Should Netflix Viewers Boycott The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson?
The Netflix documentary about the pioneering transgender activist and revolutionary, released on October 6th, 2017, has already generated controversy over alleged theft of intellectual and creative property.
I first encountered the unparalleled Marsha P. Johnson, and the importance of her legacy, in writer and activist Janet Mock’s 2014 memoir Redefining Realness. Johnson, a revolutionary transgender woman of color who is credited with sparking the Stonewall Inn Riots of 1969, died under mysterious circumstances on July 6th, 1992, when she was just 46 years old. Johnson’s body was found floating in the Hudson River off Christopher Street Pier, and the exact cause of her death remains unknown.
In an Instagram post and a series of tweets issued on October 8th, 2017, Mock stated that she originally learned of the importance of pioneering transgender women of color such as Johnson and Sylvia Rivera from the work of grassroots activist, historian, and filmmaker Reina Gossett. Mock also re-posted an impassioned statement from Gossett’s personal Instagram account in which she alleges that David France, best known for his documentary How to Survive a Plague (2012), appropriated her intellectual and creative work in his new film The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson, which premiered on Netflix on October 6th, 2017. Gossett, a black trans woman who is currently activist-in-residence at Barnard College Center for Research on Women’s Social Justice Institute, has extensively researched the lives and legacies of transgender women of color activists for years, and created a fictional short film based on Johnson entitled Happy Birthday, Marsha!
France responded to Mock’s tweets with a statement alleging that he was friends with Johnson and has been researching her death since 1992, when he was a writer for the Village Voice. France claims that he reached out to the Happy Birthday, Marsha! team in order to avoid duplication of efforts and worked closely with New York City’s LGBTQ community in the creation of his film. Furthermore, he states that despite his privilege as a white, cisgender, award-winning author and filmmaker, this documentary was not easy to produce.
Gossett’s claims are striking given one of the central themes of The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson: the devaluation of the lives and work of transgender women of color. If they are indeed true, then France is himself guilty of what his film purports to argue against. “This kind of extraction/excavation of black life, disabled life, poor life, trans life is so old and so deeply connected to the violence Marsha had to deal with throughout her life,” wrote Gossett on Instagram. “I feel so much rage and grief over all of this.” We must take seriously the issue of whether, in the rush to lay claim to Johnson’s story, France devalued and appropriated Gossett and her labor, thereby undermining the message and impact of his film.
As a cultural artifact, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson does important work to elevate Johnson’s legacy and raise awareness about the epidemic of violence perpetrated against transgender women of color, but is not entirely successful in these efforts. The film goes beyond mere biopic to raise far-reaching questions about Johnson’s unresolved death. As such, the narrative trajectory unfolds more as a detective story than a biography. The film moves between three storylines: 1) the legacy of Johnson and her comrade Sylvia Rivera, told through the incorporation of extensive archival footage that represent these icons in their own words; 2) the present-day quest of Victoria Cruz, a transgender woman of color who is a case manager for the Anti-Violence Project in New York City, as she attempts to seek answers about Johnson’s death before she retires from the organization; and 3) an examination of the current and longstanding devaluation of the lives of transgender women of color, both within and without the LGBTQ community, as Cruz and her colleagues advocate for justice for Islan Nettles, a transgender woman of color who was brutally beaten to death by a man named James Dixon when he discovered she was trans and felt his “manhood” was threatened.
Given this complex structure, the documentary gives short shrift to the many issues it attempts to tackle. The film’s title implies it will be as much about Johnson’s life as it is about her death, however, France does not delve into Johnson’s formative years or the lived realities of oppression that necessitated her activism. Although the film tells us that trans women of color, such as Johnson and Rivera, were foundational to the Gay Rights Movement, we are not told why. France does little to explore the extent to which living at the space where multiple oppressions, such as those of gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and ability, intersect was a primary reason why the Stonewall Inn Riots were ignited and sustained by poor street queers and trans women, many of whom were people of color. The film, arguably, pays more attention to the life and legacy of Sylvia Rivera than it does Johnson, thus de-emphasizing Johnson’s life and focusing disproportionately on the more spectacular and suspenseful details of her death.
The narrative given greatest attention is Cruz’s search for the truth, and while she emerges as a passionate, determined, and empathetic force for justice, her sleuthing is, at times, played up to the point that Johnson and Nettles do not emerge fully formed, in direct contrast to the film’s primary objective. The competing narrative structure also results in a mish-mash of terminology where Johnson is alternately referred to as a “transvestite,” a “drag queen,” and a transgender woman. Given the film’s intent to validate the identities of trans women, these terms should be appropriately defined within their respective historical contexts.
Attempts to represent the pervasive culture of invalidation and violence faced by transgender women of color are undercut by the focus on the more salacious and suspenseful aspects of Johnson’s death. The theory the film implicitly forwards is that Johnson was murdered — most likely pushed off the pier into the Hudson — by members of the mob after her roommate and friend, Randy Wicker, alleged, in 1992, that the Christopher Street Liberation Day Festival Committee had been infiltrated by the mob, who were profiting from money that rightly should have gone to New York City’s LGBTQ community. The issue of police violence and corruption is raised as a secondary explanation, citing the misconduct of the Sixth Precinct Vice Squad, who allegedly investigated Johnson’s case, and 1992 as a peak year for LGBTQ violence perpetuated by law enforcement.
The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson ultimately raises a host of important issues that are not satisfactorily explored. Perhaps the strongest part of the film is the connection made between Johnson’s legacy and Cruz’s activism in the present, as through her work she both embodies and enacts Johnson’s pioneering and incomparable spirit. The film concludes with Cruz giving the information she has collected to the FBI field office in New York City. She is then shown sitting on a city bench, reflecting. As Cruz struggles to her feet she tells herself, and by extension the viewer, to keep going.
Given the film’s patchwork of narratives and issues, one is left wondering where we should go and what the next step is. Is the audience given enough insight and understanding to not only recognize the importance of Johnson as a revolutionary American figure, but as a specter that still haunts those who remain on the margins of the mainstream LGBTQ Rights Movement? How do we achieve justice for Marsha herself and for all the other Marshas, the young trans women still struggling, striving, and clamouring to be recognized as wholly human? How can it be that we are outraged when someone is denied the right to marry, but not when members of the LGBTQ community, as well as our shared human community, are killed simply for being who they are?
“This week while I’m borrowing money to pay rent, David France is releasing his multi-million dollar Netflix deal on Marsha P. Johnson.” — Reina Gossett
“The queen is dead. Long live the queen,” read a sign at a protest held by Johnson’s friends shortly after her death to encourage the police to take her case seriously. Yes, the queen is dead, but, if anything, the vital importance of her life and labor has finally been cemented within both American and global LGBTQ history. As Johnson’s dear friend and sister Sylvia Rivera remarked, Marsha’s spirit will be there at the front of every march, protest, and rally until justice is fully achieved.
So, should Netflix viewers boycott The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson? That is up to you to decide, but my take is that we can respond complexly by gleaning what insights exist within the film while simultaneously investigating France’s alleged intellectual and creative theft and the broader issues implicated, namely the extent to which the cultural, political, physical, and emotional contributions of transgender women of color — as well as these women’s very lives — are still stolen, erased, undervalued, and cast aside. We must engage in serious conversations about where the line between the creation of vital representations and profiting from the suffering and oppression of others is drawn, especially in relation to those who build careers on studying marginalized citizens, communities, and their issues. We must also look beyond the content of France’s film itself to examine the context in which it was produced and whether that context challenges or reproduces entrenched systems of oppression.
Gossett deserves to be heard and her claims taken seriously. France also deserves the chance to offer a detailed response before he is wholly condemned. Much will hinge not only on the specifics of how The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson was produced, but on whether or not France understands his place as a white cisgender gay man working with the most marginalized segments of the LGBTQ community to tell their stories and if he has fully examined the extent and effects of his privilege.
I want to thank Reina Gossett for indirectly introducing me to Marsha P. Johnson through Mock’s memoir, and if you are in a position to support her work, I highly encourage you to do so.
You can donate to Happy Birthday, Marsha! by clicking here.
