Munkey Movies: “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”

By James Wyche “

What's up Munkey Fam it's James from Baltimore hoping everyone is doing well, getting vaccinated, and most importantly staying high. This month is Pride month so firstly I want to wish every reader and anyone who reads this issue to have a safe and happy Pride month. As a heterosexual African American male for this edition of the Munkey Movie Review, I wanted to touch on a pioneer of the LGBTQIA movement that hasn't gotten her flowers until recently. In this edition, I discuss the documentary “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”. Before I even discuss this film I think watching this documentary is a must because it shows how people have become more excepting of the LGBTQ community but there are still big steps needed to be taken for total equality for the LGBTQ community.

The film follows Victoria Cruz a crime victims advocate for the NYC AntiViolence Project who follows up on the cold case of the death of Marsha P. Johnson. On July 6, 1992, the body of Marsha was found floating in the Hudson River. At the time of her death, it was ruled a suicide and brushed aside just like hundreds of transgendered people every year throughout the world. Throughout the film, we go back and forth from Victoria's investigation in the present to grainy film from the late '60s in Greenwich Village up to the late 90s when Marsha was discovered dead. Marsha was described as a very friendly person who looked out for LGBTQ youth helping them with some money in their pocket, food, or even a place to sleep. One of her friends she met over time was Sylvia River, whom Marsha met when she was only 12 years old. These two women were present at the catalyst for the Pride movement in the 20th century, the Stonewall riots. The Stonewall Inn was the name of a gay bar in Greenwich Village in Manhattan and on June 28, 1969, the bar was raided by the NYPD because gay bars were not legal during that time. When the raid started it turned violent as the patrons and the NYPD clashed as the police rounded up drag queens into police cars. Patrons of the Stonewall, other Village lesbian and gay bars, fought back when the police became violent. After nights of unrest, there was a huge parade of LGBTQ people in New York and this is the unofficial first Pride parade. Undeniably the Stonewall Riots are widely considered to constitute one of the most important events leading to the gay liberation movement.

Not only in this film do we have the primary story of Marsha and her story but also we have the secondary narrative of this documentary which is the feeling that transgender people are not taken as seriously compared to other members of the LGBTQ community. Marsha and Sylvia were pioneers for transgender people during that first parade, they were promised that trans people would be at the front but instead were put off to the side. In the documentary, there's footage of Sylvia fighting to be able to speak in front of these people. Once she starts speaking people begin to boo and jeer at her, this part of the documentary struck me because I had the assumption that everyone in the LGBTQ community was together as one fighting for equality but even in the late 1960s transgender people were still seen as almost alien. Even with this disheartening experience it never changed Sylvia and Marsha's mission to help transgender youth. In 1969 they started "STAR" which stood for "Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries" and owned a house bearing the same name, to give transgender youth a place to stay.

I didn't give too much information about this documentary because I implore all of our readers to watch it! Not only to our readers who are members of the LGBTQ community but to any reader who has a friend or family member who's a part of that community as well. The film shows that there have been both improvements and stagnation in the LGBTQ community especially when it comes to transgender people. Yes, we celebrated and were ecstatic when gay marriage became legal throughout this country but unfortunately, there is still an alarming amount of violence specifically towards the transgender community. Let us not forget the T in LGBTQ stands for Transgender. Watch this documentary to see how much this one woman impacted an entire community so much that almost 25 years later after her death her memory is still strong.

Happy Pride Happy Munkey Fam!