For years, gay male performers were left out of the edy landspe or tokenized wh . Now, a new wave of entertaers are succeedg by playg to themselv.
Contents:
- JERROD CARMICHAEL OUT AS GAY HIS NEW EDY SPECIAL
- 7 HILAR GAY COMEDIANS WHO SLAY EVERY PERFORMANCE
- LGH YOUR FEARS AWAY WH 7 OF THE FUNNIT GAY COMEDIANS EVER
- AGT REP: SIMON'S INCREDIBLY CEL PRANK ON SOFIA, 'WORLD'S GAYT BOY BAND' BRGS IT
- ALL THE OPENLY GAY MALE CELEBS WHO ARE OUT, PROUD & SMOK’ HOT
- GAY HOLLYWOOD: 45 OUT AND PROUD LGBT STARS (PHOTOS)
JERROD CARMICHAEL OUT AS GAY HIS NEW EDY SPECIAL
* young male gay comedian *
“I remember Googlg gay ics and nothg g up, pecially gay Black ics, ” says Perks, whose blazgly funny stand-up work rang om sweet to goofy to rnchy. Havg a moment, the late ’90s and early ghts, meant that, sudnly, a gay performer or character would appear a space that had been prevly domated by straight people — say, at the center of a TV s like “Will & Grace” or a stand-up special, or as the voice of reason to the leadg lady a romantic edy like “My Bt Friend’s Weddg” — and everyone uld appld and say, “We solved !
Gay edy isn’t niche ’s all changed so fast that at one pot, while he’s discsg a sketch about rporate sponsorship of gay pri paras that he did wh Lil Nas X last May, Yang, 31, tch himself and says, lghg, “Why am I talkg about this the past tense, like ’s another era? (The podst format, which gay obssns n be discsed and nstcted at length, or which the hetero world n be filtered through gay sensibili, as is on Sam Taggart and Gee Civeris’s “StraightLab, ” has bee fertile turf for emergg edy stars.
7 HILAR GAY COMEDIANS WHO SLAY EVERY PERFORMANCE
Buildg on a long tradn of antic gay humor, a new wave of young male talents have adopted a for-, by- approach — and revented the genre. * young male gay comedian *
” says Rogers, who, like all of his lleagu, has many ncurrent projects; he spent an early month of the panmic hostg (hilarly) a pet-groomg realy show lled “Hte Dog” for HBO Max; he -created a short-form seri lled “Gayme Show” (“for Quibi, rt peace”), whose wrg room was “entirely stocked wh queer people”; and he will have a regular role on a new Showtime edy lled “I Love That for You, ” tentatively schled for this sprg, wh the “S. ” Lyn’s style of humor — bchy, suatg, spiked wh alhol, rancid wh self-mockery — was rarely overtly queer; was what would now be scribed as “queer-d” — other words, legibly gay to anybody, gay or straight, who knew what signifiers to look for but to the obliv, merely droll. Lyn (who was self-protectively disparagg about gay men terviews) and ntemporari like Charl Nelson Reilly on “Match Game” (another game show) the 1970s were gay entertaers before that was a tegory; they are the first DNA strand ntemporary gay male edy’s triple send strand was the first generatn of out male edians — guys like the performance artist Frank Maya, who beme the first out gay man to get a spot on the early ’90s MTV seri “Half Hour Comedy Hour, ” and Bob Smh, the first to crack “The Tonight Show” durg the Jay Leno era, and Stt Thompson, the gay member of the Canadian edy qutet the Kids the Hall.
They were pneers who had to walk a plited le, at once makg stand-up safe for gay performers and makg gay edy palatable for straight dienc that, 30 years ago, were still far more fortable lghg at queer people than wh them. And the third strand was drag — there all along, olr than pop culture self, the subject of angry ntentn the gay muny between those who embraced as an act of transgrsive fiance and genr subversn and those who nounced as mstrelsy or, worse, bad for the e; pop culture, was a s-long journey om “La Cage x Foll” on Broadway the 1980s to “RuPl’s Drag Race” the 2000s, at which pot the naysayers fally had to adm feat.
Source photos: Alex SchaeferOne thg that distguish the new wave of gay edy is that n draw om all the tradns and rebe them to somethg new — at once polil and mpy; cheerful and subversive; stumed and nfsnal; explic and mastream. It’s an approach that nnects gay edy to a long Amerin tradn of outsir humor — the humor of the opprsed — and an equally long tradn which those outsirs bee sirs.
LGH YOUR FEARS AWAY WH 7 OF THE FUNNIT GAY COMEDIANS EVER
Pri Month means that ’s time to enjoy art and entertament om our favore LGBTQ creators, so here are seven of the bt gay edians. * young male gay comedian *
In the scene, Styl plays a distracted, gay, sexually (hyper)active social media brand manager who’s ught advertently postg his own horny Instagram msag unr the pany acunt — cludg one to Shawn Mens, to whom he sends what he sheepishly adms to his boss ( a le that drew screams of lighted shock om the stud dience) was “a picture of my open throat. ”The sketch was an stant h, which was surprisg not jt bee Styl gamely threw himself to the role but bee the language ed — “still on a poppers high, ” “feelg really prsed after threome, ” “wreck me, daddy” — was for-, by- gay talk of a kd that was unprecented on “S.
L., ” which had only the last , wh the rise of Kate McKnon and the stallatn of the gay -head wrer Chris Kelly, started to journey out of a long, vexed history of homophobia. Sce Ellen DeGener me out 1997, lbians and gay men have had, and ntue to have, separate and plited trajectori through edy, and one major and persistent difference is that the ia of sex between men still triggers a more vol, openly disgted type of homophobia om some dienc than do the ia of sex between women.
AGT REP: SIMON'S INCREDIBLY CEL PRANK ON SOFIA, 'WORLD'S GAYT BOY BAND' BRGS IT
“Sara Lee” didn’t seem the least alarmed by that; wasn’t a sketch aimed at heterosexual drive-by gawkers but one unmistakably wrten straight-outta-Grdr language by gay men who weren’t pecially terted translatg their work for a wir dience.
VioThe edian shar an anecdote about g out to his LeeIn one way, that sensibily was nsistent wh Yang and Rogers’s unforced gay-bti vibe on “Las Culturistas, ” which is not gay as “We’re here, we’re queer, ” but gay as “We’re two adult men havg an extremely long and impassned discsn about Glenn Close — don’t expect to make fortable for you.
The character, makg a tense and hghty appearance on “Weekend Update, ” exemplifi the ways which gay edy is now, so to speak, genre-fluid: It’s performed and -wrten by an out gay man; ’s not overtly gay but is, Yang’s words, “very much queer-d”; and ’s also drag. A kd of drag that seems steeped ls the world of RuPl than the mp zans of “Pee-wee’s Playhoe” (a subversive, tangibly queerish show that’s still makg s fluence felt s after buted 1986), but drag nohels — apparently, we all know a gay iceberg when we see one. Bt of all, nothg is done for the purpose of ncealment: All the dg displays a fluency the var ways that celebry gayns n tersect wh pri, vany, narcissism, tensn, jury, entlement, persistence, weeps and termatn.
ALL THE OPENLY GAY MALE CELEBS WHO ARE OUT, PROUD & SMOK’ HOT
He giv them feelgs, gdg, sensivi, issu and, naturally, drama — and the show’s implic gayns serv as an embodiment of Torr’s belief that translatn is unnecsary.
I jt thk that is distct om packaged queerns” — other words, om the explicly inty-based edy that might lead a performer to be labeled “the gay ic.
GAY HOLLYWOOD: 45 OUT AND PROUD LGBT STARS (PHOTOS)
”Torr’s edy upends several tradns, cludg the gree to which gay men have so often been asked to ntextualize themselv wh the straight world — as ic relief, as sikicks, as the bt iend.