New York stand-up comic, writer, and actor Jes Tom follows a sell-out Off-Broadway run of their acclaimed solo show Less Lonely (presented by their friend Elliot Page) with a hilarious set as part of a lineup of seven genderqueer comedians in Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda. The comedy special, which was shot at London’s iconic Alexandra Palace last year, launched on Netflix this week.
Named by Vulture as a “Comedian You Should and Will Know” back in 2021, Jes was selected as a New Face at the Just For Laughs Festival that same year. Their writing has seen them work as a story editor on Max’s Our Flag Means Death, while their performing credits include the Hulu feature Crush, Max’s Love Life, Adult Swim’s Tuca & Bertie, and their own digital series Dear Jes for Netflix’s Most.
With Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda now streaming on Netflix, Jes Tom spoke exclusively with The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann about being part of the special, how they got started in stand-up, their approach to comedy, their Our Flag Means Death experience, their love for Margaret Cho, and favourite queer culture.
James Kleinmann, The Queer Review: when did you first realize that you had the ability to make people laugh and how did that manifest itself?
Jes Tom: “This feels cliché to say, but I’ve always been a class clown. I was always trying to make my friends laugh and cracking jokes in the middle of class. I was always putting on little skits with my sibling for our family. It’s what I’ve always been doing. It’s a coping mechanism for my whole life.”
How about stand-up, when did that come in and what was the draw?
“I was always a performer. I was a high school theatre kid and I did improv in college. I was queer and gender nonconforming from a really young age, since I was 14. When I was acting in high school plays I’d be like, ‘I love this, but I don’t think there’s a future for me here because I’m different’. At the time, it didn’t seem at all realistic that I could ever act professionally so I was always looking out for other performance outlets. I was watching Margaret Cho and Wanda Sykes on YouTube, when YouTube first came out. Then when I moved to New York, I was like, I could pursue acting, improv, or stand-up, and stand-up is the only one that you can start doing without joining a cult. So I started stand-up and fortunately it’s also the one that comes most natural to me, and the rest is history.”
It’s interesting that stand-up doesn’t involve as many different elements as putting on a play for instance. You just need to find a venue and a time slot and obviously have your material and be prepared.
“Oh, yeah, stand-up is wild and free. There is no infrastructure supporting us. There is no union. I was saying during the strikes that stand-up comedians are always working because we have no gods, no institutions, and no dignity. We’re just free-falling. Anytime somebody wants to try stand-up they can start, for better or worse.”
Was it largely in Brooklyn where you got your start in stand-up and honed your skills?
“I live in Brooklyn currently and people have identified me as a Brooklyn comedian because there’s a huge queer scene in Brooklyn now, but I don’t identify that way. I’m a New York comic. I lived in Queens originally and I’ve done comedy in all five boroughs before there was this scene in Brooklyn that there is now.”
Being in New York, I guess that gives you a wealth of places to perform in across the five boroughs.
“Yeah, lots of different reactions and lots of different types of people.”
You mentioned Wanda Sykes and Margaret Cho, would you cite them as your comedy heroes and inspirations?
“Totally. Margaret Cho especially. She’s a queer Asian American woman from San Francisco. I’m from San Francisco too so I grew up watching her. I never had this moment that a lot of marginalized people speak about that’s like, ‘I never saw myself on TV, so I never knew that I could do this’. I didn’t have that because I’d watch Margaret Cho and be like, ‘Oh, there are people doing this’. So I was kind of emboldened in almost a delusional way. I was like, ‘Oh, there’s a ton of queer people of colour doing stand up comedy who are very successful’. It wasn’t until I started doing it myself that I was like, ‘Oh, I was pulling from a very small sample size and that is not actually the reality of the industry’.”
Delusions can serve us and empower us in a good way sometimes!
“Yeah, delusion is the gas that keeps us going.”
How would you describe your approach to comedy?
“I am your new queer best frenemy. I am here to talk about some stuff that you’ve maybe never heard of before, but everything’s going to be fine. We’re just going to sit down and talk about it and it’s going to be very chill. You might learn some things, you might get kind of turned on. I can’t be responsible for any of that. That’s my comedy.”
How about more specifically when it comes to talking about gender and sexuality, what’s your approach there?
“As a queer and trans stand-up comic, I get asked a lot about talking about gender and identity on stage, but I would argue that any comic is always talking about gender and identity on stage. A straight white man comic who humps a stool or talks about going on a date with a girl, that’s talking about gender and sexuality. But mine is a little bit different so people notice it more. I’m a very classic setup/punchline stand-up comic. I think I’m doing essentially the same thing as what most other stand-up comics are doing, but my experience is a little different.”
What was your reaction when you were invited to be part of Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda comedy special?
“Oh, I was so excited. I love Hannah Gadsby. Like I said, when I got my start there wasn’t a huge queer stand-up comedy scene at that time. I would be going back and forth between straight comedy clubs and queer spaces—drag shows, cabaret shows, poetry readings, downtown theatre—and I’d be doing stand-up there. Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette in 2018 was the first time I saw a stand-up special where I was like, ‘Oh, that seems like it could have come out of my experience’, straddling this line between mainstream stand-up comedy and the queer art of storytelling. So Hannah is huge for me and it’s a huge honour to have been selected to take part in this special.”
What was it like being part of that lineup of seven gender queer comedians?
“We were a cohort, it was really sweet. Quite often, when you do these things, you don’t actually get as much time with everybody so I feel really grateful that we got to spend a week together. We became like a little team. One of the beautiful things about this special is that we’re so diverse in every single way. We’re from different places, we span a whole range of ages, different life experiences, different ways of approaching stand-up comedy, and different career trajectories. We were really cheering each other on and honing in on our acts and growing and helping each other out over the course of that week. It was awesome.”
What kind of reactions do you tend to get from folks you speak to you after a comedy show?
“It’s changed so much over time, which is really wild. I’ve been doing comedy about being nonbinary, about being trans, about going by they pronouns, since I started in 2012. Back then, I remember one time a guy came up to me after I was talking about pronouns and was like, ‘Is that they thing real or did you make that up for the stage?’ I was like, ‘Wow, that would be such a way to make my life more complicated if I had just made that up!’ Now it’s a whole different world and the conversation around everything about that has changed so much. Now, something I love is that I get a lot of parents of trans kids who come to the show, and sometimes even the trans kids don’t know who I am, it’s the parents who came to see me because they wanted to learn more and to support their kid. I think that’s amazing.”
I’ve been seeing some great reactions to Hannah Gadsby’s Gender, like people who’ve already watched it multiple times in the first few days that it’s been streaming on Netflix.
“People are so hungry for this sort of content. People want to laugh and they want to have fun. Especially queer people who have historically been made fun of by stand-up comedy. We actually do love the craft and we want to laugh and I think that shows that.”
Our Flag Means Death has a very active, passionate, and vocal fan base, what was it like to be in the writers’ room on that show?
“Being part of Our Flag Means Death was awesome. The writers’ room of that show was also extremely diverse. The writers rotated in and out, so it was a little different every time, but there were multiple nonbinary people of colour in the writers’ room. Again, it was all different ages, different ethnic backgrounds, different genders too, within the nonbinary umbrella, which is so rare, and I think that diversity of point of view shows through on the show and obviously people really connected to it a lot. When I started working on it, we were still in pre-production for season one so we had no idea how the show was going to hit. To see how popular it became really goes to show that people are hungry for these kinds of shows and this kind of comedy.”
One last question for you, what’s your favorite 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?
“I want to say something relevant right now, Oh, Mary! running Off-Broadway in New York in which Cole Escola—a nonbinary character actor and comedian—plays Mary Todd Lincoln. It’s an amazing play. If anybody is in New York and has the opportunity to see it you can’t miss it.”
“There are so many things that are in my psyche. I also want to mention the movie Bound from 1996 by the Wachowski sisters. Before they were the Wachowski sisters they made the greatest lesbians versus the mob movie of all time. They weren’t living as women at that time, but it’s an incredible lesbian movie, and such a great argument for trans people always being their identity, no matter how they were living.”
“I always want to shout out Margaret Cho, who I have not gotten the opportunity to meet. She really planted the seed for me that I could be exactly who I am and do this craft, and now I do.”
By James Kleinmann
Hannah Gadsby’s Gender Agenda is now streaming globally on Netflix. Follow Jes Tom on Instagram @jesthekid and visit their official website.