Saturday, March 13, 2010

Can Lesbians be Funny?

Well, of course, the answer is yes, lesbians can be very funny. But that doesn't mean that all lesbians have a sense of humor. Let me explain...

Last Saturday evening, I went to see the Queer Queens of Qomedy show at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz with my wife and sister-in-law. When the sister-in-law first invited us, she also warned us, "It's an all lesbian show, are you sure you'll be comfortable?"

We assured her we would, but it did raise a moment of concern of whether or not the "comedy" would be overly politically correct rants against the male dominated society and inside "jokes" that would go over our heads. Luckily, that moment of concern didn't last long, and we decided to go to the show.

Simply put, one of the best and funniest nights of comedy we've enjoyed in a very long time.

The organizer of QQQ is Poppy Champlin, and she led off the show with an act I thought couldn't be topped. But the second comic, Sandra Valls came close. After a brief intermission, and bit more from Poppy, Roxanna Ward closed the show with a musical-comedy combination that had us crying from both laughing so hard and her beautiful singing (when she wasn't mooing).

And there was no need to worry about political correctness. Sacred cows were slain and eaten raw. And any "lesbian-centric" humor was at least as raunchy and outrageous (and easily understood) as any male comic you'd see in Las Vegas. No, strike that; it's hard to find raunch in Vegas anymore. This was much better.

Which brings us to the point: Just because lesbians can be damned funny, doesn't mean all lesbians have a sense of humor. Last night I received an email from Poppy Champlin (I signed up for the QQQ mailing list after the show) saying that of the 370 people in attendance at last Saturday's show - the vast majority of whom seemed to be loving it as much as I did - one person was highly offended by the non-politically correct humor, and is starting a campaign to get QQQ in trouble with their sponsor, Olivia Travel - an organizer of lesbian cruises and vacation packages.

Poppy's email was asking for those of us who enjoyed the show to let Olivia know. I have sent them a direct message thanking them for bringing the show to Santa Cruz, and asking that they do it again next year. And, I'm taking this space on my blog to give a shout-out to all funny lesbians who dare to be outrageous and risk offending people. And thank you, Poppy, Roxanna, and Sandra, for a great night out.

2 comments:

  1. Ken Thank you for that blog. I'm going to put that in my QQQ promo pack. I love it that straight people are finding us and receiving us with open arms and hearts. See you next year. Poppy

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  2. The great thing about funny is that it knows no boundaries of race, gender, sexuality, etc. The same can be said of humorlessness. It crosses all lines too.

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