Dorian had a sadness. An anger. Some weariness and a bit of a darkness to her but for some reason was still surprised that she had a dead body in her closet. 😳😳😳
Dorian is like your old Auntie who's been around the block, gives the best advice, kinda bitter and a little depressed but full of hard wisdom. Could listen to her all day.
"Everybody wants to leave impression behind them, some mark on the world. Then you think...you left a mark on the world if you just get through it. And a few people remember your name. THEN you left a mark. You don't have to bend the whole world. I think it's better to just enjoy it; pay your dues and enjoy it. If you shoot an arrow and it goes real high, hooray for you."
@@chardem.5743 - So?! 🙄 Who gives AF that she killed some abusive PoS?! No Police would have cared or believed her story, so *NOBODY* blames her for doing what she did. Anyone talking sh*t would have NEVERRR been able to walk in her shoes, or handle living her life. They would have died long before she did! And that's just the tea.
@@KabbalahSherry Exactly. No proof of nothing. One of Dorian’s friends could just have been an opportunist and put the body in the closet. The guy who died was guilty of rape of minors and attacks. People are acting like he’s some innocent that was killed by Dorian out of jealousy/anger. Reality is, either planted on Dorian, tried to rob Dorian or life/death situation and was shot in a robbery.
I really enjoyed Dorian's scenes in Paris is Burning ! Hometruths and I loved the line about shooting the arrow and if it goes really high hooray for you! 👁💋👁💕🖐😀🦄⚘🏳️🌈👑🥇
Last night my Uber driver was telling me stories about being in a band in the 70s, and his band used to get booked with drag queens in NYC a lot, even though all the band members were straight. He was reminiscing about one particular drag queen he got to know pretty well. Long story short, it turned out he was talking about the one and only Dorian Corey 😲 He was shocked that I knew who she was, I don't think he has any clue how famous she is, and that he's connected to a piece of queer history. It was so cool to hear more about her from someone who actually knew her ❤
Ms Corey, judging by this video alone, 71k people remember you, but I think in total it's at least a million. May you rest in peace you flawless being of wisdom and beauty
I came to live NYC around the time this movie was made, in 1989.I was barely 20, I had no family- I am a straight woman but this movie spoke to me- it still does and it always will. Kids living on the street do so because even that is better than their "home life." I thought, when I arrived in NYC in 1989 I had missed a lot of what New York City was- but I hadn't, though who would've known the end was near. Dorian Corey spoke so much truth. So wise. Family is where you find it. What she says in this clip is even more poignant in the NYC of 2016 - " now its not about what you can create but what you can acquire... " And THAT is NYC in a nutshell right now. You used to have to be able to survive here. So many of us that came here did so because we didn't like the midwest mentality or we didn't fit in with it.The kids that come her now actually miss home and want the comfort of midwest life (chainstores) and they brought it here. Now this city is strictly for the wealthy. All you need is money- not guts or creativity or street smarts or an open mind. RIP Dorian and my once so fierce NYC.
Couldn't agree more Jennifer. I also arrived in NYC in the the 80s after my twin brother died , i needed to go to a place where nobody knew me and nobody knew him, so i could become invisible and process the death . NYC was the perfect place . I healed there , and came back to life there . But then the city changed , you could feel it in the air every day, the city was becoming slowly but surely the exact city that this crap show (sex and the city) depicted . The old NY was dying and i didn't want to die with it, so i left for London (England) , then Paris, then Tokyo Then Reykjavik which is were my family is from and were i used to visit my grand mother as a kid . But all those places slowly turned into this global shit that the world is now turning into (or has already become) , so i bought a very old house in the mountains of Switzerland and live there now , away from this modern world , i absolutely can't relate to .
@@morganolfursson2560 I totally feel you. The world has become less real through the years. I admire what you have accomplished, just moving around the world because you can, I aspire to be just like that! And I guess I have already started that since I moved for the first time last month at age 18, and now i live alone and attended Pride. But its so... Unreal compared to the 20's. Sometimes I wish I wasnt eighteen now, but 30 years ago. But thats such a stupid thing so say, im such a privileged person with a good family that had it good economically and Im gay in a world without any fear of aids. I should just be fucking grateful I guess. But the cost of that is that I have been so protected, being one of the youngest in my family and all, and also being brought up in a very small city that was close-minded. Anyway, i should say that I am very grateful, yet aware of all that I have missed being this young!
@@Jordan-xg4pn This is a very nice and smart comment from an 18 years old. You seem quite mature . First of all thanks for the kind words, that is truly nice of you. If you allow me one advice from an older guy, just be careful, the world has changed a lot, and the thing which has changed the most to my opinion is how much more angry people are today and more violent and brutal too, so make sure you keep safe and do not go around the world like i did, because i did it at a time when it was safe to do it and jobs were easy to find everywhere, not quite so today. And the world has become so money obsessed that without it, travelling around is not only more difficult , it is not even that fun anymore. I remember buying drinks from the convenience stores in NYC and drinking in the park with my friends,or even just on the side of the street at 3am, if you do that today the police will pick you up, and people believe that now to have a good time you need to be in a fancy place , wear fancy clothes and flaunt your wealth. Also, i may have missed a few issues in recent health publications but what do you mean by (in a world with no fear of aids) , to my knowledge (and i work in the medical field) there is still no sure cure for aids, so you might want to be EXTREMELY careful Jordan . Sure you can now live a longer and sort of healthy life being seropositive but the disease has not been eradicated just yet so don't you forget to protect yourself and others. It may seem like a cost to you having a protected childhood, but in a couple of decades this will be your fondest memory and your greatest luck. I was rasied by a very loving family who trusted me and allowed me to make my own mistakes and grow from them, but always kept an eye on me. As a teen and young adult it seemed overprotective, but today i realize how extremely fortunate i have been. And growing up in a small town although it has its disadvantages such as being always under scrutiny have no real privacy, being known as the gay one maybe (trust me we have that in common) , also means being close to nature, eating great food, having a real childhood and growing up in a healthy and protective community and surroundings. It looks to me like we come from the same background and 18 years old is a good age to start spreading your wings but do it intelligently . I wasn't always too smart and though i traveled a lot and had lots of great experiences , i also good very bad ones and ended up at the ER or in serious danger or even in jail on more than one occasion. You haven't missed anything, this is your time and your moment , the past is the past , am almost 20 years older than you and though i look at the 80s and 90s with nostalgia, i think being 18 in 2019 is a chance, The world has never been in worse shape and it is your generation which has to pay for our mistakes. So first of all sorry for the planet we are responsible for you growing up in and i hope you'll do better than us and leave it to the next generation better than we left it to yours. If you ever find yourself in Switzerland or England or Iceland, you let me know , (i am very often in either one of these place and still traveling a lot for work, i am a wild life veterinarian and ethologist), and i'll gladly meet you for a drink. You take good care of yourself man and i wish you all the best . Greeting from Japan where i am right now, stuck in that hotel room because of Hagibis, with only the net for distraction.
This woman has wisdom in her tongue. She exudes weariness, languor..as though she paints her face with the vicissitudes of life. There's a beauty watching her infront of a mirror doing her make up and speak. It has philosophy. You can hear and feel sadness in her voice and words. Fascinating! You watch her and be compelled to think.
I love her... and well people have no clue what it' s like to be a black, gay, drag queen. Especially back then. It was a harsh life, with very little opportunity or hope. Drag queens often had to defend themselves from attack or robbery. The police were NOT on their side. Chances she'd have been in prison, even it she could have proven self defense. And prison for a black drag queen was (and still is) a likely death sentence. I still find Dorian and amazingly deep and wise person.
T.J. Dotson Drag queen or trans? Drag queens are female impersonators for money and perform, it's a job, different from trans which is a way of life, living as a woman.
Vanna Kegley That's an awfully arbitrary division, and one that has only really sprung up recently. At that point in time the terms were used somewhat loosely and interchangeably ("queen" being the common shorthand). And what about Pepper LaBeija, for example, from the same documentary? S/he performed at the drag balls, but also lived life somewhere along the gender spectrum -- dressed in men's clothing during the day (though often still wearing makeup), requested the pronoun "she" in everyday life, and generally presented firmly as neither male or female -- more as a combination of both. The point, I guess, being that "female impersonator" is one narrow category. "Trans woman" is another. And there's maybe several hundred more categories that you could come up with and slot people into, if you felt like it. It's not really a case of "must be either A or B".
for all the people in this thread making all the assumptions and speculations. The person she killed was someone that lived in her neighborhood that she knew well. He was dope fiend and she would feed him as one day he attempted to rob her in her apartment in Harlem, so she shot him in defense. She couldnt call the cops in NYC in the early 1970's because being a Drag-queen even though it was outlawed was still looked at criminal activity if you donned a frock in the street. So to avoid going to jail she called her friend who was mortician and told her how to mummify a body as she did and kept it in a trunk for 2 decades. The family never knew what had happened to him until they did the autopsy and found out who he was when her friends found the body when she died. So please stop speculating what happened these are all the facts
That's creepy. I can just imagine how horrific the mummification process must have been. I would have had nightmares and for her to keep the body in her closet...idk how she did it. I would have threw the body in a ditch or river.
Genghis Khanh Wow, I never knew the back story. However, I figured it was rogue trade. Dorian was worldly and intelligent. I am thinking about how many times I was in that apartment oblivious to the body in the closet.
+Genghis Khanh Everyone wants to sensationalize or find fault. She didn't discuss it on camera, so I don't know & it doesn't even occur to me when I think of her or see her. I only see or hear her. With a soft touch she held your attention with a kind voice. You can tell she'd been through a lot, that is much of why she was a Sage. She had a kind positive spirit of honesty. She learned how to survive, and do it with class.
I only recently learned who Dorian was via Funky Dineva's video clip of Paris is Burning. She had a depth that was wise, and sad, and beautiful, and relatable that made me want to know more about her. I will DEFINITELY remember her name. RIP
"Shade is... I don't tell you you're ugly and I don't have to tell you you're ugly because you know you're ugly...that's shade. A master class from the master.
"It's not about what you create but what you can acquire..." Literally, history repeating itself with Drag Race. I was watching the documentary "The Queen" which is in a way a prequel to this crazy unintentionally. It's crazy just to see how big the drag has become because of Drag Race and yet we still haven't learned. The black queens are still under appreciated in 2020. Queen's don't sew anymore and before you say "Bianca sews!" I'm not talking about Drag Race specifically in this case but Drag Queens in general can't sew and they end up with whatever plus sized clothes they can find in their size... "If you have a label it means wealth but not really because any shoplifter can get a label." I just feel like Dorian was psychic and throwing shade at William...
whenever I get sad or down; I listen to this..especially the ending part about we just have to pay dues..and get thru it....a lot of times I have people always wanting to one up me and are constantly competing against me; when I do not even want to compete...I just think "Hooray for you"....Thank you Dorian for those words they really help me get thru this thing called ; "life"......Ashe' and Rest in peace
What DORIAN said about obtaining "LABELS " is STILL true to this day, people still "BOOST"(MOP) whatever else they call it, also now-a-days labels are more affordable then the 70s and 80s. Kids not even outta high school are going crazy with GUCCI and LUIS VUITTON, and as of last year(that i know of) BALMAIN and VALENCIAGA (don't know if i spelled these correctly .....AND DON'T CARE) and most of them DO NOT WORK, HAVE THEY'RE OWN.........ANYTHING: car, home, bank account.....ANYTHING.
@Alex Weidman Dorian Cory I believe left a note saying that the man in the trunk was someone that Dorian brought home who then tried to murder her. In defending herself the man was killed.
I was thinking the same thing. I also see smoke all the time when she is sitting in her apartment. It's either incense or a cigarette left to burn in the ashtray, probably to mask the smell from the film crew.
Only recently have I been educating myself on the art of drag and its herstory. I *LOVE* Dorian Corey, and wish I'd have known her. I love her costumes and aesthetic. When I was a kid, my nanny was a singer. This was in the late 60s through the 70s. She had costumes and jewelry like Dorian wore, and watching her takes me back to my nanny. She would let my sister and I get into her wigs, dusters, jewelry, shoes, etc. She would dress up like the queens in The Queen, and also like Dorian does in Paris Is Burning. Beads and feathers and jewels and beauty, seeing all of that take me back so much! I remember how the wigs felt and even how they smelled. She reminds me of my nanny. I'm just learning about the harsh life that a queen lived back in the day. My heart goes out to her and to the other queens. Had they had their biological families to support them, they wouldn't have needed to form the various Houses that they did. Thank you for posting this, it's a treasure, and so was Dorian Corey.
She was a great seamstress, went to Parsons Design, had her own line, etc.. She wanted the queens to sew, pay attention to detail, etc.. Even though it's a long way from where it started, you can tell, even queens on drag race, what type of mother they had, could they sew?; Can they throw a look together and hustle on a dime?; Are they so skilled beating their face that they can do it in fifteen... How's the hairline and the quality of their hair? It could be cheap, but could they work with it to be a thousand times better? How about the shoes, padding, body shaping? In short, is this just coin for you or is this your life? Are you putting in over 100 percent and being the best you can be?
All these years and her words and insight are timeless. I remember first watching Paris is Burning years ago and being captivated by her authentic self. I wish I could have had the pleasure of meeting her and just chatting and listen to her share her knowledge. The last line of hers in this video gets me every time.
I Love Mrs. Dorian Cory I am 47 years old She had so much wisdom I wish I would have gotten a chance to meet and talk with her Rest in Peace Mars. Dorian Cory you left behind Great Wisdom for Generations to come !!!
Its crazy how the term shady or throwing shade was being used in the 80s and almost 40 years later it is mainstream. Like really, gay culture is the starring point of anything relevant: shade- reading to filth- snatched edges. Terms apropriated from gay culture and very few people even know.
What a survivor, against many odds, one way or the other. She paid her dues fully to the LGBTQ community with sustainability, courage and the sharing of her wisdom and hope to thousands. Just as important, she saved a little something for herself, happiness and acceptance. Sometimes, family is where you find it and I'll never forget her statements.
The LGBT+ community has stepped so very far away from these ideals... Its really sad to see the state of things today. That's what makes this video so powerful and viscerally thought provoking. RIP Ms Corey. The legend lives always.
well said, there is an allure, a mystique about this particular queen that no modern Drag Race enthusiast will ever be able to replicate. it is the strength that she possessed afforded to her by the harshness of the times in which she lived
Dorian definitely left her mark on the world...over 30 yrs later and videos of her are all over a global platform. Hooray for you Dorian! ❤️👏🏾 R.I.Peace & Love ❤️
There's no telling what that man may have tried to do to Ms. Corey. I can imagine being a gay draq queen in the late 80's was hard if not dangerous. Im pretty sure she acted out in self defense and knew if she told then she'd go to jail and thus no Dorian Corey in "Paris is Burning" but rather Dorian Corey in "My Jail Cell Has No Vanity"
That was what I told someone when we first read about that. I also felt that Dorian couldn't just call the police and ask for their help if something popped off. I guess you kind of had to take things in your own hands.
True words of wisdom!!! I also want to see quotes from the guy in the movie, the one who had the military uniform on. He was very wise as well, and is still alive today.
He just retired as the Father of House Pendavis after last weeks Latex Ball. He was actually in the military and went to get his keys from his wife... That's how the category started. Their house is geared towards education and getting degrees. He's a doctor.
The sweet, sad irony to this is that Dorian left a HUGE mark on the world. She is the heroine of legend, a beacon of light and hope for all trans women, and queer people in general. If only she could know the impact she's made. RIP ❤
"Then reading became a developed form where it became shade. Shade is: I don't tell you you're ugly, but I don't have to tell you you're ugly because you already know." LOL Rip Dorian Corey
I think it’s her sadness knowing that her life had pretty much passed her by and she never made it to the level of success she longed for. However, in the end she will always be remembered. Not only for all she gave to the scene but the fact that some pickled asshole is in a garment bag fermenting in her closet resting comfortably.
She Was A Classy, Elegant, Intelligent, Sophisticated Diva, And House Mother In The Pride Community, I Don't Fault Her For Anything Because We're All Human, May Her Soul Rest In Heaven, Amen 🌳🌼🥀🦋🌺
