As a comedian, I have tons of stand up comedy heroes — but none I really see myself in. There are plenty of doughy, mean white guys out there, but they talk about their girlfriends or their wives or their kids; they never talk about their boyfriends or their partners or their kids.
When I sat down to write this, I was ready to write about the dearth of openly gay male stand up comedians in the world. Because when the hilarious Todd Glass came out on WTF, my immediate reaction was “Yes! We got one!”
One. Like I was living in a drought of gay comedy, and Glass coming out was the first non-ANT drop of water since Charles Nelson Reilly.
It’s curious because I can name a dozen lesbian comedians off the top of my head. And there are superstars of stand up like Kathy Griffin and Margaret Cho who gay men spend big bucks supporting, but from what I knew, there were no gay guys telling jokes outside of gay bars.
Turns out: I’m wrong and I’m part of the problem.
stand-up, comedy, culturemap, ralph hardesty, homophobia, gay jokes, etc,