Showtime
“Life is a coming-of-age story,” muses whistleblower Chelsea Manning in XY Chelsea, a new biographical documentary.
“Life is a coming-of-age story,” muses whistleblower Chelsea Manning in XY Chelsea, a new biographical documentary.
The film focuses on events leading up to Manning’s decision to give hundreds of thousands of U.S. military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010, while on leave from deployment in Iraq as an Army soldier and intelligence analyst, and what has happened to her since. It premiered in New York City at the Tribeca Film Festival in May and will debut June 7 on the Showtime channel.
The documents, some of which were classified, pertained to U.S. actions in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Manning, now thirty-one, was convicted in 2013 of violating the Espionage Act—a verdict some celebrated and others vigorously protested. A trans woman, she revealed her identity shortly after her conviction and began the process of medical transition in prison.
This aspect of her story has competed for attention with the details of her military revelations—which included documentation of the killings of Iraqi and Afghan civilians by U.S. troops.
XY Chelsea director Tim Travers Hawkins, a thirty-five-year-old Brit living in New York City, reflects on how the press has covered Manning in the United Kingdom versus the United States.
“I think the U.K. press perhaps had a certain distance from the case that allowed a different level of clarity,” he tells The Progressive. “In the U.K., there wasn’t such a polarized ‘hero/traitor’ view of the Manning disclosures. Instead there was more of an interest in the human elements of the story.”
However, he adds, there were unfortunate similarities: “With the exception of a few outlets, I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to say that the U.K. press avoided many of the pitfalls surrounding this story—for example, suggesting that the leaks were merely the result of confusion related to Chelsea’s gender identity.”
“You can’t stop being who you are,” she says in the film.
The film begins with Manning’s legal team receiving news it never thought would come: President Barack Obama, just before leaving office, commutes her prison sentence to time served plus 120 days. Overjoyed, the lawyers relay this information in a phone call with Manning, who reacts with shock, and then wonders aloud how she’ll adjust to her entire life changing yet again. It’s not the response we expect to hear—but most of Manning’s life has veered toward the highly unexpected.
The filmmakers are present at Manning’s prison release and continue to film her for about a year, as she answers questions in front of the cameras and reflects on her life. It was never an easy one. Growing up in Oklahoma, with a childhood marked by alcoholism and divorce, Manning experienced chaos that grew to the point where, she says, she was “quasi-homeless” before she joined the military.
But a yearning for stability was not her only reason to enlist. Manning also felt, she explains, a desire to serve—as well as a hope that in such a traditionally gendered environment, she would somehow be able to leave behind the need to transition. This last goal proved impossible. “You can’t stop being who you are,” she says in the film.
What Manning learned during her deployment was dismaying. “At a certain point,” she told the New York Times in 2017, “I stopped seeing records [in her work as an analyst] and started seeing people”—civilians and soldiers alike dying in a bloody conflict with deeply obscure goals. She did not, she told the Times, intend to share information in any kind of destructive way but to reach a point of greater justice: “Let’s protect sensitive sources. Let’s protect troop movements. Let’s protect nuclear information. Let’s not hide missteps. Let’s not hide misguided policies. Let’s not hide history. Let’s not hide who we are and what we are doing.”
She was driven by a need for critical truths about this country’s actions, and the military’s actions, to be known to the American people and fairly addressed. “Life is cheap in Iraq,” she says in the film. “It made me realize how precious everyone’s life is.”
Of course, Manning’s own life only became worse once she was imprisoned. Held in a men’s prison, she was frequently sent to solitary confinement; in 2016, she attempted suicide twice.
Released after nearly seven years, Manning struggles to find a new place in the world, as the film relates. She decides to run for U.S. Senate at one point, but her fledgling campaign is derailed when she agrees to attend a conference for the alt-right. She tries to explain this as an attempt to gain intel, but instead she mostly gains animosity from confused supporters. Struggling emotionally and burdened with PTSD, Manning is ill-equipped to handle the criticism.
Director Hawkins—who moved to Argentina to study filmmaking in 2005 and, inspired by media cooperatives springing up there at the time, realized he wanted to combine film with activism—importantly keeps Manning’s vulnerability front and center.
“My personal view is that this brings about a more rewarding and honest result over time,” he says. “This was particularly pertinent with Chelsea because she had been so mistreated and has post-traumatic stress from the conditions of her confinement.”
His film is smart enough to show us these multitudes in her character. How strong is Chelsea Manning? Strong enough to see injustice wrought by the most powerful military on earth and stand up to it. Strong enough to follow her path from life as a political conservative in Oklahoma, trying not to make waves, to all she has done since. Strong enough to respond to threats with humor: In the film, we see that when an online troll suggests she should have been shot, Manning responds that she’s being shot by magazine photographers instead.
How strong is Chelsea Manning? Strong enough to see injustice wrought by the most powerful military on earth and stand up to it. At the same time, how fragile is Chelsea Manning? As ‘XY Chelsea’ demonstrates, plenty.
But, at the same time, how fragile is Chelsea Manning? As XY Chelsea demonstrates, plenty. A lifetime of challenges great and greater have taken their toll. It can be easy even for those in her inner circle to lose sight of how beset she is by trauma while she tries hard to rise above it. The film shows a sign posted above the desk of one of Manning’s close friends, a reminder for when they are on the phone together: “Don’t rush Chelsea. Remember she’s weak.”
The sweetest moments we see in the doc are when Manning spends time with other women in her circle—dancing, simply talking—and gets a taste, finally, of a peaceful existence.
It’s painful to watch those scenes knowing that, after filming ended, she went back to prison for contempt of court, having refused to testify before a grand jury against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Manning was recently reincarcerated for sixty-two days and, after a brief release, locked up again. Her explanation for her refusal is that she has nothing further to reveal and does not want to be used as a political pawn.
Hawkins says he’s “continually shocked by the pettiness and cruelty” of the government’s handling of Manning’s case—citing the recent decision to add a $500 fine for every day she refuses to cooperate with the grand jury subpoena.
It’s still unclear when Manning will have her next new beginning. But Hawkins knows what he would like to see.
“I hope she can get out of prison and continue to grow and flourish as a free woman,” he says, “without fearing some new episode of persecution and bullying from the government.”
This film helps us know Chelsea Manning as the filmmaker came to: the justice-seeking woman behind the headlines, the human being—strong and fragile, haunted and determined—in the midst of the storm.