I guess it goes to show much Chelsea is a stand in for what is becoming the rest of NYC: rapidly privatized spaces filled with spas, Jamba Juices and Apple stores, where we are overshadowed by luxury glass and steel condos (housing straight/gay married couples) towering down at us like tyrannical eagles (aka PlaNYC/NYC 2010). A city where we, black and brown and women and poor and trans and child bodies constantly have to resist being viewed as dirty laundry and in the process resist being pushed out, whether on film, in public parks/piers or in the few housing spots left (and better not get caught resisting with a hairbrush, wallet, a-line t-shirt, high school/college education, purple shoes or ordinary object art!).

At first I wondered if a theater in Chelsea would have played a queer movie about white poor people (less dirty laundry? clean, but still wet laundry?), until i remembered: 1) where are the queer folks in Chelsea (or trans or gender-nonconforming)?

2)Brokeback Mountain! which was if nothing else a somewhat interesting movie about class (which i only realized after seeing it in a audience not filled with white liberals).

I wonder if it ever makes sense to try to “crack” into the Chelsea film niche or similarly move into the garment factory turned sweatshop turned luxury condo (which always seems inches close to the 5 block away subway stop you take everyday) or to just put our efforts into fortifying ourselves and each other while cracking Chelsea and the NYC that is sure to devour us unless we amplify our already powerful resistance…