The Cinderella Cake, 2021.

As a queer child, my adolescence and authenticity were reared in suppression, guilt, and heartache. As one of many attempts to reconcile this time of my life as an adult, creative projects such as The Cinderella Cake (2021) have emerged. In a kaleidoscope of technicolor, innocence, sexuality, desire, voyeurism, and black and white, the film presents an autobiographical view of childhood memories. The diva is represented with the often-overlooked Betty Hutton, a performer whose exuberance and energy stand up to the modern music videos of today, and flawlessly fulfills the glamour role demanded from her gay audiences. A who’s who from Hollywood’s celluloid closet are on hand in almost all of the selected black and white clips; deepening the connection of queer identity found in-between the frames of classic cinema. The final addition to the mise-en-scene was discovering on eBay the actual Cinderella cake toppers that I had wanted for my birthday at the age of five or six (I was the recipient of a SPORTS CAR cake that year instead). On a final note, The Cinderella Cake is a project responding to the logistics of quarantine, the uncertainty of COVID-19, and the self-reflexive moments that 2020 brought with it.