In the opening scene of Cameron Esposito and Rhea Butcher’s brilliant comedy series, Take My Wife, Cameron flops down on the bed and sighs, “I just want us to live!” The “us” is queer women and while she’s talking about the Bury Your Gays trope on TV, she’s also talking about just living. Queer women surviving. Queer women thriving. I’ve been thinking about Cameron Esposito a lot lately, actually, about how her career and her comedy and her activism seem to have taken on new life in the wake of Trump’s election.
Esposito has never shied away from talking about being gay. It’s the centerpiece of so much of her stand-up. But more and more recently it seems like she’s bringing her message in. You see it on Take My Wife, where the jokes are for us in a way that is at once familiar and fresh. (No one ever says the word U-Haul, for one merciful example). You see it on Twitter where she has stopped providing context for cis hetero people. You see it on Instagram where she transformed into Lesbian Ken. You see it on Getting in Bed With Kristin where she talks about queer women pulling each other together and up in their careers and freely offering the hope that she has earned from a lifetime of learning. Cameron Esposito has risen to the occasion of this frightening moment in our political landscape, with compassion and a whole lot of laughter.
So it makes perfect sense that she’s decided to project her voice in a new way, with a podcast focusing on gender and sexual identity and the way those things intersect with our current culture. The podcast is called Queery and it launched yesterday with an episode that stars Rhea Butcher. It’s sweet and it’s funny and it’s smart and it feels made just for me and you, for right now.
Transparent creator and showrunner Jill Soloway is on the schedule, and so is Steven Universe creator and showrunner Rebecca Sugar. UnREAL‘s Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman will be stopping by and Madin Lopez of ProjectQ and queer studies professor Andrea Fontenot. The podcast promises to skip the cliches and the questions you’ve asked and answered a thousand times, and focus on the kinds of conversations queer people have with each other when no one’s listening in. It also promises to be very, very funny.
You can find Queery on Feral Audio or subscribe on iTunes. You can also follow along on Twitter.
Oh boy pls subscribe. Helps @queerycast be more visible. https://t.co/EyETV2E5Ap pic.twitter.com/8BwDaOhkL1
— Cameron Esposito (@cameronesposito) August 8, 2017
I loved the first episode. Great questions, excellent answers. I recognised myself in growing up misgendered and that awkwardness. I really liked the concept of being “conditioned female”.
Thank you!
This was so good, and I loved the conversation they had. I can’t wait to hear more!
Cameron & Rhea are just the best and I loved the first episode. I can’t wait for more!
I am melting into her voice, good grief. Thank you!
ok, that aside – listening to the entire episode I am feeling very very affirmed and *normal*, and did not realize how badly I needed this <3
I am so appreciative of Cameron’s decision to make this an in-group thing. I love Nancy, but there’s always a little twinge inside of me at the moments when they have to stop to gloss basic concepts for listeners. I get that whether and how much to do that is a decision that a lot of thought goes into (the Code Switch team did a good ep about this very thing a while back, too), and there are reasons why you might go one way or the other, but.. delicious, the ‘this is for us’ feel. <3