Its Really About Determination

Although the documentary Paris Is Burning is about the struggles of transvestites in the late '80s, I believe that the coolness that is generated by the characters in the movie is truly a result of both their struggles to remove themselves from poverty and to be accepted by mainstream society. Like I said in my last blog post, people like Willi Ninja are cool because they use their own skill and determination to make their lives better. Because coolness can be directly generated by working hard to achieve a good goal, these people are cool. One movie where this kind of effort is seen is Pursuit of Happyness. In this film, Chris Gardner is a poor man who spends his family's life savings on bone-density scanners in an attempt to sell them and turn a profit, but because the scanners are not in high demand, his family is brought into poverty from the resulting debt. The financial stress that this brings leads Chris's wife to leave him, leaving him to raise his son by himself. Soon, without a source of income, Chris and his son find themselves to be homeless, but they are not without hope. By a stroke of luck, Chris makes it into an internship at a stockbroker firm. Throughout six months, he balances homelessness, daycare for his son, and his unpaid internship in order to get a better life for him and his son. At the end of the film, Chris finally finishes his internship, and as a result, he is finally able to provide from him and his son. This kind of determination and effort makes Chris Gardner a very cool person. Although Chris is also black, his ethnicity has nothing to do with his coolness. Instead, his coolness comes from him working hard and achieving against all odds to make him and his son rise out of poverty. It is this kind of tenacity at working at a just goal that can make someone cool.
Another aspect of the transvestites' coolness (although not as cool as those who were attempting to work out of poverty) is the fight to become more accepted in society. Throughout history, both black and homosexual people have been outside of the mainstream white culture. However, the fight to become accepted as equals is also a fight that gives these two groups coolness. One film where acceptance is prominently featured is Blazing Saddles. In this movie, Bart, a black man who becomes sheriff of an Old West town, struggles to become accepted by the town, as most of the townspeople would rather just hang Bart than have to deal with having a black sheriff. However, over time, he is able to win the townspeople's trust as sheriff. In a way, the coolness that comes from overcoming racial injustices is the same kind of coolness that is generated from overcoming poverty. In both cases, people use hard work to overcome horrible problems to reach a much better state in life. Ultimately, the kind of coolness that is shown in these three movies can be broken down into a simple formula: Coolness can be made by determinately working hard at improving the life of the self or of others.