This feature-length documentary focuses on revolutionary trans-activist, Marsha “Pay it No Mind” Johnson, a Stonewall instigator, Andy Warhol model, drag queen, sex worker, starving actress, and Saint. “Pay It” captures the legendary gay/human rights activist as she recounts her life at the forefront of The Stonewall Riots in the 1960s, the creation of S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) with Sylvia Rivera in the ’70s, and a New York City activist throughout the ’80s and early ’90s. Through her own words, as well as interviews with gay activist/reporter Randy Wicker, former Cockettes performer Agosto Machado, author Michael Musto, Hot Peaches founder/performer, Jimmy Camicia, and Stonewall activists Bob Kohler, ,Danny Garvin Tommy Lanigan-Schmidt, and Martin Boyce, Marsha’s story lives on.
This documentary screened in 2012 at the IFC theater in New York, the British Film Institute in London, and La Mutinerie in Paris France.
I met Marsha Johnson in 1985 while visiting New York’s Gay Pride Parade with my first boyfriend. I was just twenty years old, it was my very first Pride celebration, and needless to say, Marsha made an huge impression on me.
I didn’t really know Marsha all that well, but feel fortunate that she and I chanced meeting twice again before she mysteriously died. Her joy for life was contagious.
I believe that people like Marsha, these innocents if you will, are put here to make the world a better place.
Happy Pride Month Everybody!
ADignorantium 