And that’s exciting and cool to me.1: A short review of a children’s movie, I promise That’s why gay men and women have been making culture, and have always been creating reasons for themselves and ourselves to exist. But it also means we don’t have the security of those things. I think in lacking the structures that constrain and guide straight people’s lives there are a lot more questions, and that means we can answer them however we want, which is really cool. I think there’s a reason we’re called “gay.” It is always the question of “What is the fucking point of me?” and that can turn into depression sometimes. Do you think that’s a harder subject to breach for gay people, particularly gay comics, because of this pressure to be carefree, happy and funny? In the book, you discuss your struggles with depression.
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How to not be an asshole, but also not to be like, “everything was great.” But really the hardest chapters to write were figuring out, in some honest way, my stories about celebrities that I’ve worked with. And also it’s strange that I’ve now given it to strangers, and they now get to have an opinion about my relationship with my dad. I felt bad about writing it because he’s not here to be mad at me about it. It was very strange, because the first chapter I wrote in the book was about my dad. What was the hardest topic in the book to tackle? People from my hometown are only going to hate this book. So my intended audience is people not from my hometown. I wish more gay guys had read David Halprin’s How To Be Gay, but I also know they’re on their own journeys.
I want gay men to be better at understanding and appreciating culture that is about us and not through the proxy of a woman. In the vast majority of my experience gay guys are nice and sensitive and cooperative and want to have a good time. Also, I think we overly tell this story of gay guys being bitchy to each other. Like, it was an interesting step to be like, no one can dismiss me from homosexuality. I also refuse to accept that I just have to know my place because of that. But also I’m not that and I can’t be that. So many guys have successfully turned themselves into that, and I am so proud of them and envious and appreciate the degree to which those guys will sometimes have sex with me. And it’s a wonderful thing to aspire to and be fascinated by. As long as you’re funny and sexy and have a perfect body and are in every way satisfying the needs of this heroine in this romantic comedy, you are allowed to be in the periphery. I think for such a long time gay guys have been told by society that you’re allowed as long as you’re perfect in every way. The people we’re used to seeing on raised platforms at gay bars are gogo dancers and drag queens, just needing sexualization or some kind of distance to make it comfortable.
But when I was first on Chelsea Lately, the reactions were either “He shouldn’t be there, he’s too gay,” or “He shouldn’t be there, he’s too fat, gay guys aren’t like that.” We’re used to looking at sexy people. In most ways, being fat is perfectly fine in stand up. You’ve said that as a fat gay comic, gay people question why you’re given a microphone to speak on their behalf. 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.