Butch Queens Up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit

by Marlon M. Bailey

Butch Queens Up in Pumps examines Ballroom culture, in which inner-city LGBT individuals dress, dance, and vogue to compete for prizes and trophies. Participants are affiliated with a house, an alternative family structure typically named after haute couture designers and providing support to this diverse community. Marlon M. Bailey’s rich first-person performance ethnography of the Ballroom scene in Detroit examines Ballroom as a queer cultural formation that upsets dominant notions of gender, sexuality, kinship, and community.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, LGBT, History, Gender, Gender Studies, Cultural

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Nat Baldino · Rating 5 out of 5]

A refreshing queer ethnography, one that does not attempt to make a singular claim about the ballroom experience but instead let's the culture speak for itself, recognizing the constant negotiations Ballroom members make to subvert hegemonic gender practices while also taking some of them up in the creation of their own system. Bailey's work is a much needed geometric insight to follow the more sensational texts like Paris is Burning.

[Lauren Levitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This ethnography of the ballroom scene in Detroit from 2001 to 2007 provides a good example of ethnographic technique of separating description from analysis. I really liked this book, but I wish that the author had further explored the relationship between competition in the balls and competition under capitalism. What makes competition a market-value in one case and a non-market value in the other?

[Moataz Alabdullah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unique content, badly written :/ such a loss! I had to skim through the last quarter

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book -- for years, my introduction to Ballroom culture was through Jenny Livingston's documentary, "Paris is Burning," and then I loved watching Vogue Evolution on America's Best Dance Crew, then onto the Ryan Murphy series "Pose," and more recently the HBO show "Legendary," which I'm still sore about the cancellation of. Marlon M. Bailey's book is an ethnographic exploration of the Ballroom culture in Detroit. It is unique for many reasons, including the fact that Bailey is part of the same group he is studying and usually critiques of anthropology and ethnographies bring up the very good point of what an outsider looking in had to do in order to gain the trust of the community or communities they are studying and ensuring that they don't make the people involved treated like objects instead of human beings. And the readability of Bailey's text is also crucial here as many ethnographies can be very dull or boring and don't do much to captivate the reader. Bailey's writing style is inviting. The academic analysis is very in-depth, and I think this book should be far more widely read by folks who want to learn more about Ballroom culture.

[Bobbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Butch Queens Up in Pumps by Marlon M. Bailey is an unique scholarly examination of ballroom culture as the author is both a researcher and participant in the Black LGBT ballroom scene. The book effectively intermingles personal experiences with interviews, analysis and research of the Detroit ballroom scene. Bailey utilizes an intersectional approach to examine the origins and development of ballroom culture. Bailey argues that Black LGBT ballroom culture employs performance labor not only as a strategy to survive, but to thrive as a multiply marginalized community by utilizing an alternative gender structure and creating community.

While Butch Queens Up in Pumps was created for an academic audience, it clearly defines most principles making it accessible to a wider audience. However, readers do need some base knowledge of gender and sexuality studies in order to comprehend it more thoroughly

[MC · Rating 5 out of 5]

really interesting to be able to read about how ballroom is so important to black queer culture. i like how neutral bailey is - that he recognizes that while ballroom has done a lot to allow fluidity of gender and sexuality, it also promotes heteronormative ideas about the gender binary. it’s also really cool to be able to learn about the ballroom scene outside of harlem (something that’s rarely explored in pop culture). definitely would recommend any essay by M.M. Bailey !

[Alexa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great content, lots of small errors that were distracting, esp. when the book is expensive. A great insight into Ballroom culture and Black LGBT life in general.

[Amanda Micek]

read for anthro of gender

[danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

pretty theory heavy but not hard to comprehend. super interesting !

[Scott Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoy reading cultural theory. I enjoyed writing cultural theory while pursuing post graduate studies. The thing I enjoy most about cultural theory is that it offers perspective, context and deeper understanding. It accomplishes all this without draining its subject matter of life.

Ballroom culture is infinitely interesting. It is a perfect representation of intersectionality and demonstrates that being human entails pursuing some form of culture framework in which we position ourselves (find home). With Ballroom, the cultural framework is complicated by race, class, and gender (to name a few). It's some of the reasons the culture is so intriguing and fun.

Marlon Bailey recognizes the intersectionality of Ballroom culture. He is writing from a place of knowledge and that's usually a good thing. Except...

The problem is that "Butch Queens Up in Pumps" is so poorly written. I know that cultural theorists often repeat points or offer multiple examples to back up an argument, but Bailey never quits. Chapter after chapter feels like a re-read. The language is wonky, aims for the academic and fails. The book is tedious but I was initially excited to read it until the excitement was drained out of me by lifeless prose.

I never thought Ballroom culture could be drained of vitality. Bailey seems to have managed that in this book.

After three decades I would still go with Jennie Livingston's "Paris is Burning". It captures Ballroom culture beautifully; its endless creativity, its intersectionality, its joy and its pain. Bailey fails where Livingston brilliantly succeeds. One has life. The other turns pumps into flats.

[Brandon Will · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world he describes is so alive and fascinating and relevant, it's a story needed to be told. I hope this work finds many more readers.

The way he tells it is largely very dry, though, and I fear this will keep it from some readers.

So I just want to put it clear: yes, the prose is very academic and laborious to get through at times, and I wish there were more case studies and interviews and less repetitive analysis, BUT IF YOU'RE CONSIDERING IT, READ THIS BOOK. It's definitely a valuable, incredibly researched (and lived), thought-out and considered study of a community that needs to be less invisible and more celebrated and learned from.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Required reading for my critical concepts of gender class. I learned a ton about a culture I didn't even know existed: black LGBT ballroom. A vast LGBT network centered around "balls" which are ritualized gender performance and drag events. The chapter on the gender system certainly was effective at pointing out the ways that gender is constructed in US culture.