Actor defies gender norms in ball gown
Print Edition
BILLY Porter, speaking to Vogue before he walked the Oscars red carpet, knew what he was in for among some social media users.
“People are going to be really uncomfortable with my black ass in a ball gown, but it’s not anybody’s business but mine,” he said.
The remark from the Tony-winning stage performer, actor and singer was both prescient and disproven. There was mega-praise for his velvet custom tuxedo look by Christian Siriano and outrage over the notion that an African American man in a dress was a threat to black masculinity. It was just the conversation Porter had hoped to provoke, not to collect virulent hate but to help move along the idea that we all deserve respect, across racial lines and the gender divide.
“I was ready to create the conversation,” Porter said the day after the Oscars. “We have to teach people how to treat us, we have to teach people how to love us, we have to teach people how to respect us, and the only way we do that is to respect ourselves.”
Porter, the black and gay breakout star of the boundary-expanding FX series “Pose,” spent awards season using fashion as political art, as he describes it. There were previous dresses, and there was help from powerhouses Tom Ford and Michael Kors in the later weeks, along with smaller designers who embrace a greater gender fluidity in their collections and were thrilled early on to dress him.
As a nominee at the Golden Globes, Porter’s custom trouser look by Randi Rahm, including a huge, hot pink-lined cape and floral embellishments, grabbed attention, but social media support and disdain after the 49-year-old took to the Oscars carpet took the debate into the stratosphere.
Porter understands where established notions of black masculinity originated, and he understands how toxic they can be. He and his stylist, Sam Ratelle, also realize how rigid gender-driven taboos can be and want to break down walls.
“It goes all the way back to the earliest of emasculations, which is slavery, so the only way to overcome that is to be the strongest and the most masculine and the most powerful and now, what has become toxic,” Porter said. “And I don’t think it’s just black people. I think it’s men in general. Every ethnicity has their version of it.”
Porter couldn’t care less about negative comments.
“The comments are not my business. What people think about what I’m doing is not my business. I lived that already,” he said. “I’m inside of my authenticity and the whole point is that you have to respect me as much as I respect you. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. You don’t have to look. It’s not about you. I don’t understand why my putting on a dress causes this much strife.”
Ratelle said he began working with Porter about a year ago.
“He said, ‘I want to be a piece of walking art,’ and we just went from there,” Ratelle said. “It’s been really awesome to work with a bunch of great designers. Randi Rahm was certainly completely open. Issey Miyake was fantastic for the Radio City show (Porter was a study in white). Christian Siriano, the fact that he did this custom gown in one week, was incredible after saying, ‘Absolutely. There’s no question we’ll do this.’ Michael Kors has been the most gracious human. So has Tom Ford.”
Porter said he’s just getting started in terms of pushing along the conversation.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
