You what's a cool concept?
Start paying trans people of color for their work.
Start giving trans people of color credit.
Or how about just... start letting trans people of color live!
WHOA!
Radical!
Welcome - tongue pop- today I wanted to talk about the situation surrounding the new Netflix
documentary "The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson".
I 'm like a week of two late, but like what's new??
If you haven't heard there was a documentary that dropped on Netflix recently about trans
icon, hero, and activist Marsha P. Johnson, and just after it came out it also came to
light that alot of the work was actually stolen from a trans WOC named Reina Gossett by the
director David France.
While the conditions surrounding it are like obviously trash, I'm really glad that I got
the chance to find out about Reina's work and learn more about that.
After watching and listening to videos of her giving talks I feel really like connected
to and inspired by her words.
She is really involved in a lot of important work that I think we should all care about,
so like maybe after watching this video go look her up learn more about what she's up
to and what she's been doing because like she's a great person.
So I was actually pretty hype that a documentary about such an important person who is often
overlooked was coming to such a popular platform such as Netflix.
I ended up watching it the day it came out, and the following day I saw Janet Mock repost
Reina's initial post about the film.
So Reina has actually been working for years doing archival and research work on Marsha,
Silvia Rivera, and their work creating S.T.A.R. which stands for Street Transvestite Action
Revolutionaries.
So from my understanding of it all she was working with Sasha Wortzel to create their
own documentary and even got to recording interviews and applying for grants, which
is where David France the director of this documentary got wind of the project and essentially
swooped it for himself gaining access to funds off of his previous successes and white male
privilege(tm) and then making a film capitalizing off the death of a black trans woman.
Since then Reina and Sasha have put out a very detailed statement that if you're interested
I definitely suggest you give it a read and listen to their words and their accounts rather
than just listening to my thoughts as a viewer and kind of random bystander, but I definitely
have some thoughts and kind of wanted to talk about it here because this is really something
that happens all the time.
How often do you hear stories of marginalized people in mainstream media?
How often are those stories told by said marginalized people?
How often are the experiences of marginalized peoples lives altered for the consumption
of privileged people.
How often are marginalized people able to benefit off of telling their own stories while
people with more privilege are able to resell stories that aren't their own for endless
gain???
As a marginalized person you're never allowed to tell your own story or a story that reflects
people like you, instead they'll make money telling the story of your death.
You know I just feel like we have to look at all the layers of everything happening
here.
We have a cis white man making a documentary capitalizing off of, as the titles itself
says, the death and life of a black trans woman.
Capitalizing on the morbidity of her death and the morbidity of the violence and death
of trans and gender nonconforming people, and predominantly trans WOC like Marsha.
We have the work of a trans WOC being stolen and turned into capital for a cis white man.
His white male privilege removes him enough from the marginalization of being an openly
gay man and member of the lgbtqia+ community to still take from and benefit from trans
POC.
It's the LGBT+ community but we're still not acknowledging and fighting for the T, trans
people and when we do it's still not uplifting trans voices to do so.
And then there's the documentary itself, which I honestly have very mixed opinions on.
Being the 'death and life of Marsha P. Johnson' it definitely has a focus on her death, which
makes sense because of the title but I don't know, in some ways I do feel like it could
have obviously focused more on her life and what she did maybe, just a thought?
It was set up like an episode of cold case files, but it never really comes to too much
of a conclusion.
While it digs up information and leads, it never really comes to too much of an in depth
theory I guess.
Considering solving the case is the direction and focus the film kind of went, we never
really come to a conclusion of the case... instead we're lowkey told to believe the autopsy
reports and believe her death was a suicide or it was accidental.
And even though we're led to believe this through a kind of side eye at that thought,
it's still like lowkey the conclusion the documentary leaves you with.
So you're telling me that I should believe what the police and medical examiner say about
the death of a black trans sex worker in New York in the 90's?
Because it's so unheard of for the police to lie, or autopsies have incorrect information.
Or cases being completely swept under the rug.
How many other trans women have been found dead in New York alone since Marsha?
How many do we not even know about?
How many more will this happen to?
I'm torn between outright telling you to boycott the film all together and not, but ultimately
if you haven't you shouldn't watch the documentary on Netflix to support Reina.
You should instead wait for and watch her film "Happy Birthday, Marsha!" coming out
in 2018.
Rather than watching a film made off of the stolen efforts, work, and lives of trans WOC.
On the other hand I do see it as something important for cis people to see, I'm not telling
you to view it through other sources... but I'm also like not not telling you to do that.
But to see a documentary that does focus on the death of the trans woman and talk at least
somewhat about the violence and harassment that trans and gender nonconforming people
face, but yet again there probably are better documentaries out there with a specific focus
point on violence and the trans community and the ways that said violence and murder
ties into varying intersections.
I was talking to a trans friend of mine, hey Juicy!
About this like right after I watched it and as a trans person this documentary doesn't
really tell me anything I didn't already know and feel about violence towards people like
me, but seeing it all laid out in front of you where you can visualize it is a kind of
traumatizing experience in itself, and this documentary didn't even dive that deep into
the broad spectrum of violence towards trans and gender nonconforming people.
Like at the end of the day that was a documentary primarily about one person, so I can't even
imagine how hard it would be to watch a film about the violence and murders of trans people
on a more collective note, I guess.
But yet again I feel like that is something that is more suited for cis viewers, people
who are outside of the experience and existence and understanding to watch and be informed
and take in, take something away from it rather than just further traumatizing trans people
with the incredible shortcomings and faults of reality.
Everyday I think about the fact that I could be another statistic.
Another number.
How by just existing I'm more likely to be sexually assaulted, beaten, stabbed, shot,
murdered.
For there not to be justice found in my murder.
Expecting to face discrimination in jobs, housing, medical fields, everywhere.
These are things that I already know and think about, but things that (most) cis people don't
have to think about.
And if we want anything to change, and if any cis people watching actually want progress
these are things that you need to think about too.
I love a light topic!
So yeah um really as per usual umm you know support trans POC, support trans POC's work.
Learn more about trans activists, umm yet again I'm very happy that I now know of Reina
and I can continue to learn from her work and do my own research into her work and umm...
yeah.
Uhh capitalism is trash!
Is really what this boils down to a capitalistic issue.
It's more profitable to sell the stories of marginalized people by paying less marginalized
people to do so, because why would you...
why would you pay people that you don't think are people?
We come in peace! -harsh whisper- SUBSCRIBE for new videos whenever they get posted, social
media crap in the description k bye!
It's that time of the video where- I'm probably getting really annoying by doing this but
like hey I guess this is now the closing of every video lol, self promotion I have a Patreon
account and if you would like to become a Patreon supporter and help me out the link
is in the description and yeah that would be super cool!
You can get things like special drawings, sneak peeks at things I'm working on, I can
send you paintings and like hand made pins and stuff... there's all sorts of things and
umm yeah, hope you're having a great day!
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