Matteo Lane
For so long, comedy as an organized system of exhibition has done its queer male artists dirty. The ’80s heyday of comedy clubs built up careers and expectations for a space where knee-jerk homophobia held sway, and in response to that, you noticed queer audiences eschewing those kinds of situations for women’s voices — divas who hewed out a ribald, liberated and fun space where gay men as an audience could feel OK just having a good time. It was a legacy that started with Sandra Bernhard and Judy Tenuta and continues to this day with Kathy Griffin, Nicole Byer and Mae Martin.
And for some reason, for queer male comics, there was always this roadblock that the Dices and Kinisons (and lately, the Chappelles and Gervaises) laid down. But Matteo Lane has been breaking down those barriers with tenacity and elegance, as befits a polyglot who has worked in opera and as a visual artist.
Lane has a unique gift that goes beyond his ability to thread crowd work into a set that feels breezy and jazzy, yet understands the rewards of structure. He never pulls punches or sugarcoats the world he details, but he is relatable to an extent that seems like it should be at odds with the earthy matter-of-factness with which he talks about gay stuff. All you need to do is check out his Hair Plugs and Heartache special from last year to see how he can demolish a crowd in this fashion — a diaphanous glove around an iron wrist.
For any artist, the modern world is a nonstop hustle. No one is allowed to be just one thing, so the entire taxonomy of the past in comedy that allowed entire careers to be built off of one attribute or perspective just doesn’t work anymore. Lane’s Instagram stories, his cooking videos, the I Never Liked You podcast he does with fellow comedian Nick Smith; they’ve all allowed him to use social media’s algorithms to get his work out there and into the most unexpected of spaces. With the way the internet works, lots of people can luck into attention — for a little bit. But the way Lane has expanded his footprint, building a career out of every kind of audience, is indicative of the kind of adaptivity that anyone who enjoys the comic arts loves to see, furthering the reach, expanding the grasp.
