What’s So Funny About Being Gay?
Times have changed, but homophobic comedy was always dumb and dangerous.
Is this where Kevin Hart got the idea for his old jokes about having a gay son, the ones that ultimately would lead to his giving up his dream gig as host of the 2019 Oscars? Did he watch this and figure that tweeting about beating the gay out of your son is comedy gold?
Those were the questions running through my head about seven minutes and 45 seconds into “Lamont, Is That You?” — the episode of the classic seventies sitcom Sanford and Son that originally aired on October 19, 1973. I stumbled upon it during a recent Sanford and Son marathon on YouTube.
In “Lamont,” Fred G. Sanford, the junkman played by Redd Foxx — a stand-up-turned-sitcom star who influenced future generations of black comedians, including Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx, and Hart — has found out that his son Lamont was spotted going into a bar called The Gay Blade.
The scene that got me wondering was the one in which Sanford consults with the family physician, Dr. Caldwell, to get an official diagnosis that Lamont is gay. When the doctor tells him that no-one has ever died from being homosexual, Sanford makes a punching movement with his fist and says, “Well, he’ll be the first one when I find out.”
