The Queer Young Comics Redefining American Humor
nytimes.comWHEN DEWAYNE PERKINS was a teenager growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he would occasionally turn to Google in search of, if not himself, somebody who at least came close.
What he found was a void. “I remember Googling gay comics and nothing coming up, especially gay Black comics,” says Perkins, whose blazingly funny stand-up work ranges from sweet to goofy to raunchy. “I am not a fan of being a token.
I don’t think it’s fun to be ‘the first.’” Even as a kid, Perkins could vaguely perceive that gay entertainers were, in certain other realms of pop culture, “having a moment.” It didn’t feel great.
Having a moment, in the late ’90s and early aughts, meant that, suddenly, a gay performer or character would appear in a space that had been previously dominated by straight people — say, at the center of a TV sitcom like “Will & Grace” or a stand-up special, or as the voice of reason to the leading lady in a romantic comedy like “My Best Friend’s Wedding” — and everyone could applaud and say, “We solved it!
