Trauma and triumph have always been source material for queer performers. The difference now is that people with power are starting to pay attention: men, heterosexuals, cisgender people, white people—even the holy trinity of cishet white men. At the cutting edge of this cultural reckoning are comedians Hannah Gadsby, Tig Notaro, and Cameron Esposito. All three are masculine of center (MOC) lesbians, comedians, and survivors of sexual assault and/or abuse.
They’re not the only comics who queer comedy and center marginalized lives—Margaret Cho, Jes Tom, Rhea Butcher, and D’Lo all have skin in the game—but Gadsby, Notaro, and Esposito are distinctive because they’ve captured what many other queer comics do not: mainstream attention.
Gadsby is having an especially good summer. Her Netflix special Nanette, released in June, was profiled in The New Yorker and landed Gadsby an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. Almost overnight, Gadsby catapulted to international fame, and just as she was considering leaving comedy for good.
This June, Esposito wrote, performed, and released her special Rape Jokes in a matter of weeks. Esposito posted Rape Jokes to her site, where viewers could watch for free or donate to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). In a matter of weeks, Rape Jokes raised over $30,000 in donations, according to Huffington Post. Then there’s Notaro’s One Mississippi, the Amazon series based on her Mississippi homecoming, which said “time’s up” long before Hollywood did. The series was praised in the New York Times, and the second season was critically acclaimed, garnering a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Queer communities certainly have a rich tradition of oratory and cultural critique, and this is not the first time women comics have spoken on assault. As early as 2014, Esposito was writing and blogging about rape jokes. Esposito’s now-canceled series Take My Wife, made in collaboration with her wife Rhea Butcher, spoke frankly about assault but didn’t get much buzz. In 2016, HuffPo reported that women comedians were using Facebook to warn others about alleged abusers and harassment. But the Facebook groups were private, survivors feared losing their careers, and the report did not make waves.
So why is it that there are not one, but three butchy lesbians talking about rape culture and being taken seriously at the same time? “Cuz you need a good role model, fellas,” quips Gadsby in Nanette.
Gadsby has a point, but this newfound prominence is a combination of timing and worldview. The #MeToo movement has offered unprecedented power in numbers; survivors are not as isolated in their allegations as before and people want to listen. In tandem with #MeToo are Gadsby, Esposito, and Notaro’s queer sexualities and MOC gender performances. Though MOC queer women perform a gender with high social clout, they are still often criticized for doing womanhood “wrong.”
This dissonance allows for a unique social position and perspective. By rejecting gendered expectations of what women are supposed to look and love like, MOC lesbians offer up a new masculinity unburdened by toxicity. Yet as queer, lesbian, and masculine women, they are still deeply vulnerable to rape culture. Simply put, “rape culture” describes the practices and beliefs people engage in, individually and as a culture, to excuse and tolerate sexual violence. No one is immune from the effects of rape culture because it is embedded in the fabric, and founding, of America.
taken collectively, these performances begin to reclaim culture via queer testimony
Gadsby, Esposito, and Notaro use their queer masculinity to expose and resist its toxic counterpart. By advancing the conversation beyond “[taking] down eight powerful men,” these comedians chip away at society’s deep contributions to, and complicity in, rape culture. Each woman’s comedy is transgressive, but taken collectively, these performances begin to reclaim culture via queer testimony. Breathtaking, funny and cathartic, these works begin to recast survivors’ misery as mirth.
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