Unveiling Marsha P. Johnson: The Untold Story of Joy, Defiance, and Revolution in Tourmaline’s New Film
Tourmaline clarifies Marsha’s Stonewall pivotal role in the historic uprising, one downplayed throughout her lifetime and after it, partly because in Marsha’s own telling she muddled the dates. Rather than turn Marsha’s words against her, Tourmaline addresses the slippery aspect of memory, as well as the roles that Marsha’s own trauma and mental health issues played in her inability to remember things precisely. “Marsha’s account, with all its fire and chaos, was like a fever dream of the raid and the riots. Let Stonewall be both firmly in the early morning hours of June 28 and on her August birthday. Let her be there, throwing the shot glass heard ‘round the world, and uptown at a party, celebrating life.”
