This is more like it. Crissle West — writer, comedian, and co-host of The Read podcast — popped by Comedy Central’s Drunk History this week to dutifully drain a few glasses of hooch and retell the story of the Stonewall Riots, and Marsha. P. Johnson’s instigating place in it.
Related: Stonewall Might Be The Year’s Most Insulting Film, But Not For The Reasons You Think
Clocking it at a mere six minutes, it’s still about a hundred times better than Roland Emmerich’s film, despite (or perhaps because of) the increasingly slurry narration.
Watch the video below, or follow the link HERE:
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Charlie in Charge
Love this series and this installment was perfect.
IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou
Just the same old lies that were discredited by the very trans that tried to steal Stonewall from the gay men and lesbians that really started it. Johnson was a diagnosed schizophrenic that claimed to have started the riot in the bar. It started outside and was most likely started by a lesbian. Even Johnson said Rivera was drugged up and not there. And is this millennial smearing this bull drunk or handispecial?
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Yeah no agenda here! just the facts.
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
Hate that I can’t trust anyone on this anymore with all the retconning and agendas.
GC1985
TRUMP 2016!
Tobi
@GC1985: Oh, dear, you’re baaaaccckkkk.
Tobi
@IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou: +1 The constant attempts by the transgender community to erase Stormé DeLarverie from our history is a disgrace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm%C3%A9_DeLarverie
inbama
If you want to see REALLY funny, catch the Episode 7 (B.A.N.) of “Atlanta.”
RIGay
…why do I feel like we are living Drunk History….
Danny279
That made me sick. It’s completely made up. There is almost nothing in that video that is accurate. How can we allow our history to be rewritten by tweets, internet memes and idiotic posts on Queerty?
– Marsha Johnson was homeless because she was severely mentally ill. She suffered psychotic breaks and a multiple personality disorder. She eventually was banned from all gay bars in the Village.
– She was not a customer at the Stonewall. She wasn’t inside the Stonewall.
– She did not “spark” the riots. She did not throw a shot glass inside the Stonewall. No one did. And she did not give a speech. There was no one person who “sparked” the riot, although the closest candidate would ba a lesbian who resisted being hustled into a police car. A lesbian. Not a crossdresser. Not a transgender.
– The Stonewall riots were 3 nights, not 2.
– Gay youth did not have access to bars and dance clubs as the video claims. In fact, there was a group of homeless white and Latino gay kids living on the street near the Stonewall and they – not transsexuals or transgenders – were the ones who fought most fiercely.
– The rioters were overwhelmingly gay male. They were largely white (reflecting the makeup of NYC in 1969), but there was substantial Latino and African American participation. There were only a tiny number of crossdressers at Stonewall, in the range of 2-4, and Johnson was the only transgender present. This is out of a cumulative 3-night crowd of 2000. There were far more heterosexual rioters at Stonewall than crossdressers or transgenders.
It’s sickening that the bravery of gay homeless youth and many gay men and lesbians is being erased in favor of some twisted agenda-driven narrative. If you want to learn about what actually happened, as opposed to what some drunk comedian says happened, check out the well-researched, award winning historical work “Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution” by David Carter.
Danny279
@IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou: Ray Castro was a hero of Stonewall and, by all accounts, a great guy. He went on to have a happy life with a very long-term partner, with whom he lived in Florida. He died very recently. The other arrestees include lesbian Marilyn Fowler and a straight man, David Von Ronk, who went on to become a moderately successful folk singer. Do you know who is nowhere to be found on the arrest list? Any transgenders or crossdressers. Because there were virtually none there. Assuming we count Marsha Johnson as transgender (and it is not 100% clear that she was), she is the only transgender confirmed to have been present.
So not only are we allowing real heroism – by Storme, Castro and the group of homeless gay youth – to be erased, but we are allowing it to be replaced by stuff that is entirely invented. Apparently, if you just tweet a falsehood enough times (“Stonewall was started by drag queens!” “No, wait, it was started by Marsha, who threw the first brick!” “No, wait, Marsha threw a shot glass and made a political speech!”), and if you get brain-dead, click-bait blogs like Queerty to repeat the falsehood, and if you some memes to promote the falsehood, then it becomes real. /smh/
IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou
@Danny279: I agree 100%. And that alone is good enough reason to drop the T right there. They have been nothing but liars and users from day one and here we are 40 years later and they are still dragging down gay rights and polluting it to further their own separate agenda. You left out that Rivera was nothing but a junkie whore that was to high to stand up the first night of the riots and Majors was a liar too.
inbama
@IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou:
We are getting what we deserve for allowing our lesbian sisters to be labelled “TERFS” for standing up to these dishonest trans activists.
Who would believe that lesbians would be labeled “TRANSPHOBIC” because they don’t want to do transwomen’s penis? Being attracted only to actual women is the very definition of their sexual orientation
The truth is, when it comes down to the bedroom, everybody knows that male and female are about a person’s sex and not Gender Identity.
The Trans should have rights – but making gays and lesbians betray each other and adopt crazy talk should not be one of them.
cctv
You all are idiots. I’m a cis gay man who’s had a lot of sex with trams men, trans women, and gay men and it’s all great. Second, men penetretaing men is inherently trans relative to the heteronormative culture which is why, sorry, but the t isn’t being left off. Finally anybody who follows stonewall with any substance knows the main figures you point out because they are often included the narrative. Acknowledging that your history of yourselves has been whitewashed and cis washed is hard.
inbama
@cctv:
You’re bi.
Which is fine, but we don’t need lectures about OUR sexual orientation from you.
Danny279
@IDoNotHaveToAgreeWithYou: I don’t say “Drop the T” because that implies that “LGBT” is legitimate to begin with. It really isn’t. There was never any debate about it. It was imposed on us. It makes no logical or moral sense. So rather than say “Drop the T” – which makes you sound like you are trying to undo something real and legitimate – I think it is better to challenge the legitimacy of “LGBT” from its inception.
I didn’t mention Rivera or “Miss Major” at all because neither one was at Stonewall. They lied. They are not the only ones to have lied about being there, but lie they did. You can appreciate how tempting it was for people in the 1970s to claim to have been part of this historical event when, for many years, it was so easy to lie about it. There was no internet and no one really had the resources to go and check each story. Well, that changed. The internet was born. Public records were released. And Stonewall has been the focus of a lot of disciplined historical research and there is no evidence that either person was anywhere near the Stonewall on those 3 nights. In fact, “Miss Major” (whose imaginary account of Stonewall differs from just about everyone else’s) claims to have suffered a serious jaw injury and also claims to have been arrested. But there is no evidence of anyone suffering a jaw injury at Stonewall and, thanks to the release of the NYPD arrest records, we know that she was not an arrestee. She’s a liar. She lied to place herself at the center of a real event in gay history. And to add insult to injury, she claims that gay men (whom she actually refers to as “fags”) were in the background, cheering her on. To let the real heroism of of real people at Stonewall be supplanted by this self-serving deception, this historical fraud, is really a crime against those who fought. I will never let it go unchallenged.
cctv
Nobody is dropping g the T. Be mad about it.