CLOSET BALL BETA TAPE COLLECTION

Cover of the 1985 Closet Ball Program. José Sarria papers (#1996-01). Courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society. Image subject to copyright.

CONSERVATION & CAPTURE

Grant year: 2023

Grant category: Al Larvick National Grant

Grant recipient: GLBT Historical Society

Collection title: Closet Ball Beta Tape Collection

Primary maker(s):

Original format: Betamax videotapes, color, sound

Circa: 1984-1985

Collection size: 3 Betamax videotapes and ephemera paper materials

Grant support: Cleaning and repair as needed and digital capture of videotapes

Digital capture format: Digitized to 10-bit uncompressed YUV in Apple Qucktime .MOV video wrapper in native aspect ratio, with 24-bit depth and 48kHz sampling size with PCM for audio. Mezzanine and access files provided

Lab: The Media Burn Archive

Status: Grant work in progress

Online Access: Coming soon

Creative Commons License: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

GRANTEE

Founded in 1985, the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Historical Society is recognized internationally as a leader in the field of LGBTQ public history. Our operations are centered around two sites: our GLBT Historical Society Museum, located since 2011 in the heart of San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood; and our Dr. John P. De Cecco Archives and Research Center, open to researchers in the Mid-Market district. Our mission is to collect, preserve, exhibit and make accessible to the public materials and knowledge to support and promote understanding of LGBTQ history, culture and arts in all their diversity. You can learn more about our organization, search collections, browse online resources, and more on our website at www.glbthistory.org.

History of the Closet Ball from the 1985 Closet Ball Program [1]. José Sarria papers (#1996-01). Courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society. Image subject to copyright law.

FILMMAKER

These tapes were created by Carter Carter. According to the donor of the tapes and surviving friend of Carter, he was “a flamboyant and artistic guy.” A 1984 article in the Bay Area Reporter, a long-running LGBTQ newspaper in San Francisco, mentions Carter Carter and his participation in the Closet Ball. In describing Carter in the Closet Ball, the author notes, “CC Aurora (Carter Carter) was up second in line with attitude for days. She didn’t place, only going to prove the Olympic scoring system isn’t perfect; or the judges and I have different taste.” (https://archive.org/details/BAR_19840503/page/n27/mode/1up).

collection

**Winner of the 1984 Closet Ball. Photograph by Rink published in the Bay Area Reporter, Volume 14, Number 18, May 3, 1984. Courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society. Image subject to copyright law.**

The Closet Ball footage ranges from 1984 through 1985. The tape labels include: “Closet Ball 1985”; “Edited Version CB 85 and 84”; and “Closet Ball Tony Jeff Hershall Tape”. The Closet Ball was a long-running drag event hosted in San Francisco, California. Started in 1973, the Closet Ball was billed as “San Francisco’s Most Outrageous Coming Out Party!”, and the event raised funds for a variety of organizations, including AIDS organizations in the 1980s. The ball was a competition for first-time drag queens. Contestants would initially appear in their masculine attire, and then they would get into drag for the first time, with the assistance of more experienced queens.

The event culminated in a coronation of the Closet Ball Queen. The Closet Ball and its participants overlapped with other major drag organizations in San Francisco, including the Imperial Court. These tapes include rare scenes of 1980s Closet Ball events and they help document queer life and the drag scene in San Francisco. Though the Closet Ball was a big event in the city, limited documentation of it exists in the archives and audiovisual recordings of the event are even rarer.

Drag has a long history within the LGBTQ community and has played a central role in building community and providing an outlet for self-expression. Archival footage like this documents the long tradition of drag and showcases how the aesthetics of the art have evolved over the years. Furthermore, footage like this, with portrayals of queer friendship, joy, and craft, evidences the thriving LGBTQ community in the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and documents how drag played a role in community support during some of the darkest days of the epidemic.

The Dr. John P. De Cecco Archives and Special Collections of the GLBT Historical Society are among the largest and most extensive holdings in the world of materials pertaining to LGBTQ people, occupying more than 4,000 linear feet of storage. Broadly speaking, our over 1,000 collections include personal papers, organizational records, periodicals, oral histories, photographs, audiovisual recordings, ephemera, artifacts and works ofart.