October 2019_Esquire 77EVERYONE’S A COMEDIAN! Don’t be fooled by the guy on this issue’s cover.
Comedy has never been home to so many different voices. The new platforms—streaming,
podcasts, social media, and more—are expanding, reshaping, and, to a degree, leveling the
landscape. Here, our highly subjective survey of what’s funny now, and where to find it.No 2
EVERYONE’S A COMEDIAN!
With so much hilarity, in so many formats, the options can be
overwhelming. Consider this: On the first day of the year,
Netflix released forty-seven stand-up specials. FORTY-
SEVEN. Amazon is entering the game, releasing specials by
Jim Gaffigan and Ilana Glazer (her first). And that’s just stand-
up. The glut of comedy means there’s that much more to siftI occupy quite a few
marginal identities:
I’m a queer woman,
from a former colony,
on the autism spec-
trum. Stand-up allowed
me to prepare, get my
head sorted, and be able
to communicate my
thoughts to the audience.
Onstage, I’m able to get
my story across. That’s
the beauty of live performance, and
of stand-up in particular: Voices get
to the audience in their most unmed-
iated form. ¶ But the scene could use
a bit of a shake-up. I can only speak
about my personal experience, but
the club culture was unkind to me.
It’s unfriendly, combative, gladiato-
rial. There are those who say to stay
out of the kitchen if you can’t take
the heat, etc. I reject that. Is my voice
worth less because I refuse to cross
the pit of coals you want me to run
over to get there? ¶ So many come-dians expect control of
the room when they’re
onstage, because they’ve
got the magic stick that
amplifies their voice, and
everyone has to listen.
But that’s not the world
we live in anymore. As
the world changes, so our
content has to change. ¶
Which is why I’m con-
fused when a comedian
interprets “Hey, that’s disrespect-
ful” as censorship. Jerry Seinfeld
is a very successful straight white
man. It’s not in his ballpark to dis-
miss criticism as too PC. Comedy no
longer exists in a vacuum. To be rel-
evant, you have to speak with your
audience. You don’t get to just tell
them how it is. —As told to EsquireGadsby, from Tasmania, made waves
with her 2018 Netflix special, Nanette.
This fall, she’s on tour with her follow-
up, Douglas, named after her dog.(^) TERRIBLE
(^) NEWS
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o
3
C D
Y
IS
NOT
A
MONOLOGUE...
By
Hannah
Gadsby
BY JULIO TORRES
I moved to New York from El Salvador when I was
twenty-two. I’ve always been here as a foreigner—
in school, at work. And I never felt quite as foreign
as when I began doing open-mic nights. I was just so
completely different from everyone else that I felt
like an anomaly. I actually think it helped my comedy.
If I arrived today, I would more easily find
like-minded, like-spirited peers. There’s now a
hyper-inclusion of different people. I’ll do shows
in Brooklyn where the lineups are entirely queer
people, or people of color.
It’s a direct response to what’s going on politically.
Something shifted with Trump’s presidency. The
entertainment industry realized, “If we don’t start
having what we put out there reflect the actual population, if we don’t stop
favoring some people—never purposely, but implicitly and passively—then
maybe we’re no better than who we’re criticizing.” —As told to Esquire
Torres, a writer for Saturday Night Live, stars in the mostly Spanish-
language comedy Los Espookys and the stand-up special My Favorite
Shapes, both on HBO.
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No 6
HEY, BILL HADER,
(SNL ALUM, COCREATOR AND STAR OF HBO’S
GENRE-DEFYING, AWARD-WINNING BARRY)
WHAT’S THE BEST THING YOU WATCHED THIS YEAR?
“My favorite comedy show
of 2019 is I Think You Should Leave with
Tim Robinson [Netflix]. I had dinner
the other night with the Game of Thrones
guys—David Benioff and Dan Weiss,
the creators—and all we did was talk about
and quote from it.”
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No
The hilarious Ohioan is the
winner of the Kennedy Cen-
ter’s 2019 Mark Twain
Prize for American
Humor. He joins an elite
club: Past winners include
Carol Burnett, Eddie Mur-
phy, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
DAVE CHAPPELLE
IS A LEGEND, SAYS NATION
GREAT^ NEWS
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