‘Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution’ Review: Beyond the Punchline
The director Page Hurwitz examines comedy’s place in the L.G.B.T.Q. movement in the new Netflix documentary “Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution,” creating a rich, century-long timeline full of archival footage, behind-the-scenes glimpses and candid interviews with comedians.
A standout subject is the 82-year-old trailblazer Robin Tyler, the first out lesbian on national TV. Throughout the film, Hurwitz showcases comedy as more than just a source of laughter, but of healing, catharsis and as an agent for queer liberation, particularly during the Stonewall riots in 1969 and, later, the AIDS epidemic.
L.G.B.T.Q. comedians were already on hand for “Outstanding” — in 2022, many of them, including Lily Tomlin, Wanda Sykes and Billy Eichner, performed on the same stage during “Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration,” a Netflix standup special hosted by Eichner.
The backstage footage from that special captured something that feels revolutionary, echoing Margaret Cho’s assertion that “queer comedy was really a solace” when she achieved fame in the 1990s.
