Pop Culture Fix: Cameron Esposito’s “Rape Jokes” Has Already Changed the Comedy Game

Do yourself a favor and read this brilliant interview with Kiersey Clemons and Sasha Lane by Tre’vell Anderson over at the Los Angeles Times. It’s about Hearts Beat Loud but also it’s about gender and sexuality and moving through the industry as a person of color and also Lena Waithe.

Here’s some great news: Vida has been renewed for season two!

This Is Lena Waithe’s World and We’re Just Living In It, is a true thing E! has proclaimed. Also BET kicked off their 12 Days of Pride with a tribute to Lena, too!

Cameron Esposito’s new comedy special, Rape Jokes, is taking the internet by storm. The reviews are in and they very good. The Daily Beast called it the first great stand-up set of the #MeToo era. The A.V. Club says it offers humor and empathy at a time when they’re most needed. Mother Jones says she turns the lowest form of comedy into something groundbreaking. The special has only been available for two days and it has already changed the comedy game.

Laverne Cox has joined the documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen as executive producer.

The A.V. Club invites you to celebrate Pride with 20 LGBTQ romances that don’t end tragically.

Shonda Rhimes is opening up for the first time about why she left ABC to join Netflix.

Alia Shawkat chatted with Broadly about that now infamous NYT Arrested Development interview that ended with Jessica Walters in tears.

From your beloved Carmen Phillips: This is a good article about that trend in late ’80s/’90s movies where the lesbian girlfriends from the book became platonic best friends in the movies (looking at you The Color Purple, looking at you Fried Green Tomatoes).

The women of Ocean’s 8 beat the dudes of the other Ocean’s movies at the box office!

If you’re one of the people who hate me and loved Anne With an E, here’s a season two trailer for you.

Amazon still has no idea what it’s going to do with Transparent now that Jeffrey Tambor has been ousted.

The full trailer for G.L.O.W.‘s second season is here.

The Fosters spin-off is filling out its cast.

Jamie Clayton loved that Sense8 finale wedding as much as you did.

From The Guardian: ‘The world of comedy has changed’: how queer comics are making their mark in America.

Well and here’s a new credit sequence for the OITNB now that it’s moving on from Litchfield.

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1718 articles for us.

10 Comments

  1. The trailer for GLOW doesn’t look NEARLY gay enough, but other than that OH MY GOD IT LOOKS EVEN BETTER THAN THE FIRST SEASON AND I AM SO EXCITED!!!!

    • Something that both scares me and makes me revel in the timeliness of it is that it looks like GLOW gets canceled because Ruth won’t sleep with some slimy TV exec.

      • After how the show handled Ruth’s abortion last season, I have the utmost trust that they’ll handle that properly as well.

    • Saw the final version of this at Sony’s E3 press conference and I am so excited for The Last Of Us: Part II and that Ellie’s queerness is going from an optional DLC in TLOU to the main story of TLOU2!!!

    • Between The Last of US II and the Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey reveal that you can play as a woman and make her gay, this had to be my favorite E3 in YEARS.

  2. I think I’m gonna watch Rape Jokes tomorrow. I really, really like the way she’s chosen to release it, and the fact that she’s put so much thought into how accessible it is, kept it really low budget, and thought really carefully about where the money’s going makes me really trust her with this topic. Sometimes even with humour from a survivor standpoint, it can feel a little bit unsafe with trauma/trigger type stuff, but I’m really excited to see this because it makes so much sense to recenter who we listen to when we talk about rape culture. Like, who are we letting control that narrative? What if that shifts? Isn’t that so cool!

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