Portland, Oregon based stand-up comedian Mx. Dahlia Belle is one of the standout performers in an extraordinary lineup of seven hilarious genderqueer comics in Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda, curated and hosted by Gadsby, filmed in front of a live audience at London’s iconic Alexandra Palace last year. In October 2021, Belle wrote an open letter published in The Guardian to one of the comedy heroes of her youth entitled, “Dear Dave Chappelle, Transgender Comedians Can Take A Joke, But Why Are Yours So Unfunny?” Later that same month, she was named as one of “11 Trans Comedians Funnier Than Dave Chappelle” by Out Magazine. When she isn’t performing in Portland, where she started the Portland Queer Comedy Festival, she can be found running stand-up comedy classes in Vancouver.
With Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda now streaming globally on Netflix, Mx. Dahlia Belle speaks exclusively with The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann about being part of the special, her approach to comedy, and her favourite LGBTQ+ culture. Belle is also a busy cat mom. She has four and of them, including the adorably named Kibibi Kamaria Ngozi, who made a cameo during our conversation.
James Kleinmann, The Queer Review: congratulations on your set in this special, it had me howling with laughter. When did you first realized that you have the ability to make people laugh and how did that manifest itself?
Mx. Dahlia Belle: “I first realized that I can make myself laugh as a means of overcoming depression and anxiety by coming up with the most flippant and irreverent ways of dealing with my life, so I figured that I may as well share it with others.”
Well, I think making ourselves laugh is underrated! What was it that initially drew you to stand-up?
“I’m an elder millennial, so I was a teenager of the 90s and grew up on Comedy Central and HBO comedy specials. I think everyone in my generation secretly wanted to either be a punk rocker or a stand-up comic. I’ve gotten to do both, so I’m winning!”
Did your experience as a musician help when you started doing stand-up in terms of already being comfortable on stage?
“Yes, certainly. I’ve actually been on stage my entire life. I started in children’s theatre, then continued doing theatre and music throughout my youth, and then music as an adult. So being on stage is where I’m normal.”
You live in Portland, Oregon, what was it like as a place to hone your craft in doing stand-up comedy?
“Portland is one of the best places because there is ample stage time here. I always talk to people in LA who’ll say, ‘I haven’t gotten a chance to get on stage in a month’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what that means!’ We can very easily get on stage three to five times a night here. When I first moved here at least, Portland was a very blue-collar kind of small town pretending to be a big city, so it’s cheap. It’s much easier to survive without a real job here, so that helps.”
How would you describe your approach to comedy?
“I usually just ruminate on random things until they’re funny to me. So if I’m feeling awkward about something, or I noticed something is a little off in a situation—especially if it makes me uncomfortable—then I like to really obsess about it until it amuses me.”
How about your approach to talking about gender and sexuality in your comedy?
“I don’t necessarily specialize in comedy about gender or sexuality. I talk about all sorts of topics. I am a much more interesting person than just my gender and sexuality. Those things are going to come up because it is part of the human experience. Straight comics talk about their weird straight people sex all the time but it’s not considered a political statement when they do it.”
Or niche comedy.
“Exactly!”
You have said that being a stand-up comedian is about being unapologetically your authentic self. How did you come to that realization?
“Like I said, I’m a kid of the 90s, so the first time I hit the stage in Portland, I tried to replicate what I had seen on TV a thousand times, but that doesn’t fly here. There was definitely some pushback. One of the harshest criticisms that I ever got was, ‘I’m so impressed you memorized all that’. That was the entire critique. So I learned pretty quickly that I needed to be a little more honest and open.”
That’s also what makes every comedian’s material unique.
“Absolutely, it’s also ultimately how we find our fan bases. We’re speaking to our specific fan bases’ experiences and insecurities and concerns that we just happen to share in common.”
[A cat enters the Zoom frame] We’ve got a kitty joining us…
“Yes, I have four of them! This is Kibibi Kamaria Ngozi . She’s our eldest.” [Cat leaves Zoom frame].
What was your reaction when you were invited to be part of Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda?
“Oh, I immediately wet myself! What do you do when you get an email saying that Hannah Gadsby wants to work with you?! If any big-name comic were to reach out to me it would be exciting—I would be thrilled, I would be honoured, obviously—but to have it be Hannah Gadsby of all people, I was definitely taken aback and very, very pleased. I couldn’t think of a better fit for my global debut.”
What was it like being part of this lineup of genderqueer comedians curated by Hannah?
“It was absolutely phenomenal. It felt more like being with family than any time I’ve been with actual family members! It was fun. Everyone in the lineup, we’re very different comics, we’re very different people, with very different backgrounds, but for the week we spent together in London, it was like we had always known each other and we were just catching up. It was absolutely amazing. Hannah and Jenno [producer Jenney Shamash] made sure that everything was as comfortable for us as possible because they understand that we’re all a little neuro spicy! It was a beautiful experience.”
I loved Hannah’s opening, when they say “the last time Netflix brought this many trans people together was for a protest”. What are your thoughts on being on a platform where there are other specials with transphobic jokes, especially given that you wrote that open letter to Dave Chappelle in 2021?
“I definitely side with Hannah on this, that you have to enter the conversation. We have to pull our seat up to the table and also make our own table. I am a big fan of throwing the table over and just moving my own table in place. I’ve always been an outsider in whatever context I’m in. It doesn’t bother me to be on a platform that has material that’s opposed to my existence because I live in the United States. Wherever I go, whatever job I do, I’m going to be working with people who don’t like me or don’t want me to exist, so as long as I get to be the loudest voice in the room, I’m happy.”
When it comes to your material in the special, you riff on the word cisgender being thought of as a slur. What inspired you to talk about that in your set?
“The special was recorded last year and that was the whole online dialogue of the second half of 2023. Just a bunch of straight people thinking cisgender was our slur for them, which is hilarious to me. They have no idea what sort of terrible things I actually call them! So I figured that I may as well address it and let them know! In so many interviews that I’ve done, there are questions like, ‘Can trans people take a joke?’ ‘Why are trans people so sensitive?’ And so on and so forth. I have never met anyone as sensitive as a straight dude. They’ll cry over anything. It’s amazing.”
One final question for you, what’s your favourite piece of LGBTQ+ culture, or a person who identifies as LGBTQ+; someone or something that’s had an impact on you and resonated with you?
“Okay, so the correct answer is Angelica Ross. She is an absolute icon and idol. She’s very intelligent, always has her finger on the pulse of every important social issue and movement, and yet she also maintains this very upbeat and bright, sunny, welcoming presence, which I absolutely admire. My actual favourite part of LGBT culture are twinks in jockstraps in pride parades. That is the whole reason I became gay, personally. I was like, ‘Oh, yes, twinks in jockstraps, I’m here for it!”
By James Kleinmann
Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda is now streaming globally on Netflix. Follow Mx. Dahlia Belle on Instagram @mx.dahliabelle.