Entry · catalog no. 7690
face
/ /feɪs/ /FAYSS
noun · Harlem ballroom circuit · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
In ballroom, a competitive category judged on the beauty of the face — bone structure, skin, symmetry — and the nerve with which it is presented. To give face or serve face is to present it full force, chin up, eyes working.
“The category is Face — give them nothing but cheekbones and gall.”
Origin & Attribution
Black and Latino ballroom culture of Harlem. Face was an established category on the ball circuit by the 1980s, documented for the wider world in Paris Is Burning (1990), and giving face traveled out through voguing into drag and pop vocabulary.
1980s
Face established as a walked category on the Harlem ball circuit
1990
Paris Is Burning documents the category for a national audience
2010s
Drag Race and social media carry giving face into general usage
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide
Harlem ballroom circuit · 1980s
Spoken by
Black and Latino ballroom houses; drag and queer nightlife after
$FACEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Rising40 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
62/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1986
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Paris Is Burning, dir. Jennie Livingston (Off-White Productions)
1990
■
+ Cite a sourceMadonna, Vogue (Sire) — crossover marker
1990