PEOPLE
Randy Rainbow
LOVE
for Helping Us Laugh through the Pain
Kathy Tu & Tobin Low for Spilling the T on All Things LGBTQ In April of this year, our community got a gift: an amazing podcast from NPR with two hosts who talk to each other and their listeners like you’d talk to a best friend over the phone. At the same time, they are creating a continuing wide-ranging conversation about sexual orientation and gender expression in a world where we still need safe spaces to talk about who we are, even as who we are is an increasingly fluid thing. They’re not afraid to take on their fears: Tu nervously headed off to Queer Camp (and ended up having a transformative experience); Low discussed his own body image issues with someone he long thought of as having a perfect body. They take on pop culture, from Dumbledore’s sexuality in the Harry Potter series to the relevance of The L Word for modern lesbian audiences. They explore what it means to exist somewhere in the middle of the gender spectrum, what it feels like to be out at work, and what voices in the community are being underrepresented. And they do it all with amazing grace and good humor — even as they navigate subject matter where the rules about how to respectfully address and refer to people seem to be in constant flux. If Kathy Tu and Tobin Low represent where LGBTQ media is headed, then we have plenty to look forward to.
46
DECEMBER 2017/JANUARY 2018
METROSOURCE.COM
THIS PAGE: RANDY RAINBOW PHOTO COURTESY THE ARTIST • HOSTS OF NANCY PHOTO COURTESY ALI GOLDSTEIN - HULU
Song parodies are nothing new. Nor is sketch comedy about politics. But nobody does it quite like Randy Rainbow. It’s hard to put a finger on what it is precisely that makes his work so special. Is it the clever way he twists news footage so that public figures appear to be impassively blinking as he asks them outrageous questions? Is it the way he’ll suddenly burst into the most perfectly chosen pop song or showtune with its lyrics twisted to affect a laser-focused critique of his target (often seemingly directly to their faces)? Is it his sudden transformations — changing as if by magic from conservative anchorman attire into a warehouse full of wigs and hats and cat-eye glasses? Whatever the ingredients, Rainbow’s YouTube videos took a huge turn with the 2016 Presidential Election — transitioning from light skewering of celebrities to blistering takedowns of Trump and company. Thus a Carrie Underwood hit became “Before He Tweets,” Kellyanne Conway spin met Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Broadway kitties in “Alternative Facts,” and the dire state of our international diplomacy got the Rodgers & Hammerstein treatment in “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea?” Throughout it all, Rainbow’s mellifluous voice, virtuosic timing and hilarious sass shine. Would somebody give this guy a TV show already?