Anytime we make a gay thing it has to be generally appealing so that we can potentially sell it to straight women. But also, we’re so bad at telling stories about ourselves.
You also wrote that Nanette “continues the narrative that queer comics don’t do regular stand-up and that regular stand-up is not a place for queers.” What do you think it’s going to take for there to be a nationally touring openly gay comedian? I think if a joke doesn’t tell the whole of your story, write more tags, put more jokes in there. I think jokes are forces being set against each other and we laugh because we can’t make heads or tails of it, we don’t know which one is the right answer. But I don’t necessarily agree with her idea that jokes are restrictive or that jokes are violent.
It’s a great show that made me think so much about stand-up myself. I kind of disagreed with Gadsby’s point, which was fascinatingly constructed and built. No, because for me the way you make it funny is overlaying your perspective and saying, at the end of things, no one else gets to define your life without you also getting to define your life.
