What’s the signature of a legend? Richard Avedon’s ads for Blackglama in the ’70s and ’80s argued that a mink coat was the most fitting look for a legend. But this is 2025. Fur is out, and fresh produce is in. And who better to know what’s in than the perennial "It Girl," Parker Posey, who’s fashioned her own status from the beginning of her career?
Earlier this month, at long last, what gay men and character actress obsessives — there’s an oxymoron — have known for decades was recognized by an awards body when Posey received the Legend Tribute at the Gotham Television Awards. As she approached the podium to make her speech, she handed off a dish of fruit to her “The White Lotus” Season 3 co-star, Leslie Bibb. “I love you, Leslie,” Posey began, taking the oblong-shaped trophy from Bibb and trading her for the little bowl of produce. “Here, take my blueberries backstage!”
For Posey, whose life and career have been filled with tiny, singular eccentricities that have so endeared her to fans all over the world, the passing of some berries between friends was apt. Across more than three decades, Posey has established a whimsical, improvisational skill and droll candor unlike any other. She’s a known scene-stealer, so remarkably adept in front of the camera that she can brighten up anything she’s in, even if it’s only for a second. It’s no wonder all she needed to become the latest “White Lotus” meme queen was a thick Southern accent and a bottle of Lorazepam.
Parker Posey poses with the Legend Tribute award during The Gotham TV Awards on June 02, 2025, in New York City. (Mike Coppola/Getty Images for The Gotham Film & Media Institute)
As she discovers the depth of the impact partying can have, Mary vogues her way into a life of stability and purpose without sacrificing her passions. For an artist like Posey, who’s made every role fit like a designer glove, “Party Girl” still reads like a deeply personal manifesto.
As fate would have it, Posey’s post-“Lotus” Legend Tribute arrived just days before the 30th anniversary of her breakthrough performance in the 1995 Sundance hit, “Party Girl.” In her first leading role, Posey starred as Mary, a flat-broke, 23-year-old scene kid in New York. Mary’s the kind of girl who knows what’s up (the rent, and she’s not paying!), the type who can scrape by on sheer allure and a few free drinks because she knows the bouncer. Mary’s charming disaffection and effortless style mirrored Posey’s. Any pretension exhibited was earned with the grace of a batted eyelash and a knowing smirk. The mutual irreverence between Posey and her character was as disarming as it was refreshing. “Party Girl” and its star defined cool for the ’90s, well before the club scene was taken over by rich and famous socialites a decade later.
But, much like its titular party animal, Daisy von Scherler Mayer’s film remains deceptively cunning and self-aware. For all of its sartorial delights and cutting one-liners, “Party Girl” maintains a sweetness that sits like a velvet-soft lining just beneath its stylish, intimidating exterior. Von Scherler Mayer reveres Mary’s youth and vitality while celebrating what would be the dying gasp of an era, telegraphing the ways of Mary’s life to even the most oblivious couch potato. “Party Girl” isn’t merely about socializing and club-hopping; it’s about using nightlife as a language to communicate and connect, regardless of whether you’re part of the in-crowd. And as she discovers the depth of the impact partying can have, Mary vogues her way into a life of stability and purpose without sacrificing her passions. For an artist like Posey, who’s made every role fit like a designer glove, “Party Girl” still reads like a deeply personal manifesto.
In her speech at the Gotham Awards, Posey seemingly thanked all those who had seen her star shining from the start, and those who have only recently seen the light. “To those out there in the internet world, who made things on YouTube, who put things on social media, who imitated me, who had fun in the backyard, who made art whether it was good or bad,” she said, wrapping her sentence into a Posey-ian riddle with no end. “Thank you, Mike White, for believing in a middle-aged woman, and believing in a legend! Thank you, HBO, for believing in a legend!” From her blueberry bowl to the tiny, rose-colored Penny Marshall glasses she wore onstage, the brief speech was distinctly Parker Posey, in that it was one of the night’s coolest moments.
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Whether you’re a longtime fan of Posey’s or your ears perked up the first moment you heard her North Carolina drawl slip-sliding through the words “Pipeerrruurrrr” and “tsuuunamiiii” in “The White Lotus” this spring, you know that Posey legend. Whether she’s playing a ruthless record exec with a lisp in “Josie and the Pussycats” or appearing as a hard-nosed prosecutor saying the words “f**k, suck and rim” with disbelief in “The Staircase,” her prowess is irrefutable. As someone whose dad introduced him to Posey’s work in Christopher Guest’s brilliant mockumentaries at a formative age and is an annoyingly esoteric gay guy, I was practically born with the knowledge of Posey’s mythic status. (My first words were, “I always have a place at the Dairy Queen.”)
Even as someone hip to Posey’s work for most of my life, “Party Girl” eluded me for too long. Locating a decent physical copy of the film or an online stream that wasn’t in 360p quality was nearly impossible just a decade ago. And although the streaming boom has had its drawbacks, it has also unearthed and popularized worthy cult classics, giving them a new life and the long-deserved veneration they deserve. How delightfully ironic that Mary and her avant-garde charm, which was once polarizing and niche to the film’s stuffier early critics, were finally finding a wider audience.
Parker Posey (Eric Robert/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)
But that’s the secret ingredient in the film’s original recipe. “Party Girl” is a movie that firmly believes in virtue and value. It’s not simply a celebration of youthful hedonism, but of committing to yourself wholly, unwilling to sell out or change for anyone, no matter how many times you’re arrested for a noise complaint and a little pot, which is where we find Mary at the film’s start. After her godmother, Judy (the director’s mother, Sasha von Scherler), bails her out of jail, Mary dons her best buttoned-up chic to thank Judy at the public library where she works. As it turns out, Mary needs a loan, and Judy needs a library clerk. It’s a match made in hell, but both women are desperate, and they begrudgingly agree to a mutually beneficial deal.
Like Posey does so ably, Mary makes it all look easy. But in truth, nothing is ever as simple or perfect as it appears to be. Both Posey and Mary are finding themselves in real time, establishing exactly who it is they’d like to be. For both the real actor and her symbiotic onscreen counterpart, the answer is more complicated than any of the stuffed shirts who control the world think it should be.
Neither one of Mary’s best friends, the fellow club rat Derrick (Anthony DeSando), nor up-and-coming DJ Leo (Guillermo Diaz) believes Mary has the stuff to hack it in a library, but if there’s one thing Mary loves, it’s a challenge. If her friends think she can’t top her last party, watch her hire a belly dancer. If Judy says she can’t make it as a clerk, she’ll stay up all night learning the Dewey Decimal System. And after some language-barrier flirting with Mustafa (Omar Townsend), the falafel cart owner in her neighborhood, she’ll pick up a book of conversational Arabic phrases so she can perfect her game.
Like Posey does so ably, Mary makes it all look easy. But in truth, nothing is ever as simple or perfect as it appears to be — and that doesn’t just apply to her Gaultier jacket that’s missing two buttons. Both Posey and Mary are finding themselves in real time, establishing exactly who it is they’d like to be. For both the real actor and her symbiotic onscreen counterpart, the answer is more complicated than any of the stuffed shirts who control the world think it should be. “Do you think I’d make a good designer?” Mary asks Derrick while swiping clothes from a closet at some fabulous Upper East Side soirée. “Do you think I’d make a good writer? Do you think I’d make a good actress?” Mary doesn’t know exactly what it is she’d like to do, so she’ll try her hand at doing it all.
Like Judy tries to explain when Mary gives a library patron a convoluted answer to their question, “There’s nothing wrong with saying ‘I don’t know.’” But that phrase is a direct affront to everything Mary is, and she knows that if she takes it to heart, it will hinder all she could be. This is a young woman who wants to know it all. She doesn’t just lead with confidence, but with curiosity, too. And her open-mindedness is what makes her the toast of the town. Everyone at the party wants to be in Mary’s orbit because she’s magnanimous, not pretentious. She even has a plan to get Leo’s mixtape heard by the hottest club owner in town, and she’ll finish explaining it just as soon as she’s finished vogueing with real-life ballroom staple Natasha Twist.
Parker Posey at the Los Angeles premiere of "The White Lotus" Season 3 on February 10, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. (Maya Dehlin Spach/WireImage/Getty Images)
Her godmother’s words stay echoing in Mary’s brain, and before too long, Mary has picked up the Dewey Decimal System, is a whiz at the front desk and is the fastest shelver at the library branch. Like her micro-obsessions from the party world, Mary’s newfound passion for library science leaks into the rest of her life, not always to such wonderful results. A date with Mustafa falls through the cracks when Mary works late, and when she springs to organize Leo’s vinyl collection according to the DDS just before a big gig, he freaks out. But having thrown herself into something new and learning how quickly she can adapt, Mary has also developed the skill to usher her friends into her world accordingly. Library science is a language, and anyone who’s learned more than one language knows that understanding one aids the learning of another. Mary already has the foundational skills for library work when she barks at Derrick not to screw up the “order” of her designer denim on a rack, she just doesn’t know it yet.
Even if Posey had no clue that her first starring role would become one of her career’s defining moments, like Mary, you’d think it was destiny. She delivers every line of dialogue with roaring, unapologetic assurance. She wears Mary’s clothes; they don’t wear her. And when it comes to the film’s copious use of montage — one of its greatest assets — it’s as if Chantay Savage’s “If You Believe” were playing diegetically, as Posey stomped down library tables, telling audiences, critics and herself, “Believe in me!” over a pumping house beat.
In the decades that have followed, Posey has brought Mary’s spirit to everything that she’s done. Her choices are peculiar and exciting, not just in the characters themselves, but in the fact that it’s Posey inhabiting them. No matter what role she’s playing, Posey is always herself, but she’s never felt quite so comparable to anyone as she has to Mary. Like Mustafa tells Mary after he chides her Arabic phrase book, “If it’s important for you, necessary, then the words get power. And like magic, you learn it.” Whether in relationships, nightlife or library science; whether it’s Arabic, vinyl pulls or the Dewey Decimal System; or whether making a career as an actor without compromising your identity: If you’re learning how to speak the language of someone or something you love, you’ll eventually find yourself fluent.
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