NOBODY’S PUNCHLINE

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A QUEER PERSON IN 2019, inhabiting these spaces that were traditionally safe havens for straight, cisgender white men? Where you could hear a gay joke (hell, even the word “faggot”) or a transphobic quip and have an entire room laughing along? It means that when you decide to step on a stage and bare yourself to a crowd, you’re aware that the audience is historically used to you being the punchline.

Recently, there’s been a surge of queers in the comedy space, but not in the cursory way they appear in film and television, as the comedic relief or confidante to the last year, “Queer comedy has moved out of its early gestational period and is no longer just about representation—just the fact that there are queer comics onstage. What distinguishes it today is a queer sensibility.” In a time when women are still seeking justice following revelations of predatory behavior by establishment comics like Louis C.K., our queer comedians have had to endure apologies from Kevin Hart, who was hired (and subsequently stepped down) to host the Oscars despite a once-unrepentant homophobic past. For an awards show beloved culturally by gay men, Hart’s inclusion was more of the same: “You’re not welcome here.”