The explosion of gossip blogs at the turn of the century radically reshaped celebrity culture. Zackary Drucker’s Queenmaker examines the reign of Tinsley Mortimer, Nicole Richie, Paris Hilton, and the savvy operators who reshaped media and privacy.
If you devoured blogs like Gawker, Perez Hilton, Socialite Rank, and Park Avenue Peerage, you already know it was the beginning of the end for what’s now called legacy media. Drucker focuses on Morgan Olivia Rose, the trans sex worker who wrote Park Avenue Peerage. Via Washington Post:
“Morgan is so emblematic of trans life for me,” said Drucker, who is also a trans woman. “She felt very familiar to me immediately. And the question of this film was always what ratio is the socialite world to Morgan’s story, and it was a weaving of the two and figuring out how to create balance and counterbalance.”
Rose details her struggles in the years during and after running Park Avenue Peerage and the toll it took on her psychologically. After landing an internship at New York Magazine, she traveled to the Hamptons to work for a woman in PR. There, she dealt with racism and eventually returned home to Chicago, crestfallen and confused about her place in the world.
Rose has been moved by the outpouring of support:
Thank you all for your kind words. I have so much to say on how I feel- about the film that was released, the path that preceded it, and the harrowing yet fulfilling journey which led me here, with your eyes focused upon this image and on these words. Always and only in the wake of trauma and terror, beauty and mirth emerge.
Catch Queenmaker on Hulu, out now.
Watch.
Image: YouTube / Hulu
