As a general rule, I try to leave the house as little as possible.
Continuously enabling me in this endeavour—no, lifestyle— is the fact that I am a second year law student. One of the greatest things about being a 2L is that I have even less occasion to leave the house than when I was a 1L.
Some find this surprising given that 1L was more work and therefore required more time spent at home. However, the discordance can be explained by the fact that I was often forced to venture out—with increasing frequency as first year wore on—in search of my will to live.
In my humble experience, reaching second year is not so much a curricular milestone as a right of passage measured by degrees of personal apathy. I didn’t become a true 2L until the moment I embraced the impermanence of all things, recognized my oneness with the universe, and began actively looking forward to my own death (though having finally passed Property, vowing not to do so until testate to avoid escheat).
Suffice to say, it takes a lot to get me to leave the house these days.
(I recognize this claim is a somewhat discrediting way to begin a review (“Trust me; I never go anywhere!”), but if you think about it, it really only heightens the persuasiveness of my recommendation because I would not venture forth unless an event was unmissable.)
Such was the allure of Alok Vaid-Menon’s recent comedy show, Hairy Situation, performed one-night-only at the Danforth Music Hall.
It’s difficult to describe Alok (fittingly, pronounced to rhyme with “joke”). On paper, they are a gender non-conforming Indian-American author, poet, comedian, actor, public speaker, and style icon whose activism extends to de-gendering fashion.
You may recognize them from their appearance in Jonathan van Ness’ (yes, that’s the Queer Eye guy with the best hair…which is saying something) Netflix series Getting Curious. Alok also appeared in Hannah Gadsby’s Netflix comedy special Gender Agenda—the first of its kind to bring together exclusively genderqueer comedians.
Alongside their chapbooks Femme in Public and your wound / my garden, their first book Beyond the Gender Binary serves as a 63-page autobiographical political manifesto that you should absolutely read instead of whatever’s been assigned for your next seminar.
But to describe Alok based on what they do is reductive, as both their persona and body of work is all about challenging, nay, transcending, constrained understandings of identity and, well, bodies.
As I pull up to the theatre, it becomes apparent that Alok’s evasion of conventional definition extends to their audience as well: the crowd is even more diverse than a York brochure (although way, way more gay).
In a perfect world, I would arrive in an outfit so fabulous that it changes the lives of all who behold it and instantly nets me an invite to next year’s Met Gala. In reality, I arrive underdressed after a hectic day at clinic, where I spent most of my time overwhelmed by crippling imposter syndrome for a job I technically pay to do.
Rushing to the bathroom before the show starts, I excavate the linty caverns of my purse to find a mostly dried-out silver eyeliner. I try my best to channel Euphoria but am concerned that I mostly end up looking like Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman from The Hunger Games.
Yet, as the lights dim and the audience hushes, my superficial fretting fades.
Alok appears clad in classic leather docs, checkered mini skirt, and flowy blouse.
They begin by clarifying that they are not the Brazilian DJ of the same name (“I keep getting complaint emails after my show from people who came expecting EDM but who got EDI. I just want you all to know: I’m disappointed too!”)
Alok sets the tone for the show by acknowledging how our polarised zeitgeist leaves them uncertain if individuals who approach them are fans seeking a selfie and autograph—or transphobes wanting to punch them in the face.
It’s the first of several reminders of the dark realities faced by the trans and gender-nonconforming community that appear throughout the show. Other reminders include the fact that more Americans claim to have met a ghost than a trans person and that a school district in Florida banned the dictionary because it included descriptions of “sexual conduct.”
Yet the power of Hairy Situation rests with Alok’s refusal to dwell on the tragedies which often characterize popular trans and queer stories, instead embracing comedy as an act of resistance.
“I think we can do more with funny than with sad,” they hypothesize. The rest of the show is proof of that hypothesis.
Importantly, it’s a show which demonstrates the healthy difference between safety and accountability. White allies are not rewarded merely for attending – nor should they be, much to the chagrin of the boomers in the audience who clearly attended expecting Woke Parent Points.
“My family is from a region in South India called Delulu. To all the white people on Google Maps right now: Delulu is not a place you can visit and then take. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.”
Alok is also unafraid to play with the contradictions between sexuality and gender: “No cis man will make eye contact with another in the men’s washroom, and thus, homophobia protects me from transphobia.”
Neither are they afraid to acknowledge the internalized tensions of defying gender stereotypes: “I hated myself long before transphobes even knew I was a thing! It’s like…why can’t we all just get along?”
Like the comic themself, Alok’s material is contradictory, subverting expectations of the norms we apply not only to conceptions of the self but also to mainstream comedy. What follows is a conflagration of beauty, pain, laughter, struggle, affirmation, self-deprecation and appreciation, truth, and above all, queer joy.
Ultimately, I can offer no higher tribute than this: Alok’s Hairy Situation is the kind of comedy show where one leaves a better ally, thinker, and human being. Even factoring the hit to my participation mark, Alok’s Hairy Situation was completely worth skipping class.