Standup comic Suzanne Westenhoefer has an impressive resume.
In 2003, her bio says, she became the first openly lesbian comic ever to appear on network television when she performed on "Late Night with David Letterman."
In 1994 she had become the first lesbian comedian to perform in her own HBO comedy special. But her most amazing achievement may have been performing at a gay pride event two years ago -- in Jackson, Miss.
"I really enjoyed it, but I won't kid you -- that wakes you up a little," Westenhoefer says by phone as she navigates her car through traffic near her Hollywood, Calif., home. "I don't know if they still have a pride event. It was very small, but bless their hearts -- I have a lot of respect for that."
Westenhoefer and Andre Kelley, an openly gay African-American comedian, perform June 26 at Peabody Auditorium in Daytona Beach.
Westenhoefer has named her tour "Totally Inappropriate," a title that's reflected in a joke about that Southern gay pride event in a video clip on her website: The festivities that day in Jackson, Westenhoefer quips, included a "parade with pickup trucks -- dragging straight people."
A native of "extraordinarily conservative" Lancaster County, Pa., Westenhoefer took time during her Hollywood drive to speak to The News-Journal about entering comedy on a dare, garnering straight fans and her lack of "appropriate boundaries."
Your bio says you entered comedy on a dare?
I had been a bartender for quite a while in Secaucus, N.J. I had moved to the New York City area because I thought I wanted to be an actor, but I was completely intimidated by the whole process. One thing led to another and soon you're just bartending. People would come to my bar and they'd be like, "You're so much funnier than people we see on Comedy Central." But I was so openly gay, even though I was bartending in a straight bar.
It was 1990 -- that's like a thousand years ago in some way. To think about getting up in a straight club and saying I was gay -- no one had done it, no one was doing it. There were a handful of openly gay comedians, but they were performing pretty much just for the gay community. My regulars would go, "What's the worst that's gonna happen? You'd not do well and never get another bartending job?" They had a point.
Oh yeah -- the pressure to not screw it up for everyone else, although he has yet to have on another openly gay comic. That's not counting like Sandra Bernhard, Rosie O'Donnell, or Ellen (DeGeneres) or Wanda (Sykes) -- they rarely talk about anything gay when they are on. It's just that we all know now that they are.
It (the Letterman appearance) went really, really well, but I think it's still . . . Jay Leno has done pretty well because he has on -- and now I just forgot his name -- the little gay guy who I love who runs around with him and talks. But I think for Letterman it's still an uncomfortable place for him to be.
Did the accolades pour in from the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community?
You must be new to the LGBT community (mock shock and laughter). No it did not. I think I got more response from the straight community. I think the gay community -- sometimes it's not gay enough for us. Remember how they were all like, "Ellen needs to come out, Ellen needs to come out, Ellen needs to come out!" And when she did, "She didn't do it right."
The truth is when you're an under-represented minority, it's very hard to . . . well, we're all pretty desperate and we want so much. Then when we get it sometimes, it's not exactly the way we pictured it in our mind. I've read where black people have debated how much, or should, a single person be expected to do something to "uplift the race."
You can act like it's not true, and you hear people saying that, but they're living in as dream world that has not happened yet. Racism, sexism, any of those bigotries are still flourishing. Yes, things are better. Yes, of course.
But anyone's who's black, anyone who's gay, anyone who's Hispanic knows damn well -- hello Arizona -- that it's still very, very much out there. And you're better if you acknowledge it, I think. You do better if you just go, "It exists and I am going to work to change it," as opposed to the people who are like, "Oh, you know what, racism is so 10 years ago. I'm not getting caught up in that."
The truth is it's out there. Work to change it.
What would you say to a person who said: "Why should I go see a lesbian or gay comedian? I'm not gay or lesbian."
I've been performing for straight audiences since the very beginning, and I have straight fans and groupies. The truth is my show is about my life, and I'm a human being. It's the same way you and I can enjoy Chris Rock even though we are not black. But he is definitely talking as a black man in America. But we get it, we get it.
In fact a lot of times straight people are interested because it's a little bit new, a little bit different. If I'm talking about my relationship, I'm talking about my relationship with a woman. We might fight over putting the cap back on the toothpaste, but we might have some different problems that for straight people are funny because they haven't thought of that.
One of my best friends is a comedian and she's Irish Catholic. I'm not. She talks a lot about being Irish Catholic and I laugh my ass off. It's still a shared experience. It's not that you only listen to music by white people if you're white.
I talk about life as I'm living it. Most people can relate. I would say the only people who aren't going to come to my show and relate are going to be extremely fundamentalist Christians. They're going to be a little bummed out by my show -- as they should be.
Your girlfriend says you "don't have appropriate boundaries." Has something you've joked about in a show ever created a backlash?
That's a good question. Not with my family. My family is kind of boundary-less like I am.
I don't think I have the kind of personality that makes people think I'm mean or evil. I think people can tell within two minutes of my being up there, that even if I'm saying politically incorrect things, I'm a little small-town girl from Lancaster, Pa., who cares and worries about her cat.
Sometimes I think it happens for comics not so much because of what they say, but because people aren't sure if they're kidding. I'm like the cheerleader you knew in school who was a little bit slutty. You know what I mean? My personality isn't super high-end abrasive. I'm "Like me, like me, like me!" I'm one of those
That's why your pickup truck joke works.
Oh right. And the truth is -- it's funny. It's not particularly mean-spirited so much as it's "You know what? This is still going on and let's not act like it's not." A joke like that is not meant to hurt someone's feelings. It's to jolt them -- you laugh and then you're kind of jolted.
Any idea what's going to be on your mind at your Daytona show?
Hmmmmmm. Another good question. That's quite a few days form now. Anything could happen. And I tend to be very extemporaneous. So it's hard to say. It will be the same thing that's on almost everybody else's mind.
