‘Tell Them You Love Me’ Is an Unsettling But Necessary Confrontation of Race, Disability, and Power

In 2013, former Rutgers-Newark professor Anna Stubblefield was arrested and charged with two counts of sexual assault against Derrick Johnson, a nonverbal man living with cerebral palsy. Stubblefield, who is a scholar of ethics, race, and disability, was dumbfounded. She had believed the pair had formed a consensual, loving relationship after giving Derrick a voice through a controversial new communication method. This method, known as facilitated communication, involves an able-bodied facilitator who steadies the hand of a disabled individual to help them spell out words on a keyboard or alphabet chart. Though accepted at first, further research into FC has led most major psychiatric organizations to deem it as legitimate as divining messages with an ouija board––its outputs aligning more with the facilitator’s subconscious whims than with the intentions of the nonverbal person. Nevertheless, some individuals swear by FC to this day, including Stubblefield. Fifteen years, two trials, and one prison sentence later, the disgraced professor stands resolute in the belief that she did nothing wrong. 

Nick August-Perna’s controversial 2023 documentary, Tell Them You Love Me, offers a compelling look into the lead-up and aftermath of Stubblefield’s conviction. Unlike many true crime docs, the film features interviews with Stubblefield herself, which are posed in conversation with Derrick’s mother Daisy and brother John, as they offer a different view on what transpired. Beyond examining the efficacy of facilitated communication or the mystery of Derrick’s intellectual capacity, Tell Them You Love Me highlights the complex interplay of race, disability, and power when it comes to Anna and Derrick’s relationship.

In one pivotal scene, John and Daisy illustrate how they initially became suspicious of Stubblefield’s facilitated communication when she asserted Derrick’s distaste for gospel music, preference for wine over beer, and choice to become vegetarian––ideas that entirely contradicted everything they knew to be true about their brother and son.

“She tried to supplant Derrick’s life,” begins John at the close of Stubblefield’s first trial, “…a life steeped in the history and culture of his God-fearing, Southern-rooted African-American family…She tried to supplant that with some version of life she thought was better”. 

Executive produced by renowned documentarian and interview shaman Louis Theroux, Tell Them You Love Me does not shy away from harsh truths––a potential reason as to why the film was rejected by many festivals prior to its initial acquisition. In an unconventional move away from documentary tradition, August-Perna brings forth several strong arguments in Stubblefield’s favor, mixed in with the evidence against her. This ambiguity is not the only way the director shakes up the form; he also successfully subverts our expectations of what a disability doc should say. Though not exactly inspirational, the film refreshingly reverses the oft-sensationalized, easy-to-chew narrative of a nonverbal person who accesses communication and proves their high intellect. But within this very reversal, Tell Them You Love Me declares the ultimate challenge to the status quo. Beneath the saga of the Johnsons’ unimaginable trauma courses the undercurrent of their son’s remarkable life. From long-outliving doctors’ initial three-day prognosis, to taking part in charity walks and rites of passage like prom night and graduation, Derrick Johnson is by no means less capable of connecting with the world. But the question still remains: who is capable of translating that connection?

Stream Tell Them You Love Me now on Kino Film Collection.

Tell Them You Love Me (2024)