Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration - General Discussion

[Bastet]

Ahead of Page Hurwitz's Stand Out: The Documentary, which will premiere later this year, Netflix released this 90-minute version of the historic three-hour show hosted by Billy Eichner and featuring the largest-ever assembly of LGBTQ+ comedians and presenters, including Wanda Sykes, Lily Tomlin, Sandra Bernhard, Eddie Izzard, Margaret Cho, Tig Notaro, Rosie O’Donnell, Billy Porter, Lena Waithe, Sarah Paulson, Stephen Fry, Fortune Feimster, Solomon Georgio, Marsha Warfield, Judy Gold, Joel Kim Booster, Guy Branum, Bob the Drag Queen, and many more.

This is from Eichner's introduction:  “Trans people are being demeaned. They’re trying to dehumanize trans people. They’re trying to erase trans people. And I’m not even talking about Florida. I’m talking about Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special!”  (As a review in The Decider said:  "As great as it may be to see all of these great comedians repping the LGBTQ+ community, it’s less comforting to think that Netflix gives most of them 2-5 minutes compared to giving a single transphobic comedian 60 minutes to make jokes at their expense. And get paid a lot more to do it.")

This variety special seems a pretty good representation of the show for something that had to be cut down by half and turned around in less than two weeks.  I look forward to seeing more from the show in the documentary.*  Eddie Izzard has one of my favorite sets (as she usually does, but also because it was the only one shown in its entirety.  Tig Notaro's was great, too.  And I loved this bit from Wanda Sykes, talking about how her 12-year-old twins were discussing a classmate, and her son referred to the kid as "she", her daughter interrupted to say the kid is non-binary, so it's "they", and her son just continued what he'd been saying, now using the correct pronoun:  “If you don’t get it, if you get hung up on shit like this, you just sound fucking old, that’s all. These kids are on 5G and you’re on AOL dial-up”.

Long-time ally Cyndi Lauper was supposed to close it out, performing "Gays Just Want to Have Fun" with Rosie O'Donnell, but a family emergency kept her away.  Trixie Mattell took her place, and the Gay Men's Choir and pretty much the whole line-up joined in.

*The documentary will be a combination of original performances, interviews, archival materials, and backstage vérité footage from that three-hour show, exploring "comedy as activism, diversity in stand-up, new queer culture, and mainstreaming the alternative over the past five decades" as described in this Hollywood Reporter article which contains a great interview with Hurwitz about the project.