Here Comedy Presents Kate Clinton

Kate Clinton has spent decades turning feminism, lesbian life and the everyday absurdities of being a woman in America into sharp, good-natured comedy, and this Here TV special captures her in full stride. Filmed in 2005 and directed by Kerry Asmussen, the roughly eighty-five-minute set finds Clinton roaming from sexual politics to the small indignities of daily life with the timing of a veteran and the warmth of a favorite aunt who happens to be the funniest person in the room. Nothing is off limits, but nothing is mean-spirited either; her gift is to make an audience laugh at the things that used to frighten it. One of the best-known voices in lesbian stand-up, Clinton delivers a performance that doubles as a snapshot of queer comedy in the mid-2000s, back when saying the word lesbian on stage was itself a punchline and a provocation.