April 30, 1999 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 15
eveningsout
Not bad for a girl from Lancaster, Pennsylvania
by Doreen Cudnik
Los Angeles-Suzanne Westenhoefer is in interview mode when she picks up the phone at 11:30 a.m. her time. She's been up since 7:00 a.m. when a writer from the Columbus Dispatch called for their 10:00 a.m. interview, forgetting the three hour time difference.
It's just one of the quirks that comes as a result of dividing her time between Columbus and Los Angeles, and like most things in her life, she faces it with her trademark good humor.
"What a hoot, huh?" Westenhoefer says about living in both cities-Los Angeles because that's where her career has taken her, and Columbus because that's where she and her partner of eight years make their home.
"The best thing about it," she says, "is that no one place brings me down. There are a lot of horrible things about living in L.A., a lot of horrible things about living in Ohio and a lot of great things about both. When it's hideous and snowy in Columbus and I just can't take it anymore--I go to L.A.! And out here when it's so hot and so smoggy and so awful and I think, 'How do people live here?' I'm like, 'I'm going to Columbus'."
Another benefit to making a home in Columbus, Westenhoefer says, is "it helps to keep my feet on the ground."
"L.A. is not a real place," she says. "I mean, the main industry is fantasy and lies. And you don't want to have that all the time."
Her partner Annie is a teacher, so the couple has summers, and spring and holiday breaks to travel together, or spend time on the West Coast.
When in Columbus, the couple lives in German Village.
"Isn't that scary?" Westenhoefer says, pointing to her very German name. "Sometimes we just put our liederhosen on and goose-step around the village. My Jewish friends are all like: Suzanne, have you ever thought about how creepy that all is?"
While she may be based in Buckeye country, Westenhoefer says she is a "huge Cleveland Indians fan." As such, she is well aware of the controversy over the Chief Wahoo logo, and has a few thoughts on the subject.
"As far as the name itself, the Indians, I have no problem with that. The story I heard is that they named themselves after a Native American player who was the first Native American in the league ever. And they named the team that in homage to him. And I think that's a wonderful story and I don't know why anyone would choose to be offended by that.
"As far as the Chief Wahoo logo that's a little tricky. It's red, it's got the big teeth, but they seem to be phasing it out. And I think over the course of time, it would behoove the Indians organization to phase that out. But I also think that to make a huge fuss about it is a waste of time."
Don't mistake Westenhoefer for one of those liberal lesbians who jump on every politically-correct bandwagon.
"Most of the people that I know that are Native American don't want to be called Native American," Westenhoefer says emphatically. "For instance, I have quite a few friends who are black who don't want to be called 'African-American.' They don't even identify with that it doesn't mean anything to them. And I don't know anybody who really wants to be called 'people of color.' How hideous is that? I think that's the most insulting of all, because it says, 'there are white people, and then there's everybody else--we'll lump them together as 'people of color.' As a white person, I'll call people whatever they want to be called, but if it were me, I'd be like, “people of color?” What white person came up with that?”
Westenhoefer's career began in 1990 when she entered a contest at Kelly's Piano Bar in New York City. She had never done stand up
before, but she won anyway. Her career took off rather quickly, "because I was openly gay and there was a huge market for it." She began to get work emceeing drag shows and AIDS benefits and gay pride events. She also performed at the predominately straight com. edy club circuit "like any other new comic," appearing at places like New York's Bottom
“L.A. is not a real
place. I mean, the main industry is fantasy and lies. And you don't want to have that all the time."
Line and Caroline's Comedy Club, and House of Blues and the Punchline on the west coast.
Only a couple of years later, in 1994, HBO called, and offered her a show. As a result, Westenhoefer became the first lesbian comic to have her own HBO special, which went on to be nominated for a Cable ACE award.
So much has happened in terms of gay and lesbian visibility in the short time since her career began, and Westenhoefer is amazed by the progress.
"All of a sudden we became big," she says. "It's a little over eight years ago when I started, and no one at that time thought gay people would be on TV. And now we're represented in so many ways. I know this is cliché, but it really was the gay '90s."
You can't talk to an out lesbian comic without asking her to comment on perhaps the biggest event in terms of gay and lesbian visibility in the '90s-the Ellen coming out episode.
"From a professional standpoint it was hard," Westenhoefer recalls. “It was very bittersweet. It was almost like she was the only gay person. And the gay press in particular was sort of hurtful in that they were like, 'She's done this and she's done that,' and I'm thinking about me, and I'm thinking about [fellow openly lesbian comics] Kate Clinton and Marga Gomez, so it was a little tough. But as a gay person, I was thrilled. I was overwhelmed. I mean, there she is on the cover of Time saying she's gay, and your heart can't hold it all!"
When the path paved by DeGeneres will help someone like herself land a sitcom deal, Westenhoefer isn't sure, but she is certain that it will happen.
"Right now [the networks] are not thrilled about a real lesbian playing a lesbian. But that will change, and if it changes soon, I hope to jump right in there. If it doesn't, there will be someone else. It will happen. That door is permanently broken down now. And Ellen did that."
credits
But while Westenhoefer DeGeneres with being the one to break down that door, she has a hard time buying into the idea that things were so awful for DeGeneres after her show was cancelled.
"Is she really suffering?" Westenhoefer asks. "I bet she got her ass hurt, I bet she got her feelings hurt-I know she did. But hey, that happens to everybody. That happens to people who have factory jobs. And lucky for her, she has money, she has a tremendous support group-family, friends, a girlfriend. So my heart's not hurting for her. And I also think that she's not done. She's not seventy years old and finishing her career. She could come back with her own show in two yearsthat's just bow L.A. works. You just don't know."
The year of 'Monicagate' may have seemed like a comic's dream, and
Suzanne Westenhoefer
Westenhoefer says it was for a while. But "within months," she recalls, "people were so fucking tired of hearing her name. You were likely to get booed if you even brought it up. I mean, you better have the greatest joke ever. Because nobody wanted to hear about it anymore!"
There was also the issue of response to the scandal from Westenhoefer's largely gay and liberal audience.
"We were all so disappointed," she said. “We didn't want to know. It was like, 'My god, why did he have to do that? We liked him. And what price will we as gay people pay for that? Because if the country decides that now we need a Republican president, the people that will pay the hardest are women, minorities and gays. So it became a situation that it's not funny anymore. If this makes everybody want to put [Texas governor George] Bush Junior in office, we're in trouble."
As for presidential hopeful John Kasich, currently a U.S. representative from Westerville, Westenhoefer says, "He doesn't have a chance, and that's a good thing. I mean it's really cool that Ohio has had so many presidents, but we don't need that one."
With all her success, it was the GLAMA award (Gay and Lesbian American Music Awards) for her first comedy CD, Nothing in My Closet But My Clothes, that Westenhoefer especially cherishes.
"That was a big thrill, because I have not
been rewarded by the gay community, she says. "Not that I'm sitting around waiting for awards because I'm not-but boy, when your own community tells you what you're doing is a good thing, that means a great deal, that means more than anything else."
That's because, she says, even with all the progress, "it's still very hard to be openly gay" in show business. "There are a lot of things I can't do because I'm a well-known openly gay person."
In the months ahead, Westenhoefer will be performing at Pride in St. Louis, Women's Week in Provincetown, and the mother of women's music festivals, the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.
She'll be performing at 8 p.m. at the Wall Street Nightclub in Columbus on Saturday, May 1. Tickets for that show are available in Columbus at Wall Street, An Open Book, and the Grapevine Café, or by calling Wall Street at 614-464-2800. Westenhoefer will bring her show to Cleveland on June 5, at the Brick Alley Theatre, 216-432-3655.
She says she receives a very warm welcome when she does a show at Wall Street, but that it's not always easy performing in front of her home crowd.
"I've got to tell you it's the hardest show I do all year because I've got to see these people later these are friends and friends of friends! It's my hometown and you really don't want to suck in your hometown."
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