A-10 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE Pride Guide 2002
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Funny girl
Suzanne Westenhoefer talks about Rosie before she was out, changes in comedy, and talk of a new gay TV network
by Andy Scahill
Suzanne Westenhoefer will be the first to tell you that the comedy scene has changed for gay and lesbian comedians over the past ten years.
As one of the first comedians to openly wear the label "gay comic" over ten years ago, Westenhoefer laid the groundwork for gay comics to take center stage, and for those who come out later in their careers after success had made the transition more manageable.
These days, she's a seasoned Los Angeles gal; acting in films, meeting with producers and laying down a sizable chunk of cash for a modest abode.
Andy Scahill: You tour all over the country, but I understand that Ohio holds a special place for you.
Suzanne Westenhoefer: Oh yeah. I'm so excited, I'm leaving [Los Angeles] to be home in Columbus for the summer and the early fall. The city is dear to me because I met my girlfriend in Columbus, at Gay Pride in '92. It'll be ten years since that Gay Pride. Isn't that great?
AS: A lot of times, your comedy is imbued with political satire. Do you set out to examine certain topics in your writing?
SW: Not really. It's just me, doing some stuff, and the politics is just what's happening. If politics is funny, I do that. If my girlfriend and our relationship, our cats, our dogs, driving to Columbus, the weather in L.A. . . . if whatever is happening to me is funny, I try and make it funny to you.
AS: Is there anything you would consider too sensitive, politically, to joke about?
SW: Everything is open. Like September 11 was not funny for a very long time. But now there are things surrounding the event that are funny. But in itself. . . I don't even
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think you could joke about Pearl Harbor now.
AS:
How
about the priest scandal?
SW: I probably wouldn't hit that very much, and I'll tell you why: I'm not a Catholic, and I feel it's more appropriate for a Catholic comic to take that. It seems, to me, that since I've never really jumped to the priests before, to do it now seems... opportunistic.
But if there was
a huge scandal in the gay community, something horrifying, and then you saw this
straight white guy on Letterman doing standup about it, you'd be like, “Fuck you.” Once it becomes public domain, something huge like Melissa, Rosie, Anne Heche ... then everybody can do it.
AS: Do you have people ask your opinion a lot about Rosie O'Donnell coming out?
SW: Not really. Because everyone was just kind of like, "Whatever."
AS: When you were both out on the comedy circuit together, was her sexuality widely known?
SW: Oh yeah. I mean, I know her. It's so fun, though, to be able to say that now. For the longest time, people would ask me about her, and I did know. It was kind of a drag; because in my mind I was saying "Hello, how can you not tell?" especially when it was a queer person asking. But then I'd end up saying, "Oh, I don't know, that's more a question for her, isn't it?" And I hate playing that game, because I won't even do that for myself.
AS: Your experience as a lesbian comedian has been very different from theirs— you were openly gay the whole time you were performing.
SW: Right. This is what I was doing, being queer the whole time.
AS: Yet the mainstream press and the gay press have really embraced them.
SW: Yeah, the bitter side of it, the hard side for me is that they get famous and then come out and the gay community embraces them as if they're God. In fact, embraces them prior to their coming out. Because they didn't get all the doors shut in their face for being queer. That's the bitter side, and that's really hard on me sometimes.
The good side of it is that I'd like to think that Kate Clinton and myself and all of the other gay comics who went before and beside and after me-that we are why they're able to do it today. I like to take that on and think, that's good, that's why we're doing the work. Now that Rosie's come out, her level of fame will make it easier for the next group to come out.
AS: Do you see things changing for gays on the comedy circuit?
SW: Oh yeah. I can do a show of mostly straight people now and talk about tops and bottoms, and they get it. I don't have to explain a women's festival so deeply, I don't
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I started with straight audiences. I started out in New York City as the first gay comic performing for straight audiences. The first openly gay comic at Catch a Rising Star, to be on Comedy Central, to be on Evening at the Improv and to do the HBO Comedy Special.
AS: We're hearing lots of rumors in gay community about Showtime and MTV teaming up for a gay TV Network. I actually heard the other day that Kate Clinton may have her own talk show
Suzanne Westenhoefer
SW: No, no, no, no Listen, first of all, Kate wants a show, I want a show, Lea wants a show, Marga wants a show, we all want a show. Nobody's got a show, there's not even a network. It's so in its infancy stages, and it's going to stay that way until one day, literally, it rolls over like a wave. It'll just be there one day and we'll all be going "Holy shit! Holy shit!"
AS: That's interesting. There seems to be such a huge hype engine behind it.
SW: That's because they want to see where the gay community is about it and if they're in support of it. So they're sending out all of this stuff to see if we're interested and of course we're thrilled about it-hello? But no one owns the show, no programming has been decided. I've met with so many people here, including some fabulous people at Showtime, but they're just putting their foot in the water. Right now, it's all just meeting stuff.
AS: So the gay television format appeals to you?
SW: Absolutely. But I would absolutely be interested in doing a show on mainstream television. I don't think what I have to say is just for gay people. It's about gay people, and it champions gay people, and I definitely feel a full 100% responsibility to the gay community. But I don't want to just preach to the choir. We already know we're okay.
AS: Are you more interested in a talk show or sitcom format?
SW: I have looked into both. They are both so difficult. I think that I have more luck when I start talking about a talk show. Sitcoms are such a big deal; people have no idea. They think that they go get a star and make it happen. But every season here in Los Angeles, probably 30,000 little pockets of two or three people who write a sitcom, probably 100 of them get accepted, 50 of them get shot, and we see eight or ten of them-with two or three ending before the end of the season. It's the beyond-beyond of difficult. Because we see so much crap on television, and because it's so hard, we continue to see crap on television because people just try and do what they've already seen.
AS: So what have you got coming up for here in Ohio?
SW: I'm looking forward to my show in Columbus in November. My friend Pia from Europia in Columbus, who has little cigars and wines and fabulous little delicacy foods, she told me that she's renting me a limo to drive me from my home in German Village to the Southern Theatre.
Suzanne Westenhoefer will be back in Ohio performing June 8 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel for the Columbus Human Rights Campaign dinner. She will also be at the Dayton Convention Center June 15 for the Dayton Pride Dinner, and is scheduled for a November 16 engagement at Columbus' Southern Theatre.
Andy Scahill is editor of OutinAmerica.com.