In this and other films of the 1990s, Belverio appeared on screen in the drag persona of Glennda Orgasm. Laurence Senelick, writing about female impersonation in "The Cambridge Guide to Theater", said that Belverio's performances as Glennda represented a radical edge in gay culture at the time, "as the politically correct gay community turned its back on drag." Through these performances, Belverio was thought to be engaging in the kind of political and cultural critique that Paglia termed "drag queen feminism".
In 1996 a retrospective of Belverio's film and video work was held at Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and marked the end of his career as a filmmaker. Shortly thereafter, his articles on the New York fashion scene began appearing in various publications such as Dutch, Zoo, i-D, Index, and Glue. Belverio has been a guest-editor and writer for the Asian culture and fashion magazine WestEast and worked between China and New York from 2002 to 2004. He won the award for editorial excellence from the Society of Publishers for his work on WestEast's "POP" and "SEX" issues in 2003.
His book "Confessions from the Velvet Ropes: The Glamorous, Grueling Life of Thomas Onorato, New York's Top Club Doorman" was published by St. Martin's Press in summer 2006. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone wrote: "Confessions from the Velvet Ropes is like a surreal mash-up of Party Girl and Apocalypse Now, or Please Kill Me and Night of the Living Dead. It's packed with absurdly juicy war stories from the velvet goldmine of New York clubland, down and dirty yet screamingly funny tales from the door-bitch jungle, full of crazed revelers, wasted starlets, fashion pimps, and sex behind the ice machine. Brilliant stuff."
Belverio was a guest on ABC News Now in December 2006 to discuss his book. Currently, he is a regular contributor to Diane Pernet's blog "A Shaded View on Fashion".
Books
Confessions from the Velvet Ropes: The Glamorous, Grueling Life of Thomas Onorato, New York's Top Club Doorman (2006) ISBN0-312-35459-2
Vamps and Tramps by Camille Paglia (1994) (transcript of Glennda and Camille Do Downtown)
Anti-Gay by Mark Simpson (1996) (transcript of A Case for the Closet, co-written by Belverio and Bruce LaBruce)
No wave was an avant-garde music genre and visual art scene that emerged in the late 1970s in Downtown New York City. The term was a pun based on the rejection of commercial new wave music. Reacting against punk rock's recycling of rock and roll clichés, no wave musicians instead experimented with noise, dissonance, and atonality, as well as non-rock genres like free jazz, funk, and disco. The scene often reflected an abrasive, confrontational, and nihilistic world view.
Camp is an aesthetic style and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of perceived bad taste and ironic value. Camp aesthetics disrupt many modernist notions of what art is and what can be classified as high art by inverting aesthetic attributes such as beauty, value, and taste, inviting a different kind of aesthetic apprehension and consumption.
Kevin Aviance is an American drag queen, club/dance musician, fashion designer, and nightclub personality. He is a personality in New York City's gay scene and has performed throughout North America, Europe and Asia. He is a member of the House of Aviance, one of the most notable vogue-ball houses in the U.S. He is known for his trademark phrase, "Work. Fierce. Over. Aviance!" He won the 1998 and 1999 Glammy Awards, the award for nightlife personalities in New York City. He has worked with several artists, including Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston. In December 2016, Billboard Magazine ranked him as the 93rd most successful dance artist of all-time.
Hedda Lettuce is the stage name of Steven Polito, an American drag queen, comedian and singer who lives and works in New York City. Polito debuted his character Hedda Lettuce in 1991 on the Manhattan Cable TV show The Brenda and Glennda Show. Lettuce's appearances include MTV, Comedy Central, The People's Court and a cameo on Sex and the City as Samantha's ex-beau turned Bingo Drag impersonator. Lettuce's film appearances include To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar; Cruise Control, The Look, Red Lipstick, and Musical Chairs.
The Mudd Club was a nightclub located at 77 White Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It operated from 1978 to 1983 as a venue for post punk underground music and no wave counterculture events. It was opened by Steve Maas, Diego Cortez and Anya Phillips.
Heatherette was an American fashion company that closed in 2008. It was founded in 1999 by Club Kid Richie Rich and Traver Rains. The pair first began designing T-shirts and leather goods. When Rich wore one of their leather tops to a party, he caught the attention of a buyer at the downtown store Patricia Field.
Betsey Johnson is an American fashion designer best known for her feminine and whimsical designs. Many of her designs are considered "over the top" and embellished. She also is known for doing a cartwheel ending in a split at the end of her fashion shows.
Paris Is Burning is a 1990 American documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it.
American actress and singer Judy Garland (1922–1969) is widely considered as a gay icon. The Advocate has called Garland "The Elvis of homosexuals". The reasons frequently given for her standing as an icon among gay men are admiration of her ability as a performer, the way her personal struggles seemed to mirror those of gay men in America during the height of her fame, and her value as a camp figure. Garland's role as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz is particularly known for contributing to this status. In the 1960s, when a reporter asked how she felt about having a large gay following, Garland replied, "I couldn't care less. I sing to people!"
The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States. It works to abolish age-of-consent laws criminalizing adult sexual involvement with minors and campaigns for the release of men who have been jailed for sexual contacts with minors that did not involve what it considers coercion.
In gay slang, queen is a term used to refer to a flamboyant or effeminate gay man. The term can either be pejorative or celebrated as a type of self-identification.
The Tender Trap was a cabaret nightclub that ran in Sydney, Australia from December 1994 to January 2000. It was one of the most successful Sydney clubs of the 1990s. The Tender Trap club pre-dated the mid 90s lounge culture phenomenon, but as the phenomenon grew, so too did the popularity of the club.
Camille Anna Paglia is an American academic, social critic and feminist. Paglia was a professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from 1984 until the university's closure in 2024. She is critical of many aspects of modern culture and is the author of Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990) and other books. She is also a critic of contemporary American feminism and of post-structuralism, as well as a commentator on multiple aspects of American culture such as its visual art, music, and film history.
Dirty Martini is an American burlesque dancer, pin-up model and dance teacher.
Kiki is an American-Swedish co-produced documentary film, released in 2016. It takes place in New York City, and focuses on the "drag and voguing scene [and] surveys the lives of LGBT youth of color at a time when Black Lives Matter and trans rights are making front-page headlines". The film was directed by Sara Jordenö and considered an unofficial sequel to the influential 1990 film Paris Is Burning, the film profiles several young LGBT people of colour participating in contemporary LGBT African American ball culture.
The House of Aviance is one of the "legendary/iconic" and major vogue-ball houses in the United States, with its base in New York City. It was founded in Washington, D.C., in 1989 by voguer/dancer, record label owner (CEO/A&R), nightclub host, music artist and secretary Mother Juan Aviance—one of the nightlife personalities of New York City. Since its founding, the House has played an integral part in U.S. and world ball culture, especially U.S. nightlife.
She's Dressed to Kill is a 1979 American television slasher film directed by Gus Trikonis and starring Jessica Walter, John Rubinstein, Connie Sellecca, Jim McMullan, Clive Revill, and Gretchen Corbett. Its plot follows a fashion designer who holds a party at her mansion, where the guests begin to get murdered. The film was also known under the title Someone's Killing the World's Greatest Models.
Glennda and Camille Do Downtown is a 1993 documentary short film directed by Glenn Belverio. The documentary follows Belverio and academic Camille Paglia as they tour downtown New York City. The film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994, and won Best Short Documentary at the Chicago Underground Film Festival that same year.
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