Netflix Explores History of LGBTQ+ Stand-Up in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"

 

Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: Lily Tomlin, Bob the Drag Queen, Billy Eichner, and 19 other comedy trailblazers walk into a room. The punchline? It’s the largest known gathering of queer comics on one stage ever recorded in history. Filmed live in Los Angeles as part of the Netflix is a Joke Festival and released in 2022 as its own special, Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration became the new epicenter of the queer comedy boom.

But who helped these comics get here? This is the question at the heart of director Page Hurwitz’s film Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution, a first-of-its-kind documentary framing LGBTQ+ comedy as an irrepressible art form of resistance. Consider the stand-up special, which she co-directed, as the “energetic spine running through” the film, which arrived on Netflix last summer. The documentary interlaces moments from the 2022 event with archival footage and testimonials from pioneers and rising stars alike into the most comprehensive historical record of LGBTQ+ stand-up comedy to date.

“Seeing all of those people get together was so important, because that’s the story,” Hurwitz said. “Lily Tomlin influenced Sandra Bernhard, and Sandra influenced Margaret Cho, and Margaret influenced Billy Eichner and Joel Kim Booster. It’s this incredible tapestry and that’s how the history was created. It’s been this sustained march toward liberation alongside the emergence of queer comedy through these generational torch passes.”

Take Moms Mabley, a groundbreaking Black vaudevillian performer whom Wanda Sykes credits as a major influence, or Robin Tyler, the first comedian to ever come out on television — and whose career never recovered because of homophobic public reaction to it. Both get their moments to shine, as Outstanding firmly roots them in queer history alongside household names such as Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O’Donnell. 

“A lot of queer people are going to learn about [Tyler] for the first time,” says Hurwitz. The history of queer comedy is “very much a female-driven story,” Hurwitz notes, adding that many gay male stand-up performers were forced to stay in the closet, sidelined into stereotypes or ousted from the profession entirely. “Women really did lead the way, which we don’t ever get to see when we talk about comedy — and stand-up comedy, in particular,” she adds. “I’m really proud of that because those women were influential for so many people and have never really gotten their due.”

Given the complicated trajectories of the many people under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, condensing a century of history into one film is a nearly impossible task. The documentary traces the evolution of queer comedy by way of major cultural milestones from the Stonewall uprising and Anita Bryant’s anti-gay activism to the AIDS crisis and DeGeneres’s “Yep, I’m Gay” TIME magazine cover. 

Hurwitz, however, is well aware that there is a trove of stories still left to be told. “It’s very difficult when you’re in an underrepresented community, and everyone looks to one project to be the be-all and the end-all.”

It only takes a glance at the line-up of this historic special to see why the future looks so bright. A new generation of stand-ups aren’t just dominating comedy, but redefining the genre as we know it. “We are seeing queer comedians unfettered and authentic,” Hurwitz points out. “They are acting, doing stand-up, making their own films — like Billy Eichner said, ‘taking the whole pie.’ Sometimes it’s one step forward, two steps back, but every time, we keep coming back stronger, and that will continue. It will continue.”