Out, Loud, & Laughing: A Collection of Gay & Lesbian Humor

by Charles Flowers (Editor)

Gays in the military.  Lesbian parents taking their kids to school.  Gay and lesbian couples getting married.  Everywhere you turn gay and lesbian Americans are in the news and more often than not, at the center of some controversy, some debate about tolerance and civil rights, where anger and hatred rule the day.  What's amazing is how gays and lesbians continue to survive without losing their self-respect, their courage, or most surprisingly, their sense of humor. Out, Loud, & Laughing features fifteen of today's funniest gay and lesbian humorists, from stand up comics like Kate Clinton and Frank Maya, to the performance work of the Pomo Afro Homos (Postmodern African-American Homosexuals) and Marga Gomez, to the queer Addison and Steele of the 1990s, Frank DeCaro and David Sedaris. In many ways, gay and lesbian humor is no different from heterosexual comedy, but the material does raise a few the insufferable Jesse Helms, the military ban ("be all you can be ...but in private"), living up to the Lesbian Chic, the trauma of gay male dating rituals, body piercing ("sometimes a fashion statement is a cry for help"), coming out to parents ("Mom, would you please pass the potatoes to a homosexual"), and so much more. By rejecting stereotypes and playing with differences, gay and lesbian humor not only entertains, but educates by disarming ignorancc and fear and the homophobia they engender.  To that end, a portion of all proceeds from this book will be donated to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, the organization that, among other projects, initiated and promoted the "red ribbon" campaign for AIDS awareness. Hilarious and socially minded, Out, Loud, & Laughing will leave you laughing out loud and wanting more.

Genres: LGBT, Humor, Poetry, Gay, Fiction, Lesbian

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of humorous essays and skits which reflects the preoccupations of the early 1990s; in other words, don't ask don't tell is a repeating theme. Some of the material therefore feels dated. However what was then a satirical look at political correctness is now the new norm. It just shows how easily norms can shift in popular culture, and shift again if we are not careful.

Highlight for this reader was "Nelson Volunteers" — a droll and timeless monologue from the reception desk at a community centre.

[mimi · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS SHIT IS SO PEAK. as a young lesbian it's both amazing and painful to know queers have thought the same and dealt with the same for as long as humanity has been alive, knowing how much we have regressed as a society since the 90s APPARENTLY. i grew up with the show Friends as an immigrant latina and it was an insightful look into the privileged white inhabitants of the city, that showed me the first on-screen lesbian wedding AND lesbian relationship?! it changed my life forever. actually, an author from this book, Lea Delaria, is actually IN the wedding episode (she's the shortie butch asking Phoebe out). reading this book and taking in that show plus the multitude of other queer 90s happenings (RuPaul, drag queens, RENT, hiv education, etc), it really puts things into perspective and it makes me so emotional. lesbians have really been as silly as we are for an eternity :'). queers have been sarcastic and ironic and cracking jokes at how awful life is to us since forever, every page and every experience is so damn comforting. i do wish it had more people of color, but i'll do my own specific book search for that. some lines in this book genuinely feel like modern twitter one-liners or just something my friend would say out of the blue. it's truly timeless if you belong to the community. i appreciate all the authors in this and all queers that existed before me because without them, i and all my friends and all queer people that came after them, would not be here. <3

[Shari]

Out, Loud, & Laughing : A Collection of Gay & Lesbian Humor by Charles Flowers (1995)