Gay comedian Mark Davis has a glowing resume. Having worked with both Margaret Cho and Sandra Bernhard, Davis also appeared on an NBC sitcom and was featured on both of Comedy Central's Out There shows. Davis, who counts Robin Williams and fellow gay comedian Bob Smith among his supporters, is appearing with Suzanne Westenhoefer and Kate Clinton at the 4th annual Laughing Out Loud event, sponsored by HRC.
Gregg Shapiro: As someone who makes other people laugh, I was wondering what it is that makes you laugh right now?
Mark Davis: The new episodes of Absolutely Fabulous. A friend of mine downloaded them for me. I sort of got a hold of them early and I've been watching all of them and laughing every day (laughs).
GS: What would you say isn't funny now?
MD: Ugh! The news and anything about George Bush.
GS: Speaking of George Bush, have the preparations for the 2004 election provided you with a wealth of material?
MD: Ever since Bush went into office I really have had a hard time addressing it comically, because it's so not funny. When Clinton was in office—I liked him and he had these ridiculous peccadilloes that were harmless to poke fun at. Who cares who's having sex with whom? Actually, I was thinking of a good Laura Bush bit today. I thought it would be fun to do a commercial with her talking about being married to Satan and what it was like.
GS: In your solo show, there are a variety of character sketches including an alcoholic kindergarten teacher, a Tower Records chick, a New York DJ, a French flight attendant, a Scottish phone sex operator, and Gollum from Lord of the Rings as a conflicted homosexual …
MD: … Bob Smith loves that one. He always has me do it for people.
GS: How did you go about crafting these characters?
MD: You travel with a gay vacation company for 10 or 15 years and you go around the world and it's really not very hard. They just pop up in front of you sometimes. I'll see people, and I'll be like, 'Oh, my God. I have to do that.' (laughs)
GS: Did any of these characters just invent themselves on their own?
MD: Well, the French flight attendant actually came out of this journal that I kept when I was 21. I read it 15 years later and (I realized that) I was so over-dramatic when I was 21. I was like, 'Oh, my God! What a drama queen.' It wound up being the source material for this Catherine Deneuve-like character that is so over the top. (In a French accent) 'I love them all!'
GS: When you come to Chicago to perform in the HRC event, will your act be more stand-up or will you be able to incorporate the characters into it?
MD: I'm doing 20-minute opening spots for both Suzanne Westenhoefer and Kate Clinton. It's going to be a pretty tight set. I can do mini-versions and voices in that amount of time. There will be a lot of voices and jokes. It's going to be more of a tighter stand-up set than the extended character show.
GS: As someone who was a visible gay presence on television beginning in the early 1990s, what do you think of the current crop of shows including Will & Grace, Queer As Folk, The L Word and Queer Eye For The Straight Guy?
MD: There's such a danger of sounding like a curmudgeon with this question. Reality TV doesn't entertain me, to start with and most sitcoms don't entertain me. It's sort of like a double whammy. I'm saying this as someone who did it—there are these dreadful swish and fetch characters. I sort of got caught up in that for five minutes when I was doing Fired Up for NBC. I understand why actors have to do it. I can give you a generic example. I know someone who played a two-line, screaming, volatile, vile queen in a major motion picture. He did it because he had to get his SAG points for his health insurance. It's a dreadful situation where there are people living in this town in a terrible spot. I don't like to be judgmental or hard on them. On the other hand, there are people in great situations that choose to do that anyway. For me, I'm a reformed swish and fetch.
GS: Having done some sitcom work in the late 1990s, would you like to make a return to that?
MD: The bottom line is that most stuff on TV doesn't make me laugh. Sitcoms are dead, as far as I'm concerned. American television hasn't done a sitcom that made me laugh since Roseanne. Although I do laugh at Malcolm In The Middle. But so few of them are funny to start with.
GS: Not funny in the same way that AbFab is, right?
MD: Right. You're looking at a format where, instead of committee writing, you have one strong writer's vision and you have the best cast of all time and the balls to cover anything. It's impossible to do in Hollywood.
GS: So, the death of the sitcom aside, if someone came to you with a funny and original series, would do it?
MD: Assuming that that ever happens (laughs) … . Sure, if somebody had a great sitcom part for me that I wanted to do, yeah, I'd do it. I need to buy a house, for God's sake (laughs).
GS: You also write the 'Dear Dick' column in Unzipped. Is it another outlet for you to express yourself?
MD: That's fun because it's the most uncensored thing anybody let's me do right now. Even they, occasionally, have to come and say to me, 'You can't say that.' (laughs)
