Slamdance: “The Big Johnson” - Film Review
New York City in the ’80s and ’90s is unrecognizable to the clean-cut version of the city that exists today. Those who lived there, especially on the Lower East Side, remember the violence, the drugs, and the exuberant outbursts of art. This was a time and place that cultivated artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, and someone whose name may not be as widely known in popular culture – Dean Johnson. The world premier of The Big Johnson documentary was at the 2025 Slamdance Film Festival. The film acts as a time capsule to a bygone era of New York City and introduces the world to Dean Johnson.
In 1979, Dean arrived in New York City to attend New York University. He moved into a dorm in the East Village and quickly fell into the art world that was exploding in the neighborhood. Dean stood tall at 6 feet 6 inches. He almost always wore heels, a tight leather dress, and massive sunglasses. His style and his bald head made Dean unmissable. He started bands that were signed by major labels, threw wild sex parties, and was a queer activist during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Dean Johnson also passed away in Washington, D.C., in 2007 as a John Doe. How does someone who made such a tangible impact on the world pass away as an unknown?
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As much as this question looms over The Big Johnson, the documentary is more interested in celebrating the life of such an immense figure. As one of the interviewees states in the film, “Dean embodied liberation.” More than answering the question about his death, the documentary wants to show how he lived. Like all of us, he wasn’t perfect. He struggled with addiction, relationships, and careers, but at the core of who Dean Johnson was is the desire to build a community around him. He hosted monthly queer rock shows at the traditionally punk world of CBCG that created a safe space for people to share a love of music. Queer people often felt like the crowds at CBGB wouldn’t welcome them, but Dean kicked down the doors in more ways than one.
Dean was the lead singer of two bands: Dean and the Weenies and Velvet Mafia. Dean and the Weenies gained mainstream success and were signed by Island Records. However, their big break never came because the record label didn’t like how outwardly queer Dean was and how he openly talked about the AIDS epidemic. It’s baffling to think that a record label could watch Dean’s performance and not see how queer was an essential part of his identity. We wouldn’t have musical acts like Lady Gaga or Chappell Roan today if it weren’t for Dean Johnson. You can see the ways both Gaga and Roan are as invested in community building as they are in making music, and the adoption of stage personas links them back to Dean.
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The unsolved death of Dean is briefly addressed at the beginning of the film before it’s expanded upon at the end of the documentary. Because of the unknown nature of his death, it’s hard to not feel as though there’s an abruptness to the ending. While the circumstances of his death are something Dean’s friends and family have wanted for nearly two decades, the audience is left wishing for a contemporary follow-up to the initial investigation. That hypothetical current investigation may not have revealed anything new, but it would have made the film’s narrative arc feel more complete.
The Big Johnson gets its name from a song by one of Dean’s bands. As one might imagine, the song is a play on both Dean’s height and his penis. Perhaps what sums up the documentary best is one of the final lines from the film. “The real big Johnson was his heart.” Dean was filled to the brim with artistic endeavors and ideas, but what he never lost sight of was the desire to connect with the world around him. This documentary shows clearly that Dean Johnson was a person who was confident in being himself at every moment of every day. From the plethora of archival footage to the glowing way all the interviewees spoke of Dean, The Big Johnson paints a lovingly complex portrait of a person who stood tall.
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