Lonewolf Diaries: Why 'Gayness' Can Be Funny

I’m sure that I’ll get some heat for this, but I feel it is timely to say… Folks, it’s okay to find flamboyant homosexuality funny. Somewhere along the “common sense line,” people have started to equate the ability to find the humor in life with hate speech. Does the idea (note: I didn’t say content) of a movie like “Bruno” offend you? Do you feel that the idea of somebody chuckling over a flamingly over-the-top gay man to be so repulsive that it borders on hatred? To you I say “Nay”! Read on to find out why.

Let me be the first to say it. My name is Steven Crowder and I happen to find blatant gayness funny. I mean really funny. I can remember my first “gay encounter” as a child. I was watching the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving morning. Al Roker was interviewing Richard Simmons. As nothing more than a wide-eyed four-year-old, I was completely vexed. Here was a man on my television set, complete with chest-hair and quadriceps fuzz. He was just…”off” to me for some reason. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until the light bulb in my underdeveloped noggin turned on. “Hey Dad,” I asked. “Why does that man act like a woman?”

Surely enough, my dad erupted with laughter. He couldn’t help it. Maybe it was the childish innocence that did it, or maybe it was a nervous laugh stemming from the fact that he was going to have to provide a long, awkward explanation.

As a four year old, I harbored no hate for Richard Simmons. As a matter of fact I still find him to be quite endearing, but to deny the hilarity of the caricature that he is would be dishonest. To a straight man, the notion of walking around as a coiffed, waxed, nail-polish wearing, lispy dude is uproariously absurd. As people, we find absurdities funny. That’s our first step in making sense of them.

For example: If right now a duck were to walk into your room wearing pajamas, you’d most likely laugh… Because in your mind, there is no place in the natural world where ducks are seen wearing pajamas. The same applies to blatantly gay men in rhinestone tank-tops and hot-pants. Nowhere in the straight man’s natural realm does that occur, and so the absurdity of it is funny.

Now I’m completely aware that not all gay people are “flamers,” but there are some who are. Just as Ned Flanders is a funny stereotype not representative of all Christians, the same can be said for “Bruno.”

Do you folks honestly believe that a “gay joke” automatically registers the joke-teller under the “homophobic” category? I say that instead of dealing with our differences through fear (i.e. tip toeing around the issue and handling it with care-knit gloves), we should allow ourselves to find the humor in everybody’s individuality. “Humor not hatred,” is what I always say.

Now before you go and get on your high horse and start acting all offended, please take into consideration… even Sean Penn has probably told a few “no-homo” jokes in his day. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.