Who is Junior LaBeija?
Imagery from Paris is Burning
Before Mercedes Iman Diamond vogued across our TV screens yelling “Opulence,” there was the OG who popularized the word in LGBT pop culture: Junior LaBeija. And he even threw in a free spelling lesson. According to Paris is Burning director Jennie Livingston, Pepper LaBeija is the heart of the film, and Dorian Corey is the brains of the film, so I have every reason to believe that Junior is the voice of the film. While he was never formally interviewed on camera, this iconic LaBeija house-member and ballroom emcee gave the film some of its most memorable catchphrases, and talking points. His words and manner of speaking has not only maintained legendary status in LGBT pop culture, but even the mainstream zeitgeist. He is constantly quoted and referenced to on “Drag Race,” and is even the main inspiration for Billy Porter’s character Pray Tell on “POSE.” So today, we pay homage and discuss the legacy of Junior LaBeija.
Junior The Historian
Junior Labeija, Michael Princess Christian and the first Butch Queen to ever walk a ball - Erskine Princess, in the early 1980s
Photo Credit: @oldschoolballroom
There are so many aspects to Junior’s manner of speaking that make his scenes in the film unforgettable. From the theatrical affectation in his voice, to his fiery wit, to his natural command of a room, he truly captured the spirit of the ballroom circuit at the time. But what really stood out to me about Junior was his ability to paint you a picture of a place or a situation with with his words. When speaking, he captures the bigger picture of a place and time, yet also peppers in important nuances. He acts as a teacher to those in his audience who are hearing about said place for the first time, and makes effective references for those in the audience who know the place like the back of their hand. They don’t call him a ballroom historian for nothing. And we’re very fortunate that he is still around to this day to keep informing the next generation of queer people of color what things were like back in the day, and how they can maintain a path to a collectively brighter future.
For example, in 2013 Junior participated in a panel at the “A House is My Home” event at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, reminding everyone of the displacement of queer people in New York after the local bathhouses closed down. The piers - where several cast members are seen being interviewed in Paris is Burning) were known as not only a hangout spot where gay people could feel free to show romantic affection in public, but also as a space where many from that community lived when they had nowhere else to go. Stonewall activist Marsha P Johnson even lived there towards the end of her life. However the piers soon became heavily policed gentrified, forcing the queer people who once occupied it to spread out to ares of the West Village looking for spaces to congregate. The main message of the discussion was that be it a performance hall, a dance club or an art museum, there need to be designated spaces for queer people to both congregate and learn about their history. To quote journalist David Serotte, “As we continue to fight for our existence, we must remember that the most precious queer space exists within us.”
“The worst place to be homeless is in the mind.”
Junior has also been the go-to for summarizing the struggles and the breakthroughs of the queer people of color back in the day. How people in those communities dealt with adversity and spun their strength and perspective into the gold that would be the the ballroom circuit. Fittingly, his house LaBeija was one of the first houses to form. The house was pioneered by Crystal LaBeija, a legendary black pageant queen who grew tired of how much the pageant scene favored Caucasian features and beauty standards, and kickstarted the culture that would later become the ballroom scene. The ballroom scene would allow black and Latina queens to embrace their God-given features rather than hide them, and focus their artistry on matching a theme or category, rather than trying to exactly match the features of white competitors. (I’ll be posting an article about Crystal and the 1960s pageant scene very soon.) So it should be no surprise that one of the children of Crystal’s house has become a voice of that generation, ready to share his knowledge and experience with future ones.
“Harlem, 1987: Angel dust. Heroine. Cocaine. Speedballs. Volumes. Mayor Koch. Welfare. Food stamps. EBT. Methadone Alley. Chinese Food Lane. We came from that... Our parents? Some loved us and some abandoned us. We ducked fists, sticks, knives, guns. We were beaten, abandoned, raped, sodomized, criticized, dehumanized, neglected, rejected, fucked up...And yet we had the resilience and the brilliance to get done to go to the Elks Lodge. 400 people would go to the Elks Lodge through Saint Nicholas projects... We did it because one thing that we shared in that ballroom was love... We had nerve. We were defiant. But we were also brilliant. Intellectual. Philosophical. Shady. Fierce.”
Junior-isms
Imagery from Paris is Burning
While Junior’s rapid fire wit is one of the most memorable parts of the film, there are many common misconceptions regarding the role he played.
For years after the release of the film, fans didn’t actually know what his name was. This is likely because he wasn’t officially credited in the film. In the beginning phases of creating the documentary, - before there was enough money in the budget to start shooting on film - Jennie Livingston did various sound interviews. She conducted one of them with Junior at his apartment. However, later on in the process when she started to film her interviews, Junior refused to be interviewed on camera and dropped out of formally participating in the film. Luckily, he allowed Livingston to use his interview audio recordings and of course showed up on camera while emceeing events. His catchphrases became some of the most iconic moments in the film, and the rest is history. But many don’t realize that some of the most memorable and poignant quotes and anecdotes come from the audio recordings taken at his apartment.
Shake the dice and steal the rice!
While RuPaul has taken this phrase to the bank, using it to announce the presence of longtime Drag Race judge Santino Rice, it bears deeper meaning, which Junior has explained in past interviews: Historically, poverty-stricken people have stolen rice because it’s both easy to cook, and goes with almost anything. Yelling out the phrase to someone on the runway floor is his way of reminding them: “Never forget when you were hungry.”
It do take nerve
This phrase simply describes the sheer courage it takes for someone to put themselves out there on the ballroom floor, prepared for the scrutiny of not only the judges, but their fellow competitors and peers: “Give the...contestants a round of applause for nerve. Because with y’all vicious motherfuckers, it do take nerve. Believe me.”
We’re not gonna be shady, just fierce
I always interpreted this statement in his emceeing as him asking competitors to play nice and worry more about doing a good job in their own performance, and less about cutting down the people around them. In recent years, Junior has also added the following word of advice in relation to this quote: “If you don’t have the answer, better to assume that you are stupid, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
No lady is sure at night
With this catchphrase, Junior gives the competitors, judges and audience members of an evening-wear category a lesson in handbags. “Come on now, it is a known fact that a woman do carry an evening bag at dinnertime. There’s no getting around that. You see it on Channel 7 between ‘All My Children’ and ‘Jeopardy.’ ‘Another World,’ ‘Dallas,’ and the whole bit. An evening bag is a must. You have to carry something. No lady is sure at night.”
O-P-U-L-E-N-C-E
One of the most quoted scenes from the film has to be when Junior is sitting at a table watching a performance happening off-screen and shouting “O-P-U-L-E-N-C-E. Opulence! You own everything. Everything is yours.”
Jennie Livingston has commented that in addition to his deliciously campy delivery of the line, what makes it stand out so much to viewers is the deeper meaning behind it. At surface-level, it’s obvious that he is calling out these words in an act of coaching and encouraging the performer, who is walking in a category where one must dress and act like a member of the uppercrust in order to win. But upon closer inspection, one realizes that - as Livingston pointed out “He’s obviously commenting for the camera. He is commenting about a class in which he is not welcome. So there’s an interplay between imitation and spoofing, and recognizing that you’re shut out, that takes place in the balls.” David Serotte has described this line as a testament to the “Ballroom Community’s ability to transform oppression and disenfranchisement into witty satire.”
When you’re gay
This leads us into yet another memorable quote from Junior’s audio recordings, in which he compares the freedom straight people have in their everyday lives, to the calculated way that gay people had to go about their day just to get by.
“When you’re a man and a woman, you can do anything! You can almost have sex in the streets if you want to! The most anybody gonna say is ‘Hey get a hump for me!’ But when you’re gay, you monitor everything you do. You monitor how you look, how you dress, how you talk, how you act. ‘Do they see me? What do they think of me?’ ”
This is white America
And finally, we come to one of the most controversial quotes from the film, in which Junior describes what it was like to live as a black person in a white-centric society.
“This is white America. Any other nationality that is not of the white set knows this and accepts this til the day they die. Because that is everybody’s dream and ambition as a minority. To live and look as well as a white person. It is pictured as being in America. Every media you have from TV to magazines to movies to films...The biggest thing that minorities [watch are] Dynasty and the Colbys. All My Children. The soap operas. Everybody [has] a million dollar bracket. When they show you commercials from Honey Grams to Crest [to] Pine Sol, everybody is in their own home. The little kids with Fisher Price toys [aren’t in] no concrete playground. They’re riding around the lawn. The pool is in the back. This is white America. When it comes to minorities - especially black - we as a people from the past 400 years are the greatest example of behavior modification in the history of civilization. We have had everything taken from us, and yet we have learned to survive. That is why in the ballroom circuit, it is so obvious that if you have captured the great white way of living, or looking, or dressing, or speaking, you [are] a marvel.”
Over time, this quote has become widely denounced by viewers who interpreted it as the cast of the film wishing that they were white. But Willi Ninja defended the quote in 2005, insisting that the community in the ballroom circuit did not “wish they were white,” but rather they wanted black and Latino people to have the same opportunities and advantages as white people, and to showcase through their performances that they had what it took to fit into that world and become successful if they did have the same opportunities.
The Legacy of LaBeija
Considering that Junior is one of the few surviving Paris is Burning cast members, information about his personal life and early ballroom days is surprisingly limited. However he still maintains a presence in the public eye.
Junior speaking at the 2020 AlphaOmega BrtbTv Inaugural Awards Ball
Junior has been outspoken about his mixed feelings on the Ryan Murphy television show about the ballroom circuit, FX’s “POSE.” While he has gushed to LOGO about the talent and hard work that many entertainers and writers have put into the show, he has also made it known that he feels slighted by the producers, as they haven’t reached out to him for collaboration or to make a cameo on the show as of yet. This is particularly brow-raising, as Sol and Freddie Pendavis (two of the other surviving Paris is Burning cast members) have been consulted for the show, and even made appearances playing ballroom judges. Plus the affectation and presence of Billy Porter’s character of Pray Tell is very obviously based on Junior’s emceeing in the film. Junior also stunned the audience at the 2020 AlphaOmega BrtbTv Inaugural Awards Ball, when he mentioned that ‘Without Junior Labeija, there would be no ‘POSE.’”
Regardless of how Ryan Murphy chooses to go about the future seasons of POSE, Junior continues to spread his knowledge of ballroom culture through interviews, panels and public speaking. He has made it a mission to encourage the next generation of queer people and POC to successfully forge their path in this world, while always appreciating their roots.
He also frequently represents the House of LaBeija at various community events, and often speaks when the house accepts ballroom awards. The amount of pride he has for his house, his house members of yesteryear and today, and his participation in Paris is Burning leaps off the screen in every public appearance. Yet at the same time, he insists that his intention as a part of the House of LaBeija is to pass on the torch to the next generation. He’s expressed that he will continue to show up to events to support his house, however he wants to make room for the ideas and direction of the current crop of house children. In an interview with Venus Cuff, Junior remarked “I did my work. I know I have. I showed you that you can live to be a senior. I showed you that you can get a W-2 form. You can get a degree. But you still have to live life on life’s terms. And you have to respect the next person, like yourself.”
When it comes to advice he wanted to pass on to the next generation of LaBeija’s, Junior had the following to say:
“Learn to speak up for yourself. Learn to listen, and listen to learn.”
