unfortunately, it also represents how Black excellence, especially in women, is snubbed.
I wasn’t going to go to the concert. I loved the album and was happy to just play it on repeat. The headlines all made it look like it was cost-prohibitive, and I don’t go to many concerts anyway. Luckily, my sister bullied me into going, so I shelled out the surprisingly affordable $120 to go see the show, and now I’m a broken record because guess what…
I danced. I laughed. I stomped. I stood in reverence.
She made me want an American flag out of defiance, as a sign that this country belongs to me, too. It belongs to me, and my family, and my ancestors, and anyone who was forced to till this land while being made to feel that we didn’t build anything. That’s crucial right now, feeling like this place is ours too. Because if it’s ours too, and if it belongs to every marginalized community in this damned country, then we can stand strong through this. Fascists don’t like us, and we can not like them right back and maybe, just maybe, push back hard enough to force them to stop this suicide mission they have us all on.
America has a problem, and it is not us.
Beyoncé is arguably the best performer in America right now, and yet people love to act like otherwise. She can be flawless. She can shift genres, dance, manage to keep her kids mostly out of the limelight, sing fucking opera, and people will still say she’s not talented. She can kick her dad off her management team and become her own artistic manager, but she’s not brilliant. She can win the most Grammys in history and not a single one of them be Album of the Year (until this year). People talk shit about her all the time, and I’m sure it affects her because…she’s a living human. But here’s that crucial R word again - resilience. 16 Carriages says it all, honestly. She is excellent, but many would say that she is less talented than Taylor Swift (tell me Taylor Swift could get close to Beyonce’s sheer talent and I’ll show you a lie).
She is legacy. There’s a little girl or boy or enby out there who’s watching her right now and will one day continue that legacy, fighting while dancing into the future.
Outtro
I’m not interested in watching America fail. America’s failure is an earthquake that will affect the entire world, acutely. Part of me wants to stay here. But the other part of me knows that it’s going to get way worse before things get better. Harriet Tubman didn’t encourage enslaved people to stay on plantations; she helped them go North. My grandparents didn’t stay in Jim Crow Mississippi; they went West and now here I am in California, 3rd gen college graduate, surfing, vibing to fucking Evanescence and spending way too much money on boutique coffee shops (I call it investing in my local community). I am further privileged in that I am not tied down. I do not have to stay here. Not staying here may actually help me help preserve Black American culture.
Every single one of us has a part to play here, whether that part involves us staying put or moving on. Some of us will fight, some will plan, some will build. Some will help others get away as necessary. Some will dream. Some will continue on in joy, in defiance of those that would trod on our spirit. Some of us will witness and pass on the stories.
The keyword in all of this is resilience. If I stay, I need to remember my ancestors, put my head down, and keep pushing forward, laughing during moments when I pause to catch my breath. When I pause, I need to make it a real rest - I must rest. I cannot succumb to panic responses. I need to remember that it has never been easy, and freaking out about everything won’t make it easier. I need to be sure of my place in this fight and go all in.
If I leave, I need to remember my ancestors. I need to laugh when I pause to catch my breath. I need to rest. I need to not panic. I need to embrace new opportunities and explore how my ancestry manifests in new places. If I leave, I will probably have children. I need to tell them what I know, share my stories. I need to teach them resilience. When my American community needs me, my well needs to be full enough so that I can offer dippers full of water. I need to be sure of my place in this fight and go all in.