Pay It No Mind

"Pay It No Mind: The Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson" documents the life of legendary drag queen Marsha P. Johnson. She was a member of Andy Warhol's drag performance troupe Hot Peaches. (Note: although I primarily use feminine pronouns here, Marsha P. Johnson was known to use male and female pronouns.) At the time of her passing, in the early '90s, many people who knew her felt that it would be a shame if younger generations of queers never got to meet her. Hence, the film itself is available for free online via vimeo and YouTube for people who may never have the means to see it in a theatre or a film festival.

It is engaging to see both Marsha P. Johnson's performances as a drag queen in feminine dress and mannerisms, as well as his/her more masculine presentations. The main core of the film is an interview in which Marsha, while talking about his/her life, slowly gets into drag. As a person, a friend, a caretaker, a sex worker, a survivor of poverty and violence, Marsha came out of all of the turmoil of her life a fighter and a lover. Notably, most interviewees listed her generosity alongside her star quality as what they remember most about them.

As a local celebrity Marsha used charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent to push for gay liberation, freedom of gender presentation and to provide for those less fortunate. Proudly, Marsha mentioned her actions at Stonewall at the very start of the gay liberation movement. Back then, physically resisting the police was the only kind of action a gay or transgendered individual could take, since most of us were seen as diseased or deserving of violence and abuse. As a sex worker she was in and out of jail, although it's unclear that the police wouldn't have abused Marshal just for being gender nonconforming.

As an HIV-positive individual, she cared for a friend who was passing but also demonstrated and organized for AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP). Another activist group she helped found (with Sylvia Rivera) was called STAR, also known as Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. Although she primarily worked with groups, she was known to march out front instead of blending in with a crowd. The tragedy is not that she passed away, but that there are so few recordings and pictures of Marsha P. Johnson, whose personality and legacy was so great it cannot be fully contained in one documentary.