Long before Ellen came out on network television, long before Hannah Gadsby's Nanette reframed what comedy could do, queer people were using humor to survive, connect, and quietly dismantle a world that wasn't built for them.
This episode tells the untold history of queer comedy, starting well before Stonewall and tracing the comedians who used the stage, the nightclub, and eventually the television set as tools of cultural resistance.
You'll hear about Jean Malin, a flamboyant gay performer in the 1920s and 30s who packed nightclubs in New York and Los Angeles with his sharp wit and unapologetic persona. About Jose Sarria, the drag queen who performed elaborate satirical operas at San Francisco's Black Cat Bar in the 1950s and 60s and became the first openly gay person to run for political office in the United States. And about the tradition they represent: comedy as a survival skill, as a form of community-building, as a way of saying something true in a room that isn't ready to hear it seriously.
Queer comedy didn't just make people laugh. It made them feel less alone. It made them visible to each other. And sometimes, when it was working at its best, it made the people who wanted to erase them feel just a little bit foolish.
Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/G4wKu93ys7A
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Website: https://thisweekinqueerhistory.com
