Benny Drama
How comedy helped Benito Skinner come out.
“Literally, the homophobia. I can’t.” Benito Skinner is sat in a park in downtown Los Angeles when he’s asked to get up from a bench and sit elsewhere. “Let me move as I’m telling my story of being in the closet,” he jests as a man can be heard in the background telling him to leave. It’s proof that even when he’s not in makeup and a wig parodying Kim Kardashian on his social media platforms, his quick wit is present in everything he does. “I’m in downtown LA and it is a scene,” he tells us down the phone.
Benito – or as you most likely know him by, Benny Drama – is at the forefront of a new wave of queer comedians breaking the internet daily with their cleverly edited, perfectly contained, LOL-inducing brand of observational comedy. If you’ve not seen the video that propelled Benny to internet fame yet, you need to seek it out immediately. It includes Antoni Porowski’s signature Canadian twang with a lisp, Tan France’s obsession with “printed shirts” and Jonathan Van Ness’s “So, like, Ron is basically this little baby caterpillar, he is crawling up the tree ready to just get in his little cocoon and pop out. Metamorphosis! Hilary Duff! Yes! Hello! OK hunny!” Uncanny and on-the-head only just begin to describe how brilliant his parody of Queer Eye is. “They are all super sweet about the video,” Benny laughs when I ask how the Queer Eye guys responded to the clip. “They did not take it personally, which is definitely the goal.” And that’s the key to Benny Drama; the parodies, the humour, and the razor-focussed ability to play on the most subtle detail comes from a place of warmth and respect. “I’ve never done a parody or an impression of somebody that I don’t love,” he says. “I hope people feel that. It’s supposed to be all in good fun. I’m not trying to attack anybody’s character.”
That certainly shone through when he uploaded a crossover parody of Kim Kardashian West and Legally Blonde following the news that the reality star and business mogul had enrolled at law school. Benny even took on the role of Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner for the clip, which was then shared by Khloe Kardashian across her own social channels. Being a Kardashian stan, Benny was floored. “I called my boyfriend immediately and we were just freaking out,” he recalls. “I think in my head the internet is so strange because obviously she has seen that video, she has seen me in drag as Kim and Kris. I can’t wrap my mind around that because that’s too much. I went fully fucking nuts when I found that out. If Kim’s sibling thinks it’s funny and she’s obviously close to Kim, then I did my job if she can laugh at it.”
On the whole, Benny’s audience understand and appreciate the place his humour is coming from. But when he uploads parodies of a certain pop girl with a very passionate following, the intention can sometimes be misconstrued. “A few of the Lana Del Rey stans have been coming for me lately and like, I promise you, I posted Video Games on my Tumblr before you were even born,” he laughs. “So do not come for me! She is my mom and this is from somebody who clearly consumes all of the content, and I don’t consume content that I’m not invested in and have a lot of love for.”
But aside from all of the uncanny and exa¡erated pop-culture impressions, Benny’s comedy strikes a deeper chord with queer viewers. One of his most popular recent videos – Live Footage Of Me In The Closet – poked fun at his former self in high school circa 2010, pretending he is going to see Katy Perry in concert because “she is so sexy,” then secretly searching for ‘Daniel Radcliffe Equus’ on Google in his bedroom, all the while insisting that he is “not gay”. We’re pretty sure those are scenes that will make quite a few of you out there feel seen.
“I had that video idea for a long time,” he explains. “I kind of sat with it. You never know if maybe you’re in your own internet bubble because we are served ads for things that the powers that be know we’ll love. My Explore page is literally all RuPaul queens and Lana Del Rey, so at a certain point I’m like, ‘I don’t know if everyone is going to know exactly what I’m touching upon with this.’ When I filmed it and loved it so much, there were a few things I added later on like the Bad Romance part because I love the choreo, and then we added in that Google montage moment. I loved it so much because it felt like a lot of queer people were connecting with it in a way that we could all look at this seemingly traumatic experience we all had growing up if we were closeted, and we can all laugh at that and cringe at the same time. It is kind of unwatchable for me because it’s so what I did. It’s this idea of overcompensating and me saying that I thought Katy Perry was sexy and that’s why I was going to her concert. I can’t believe I said this shit!”
But as Benny rightfully acknowledges, it’s “the power of comedy to be able to laugh at that.” For so long queer people have been the punchline, the camp flick of a wrist, or a ‘Hello sailor!’ wink used to compound stereotypes and appeal to a largely heterosexual audience. Here, Benny is using a lived queer experience to create comedy first and foremost for queer people. We can see ourselves in it and laugh at our experiences, rather than being laughed at.
The real power in this new brand of comedy, however, is helping queer people process and heal from past trauma they may have endured during the coming out journey. Growing up in a straight man’s world isn’t easy – and unfortunately, Benny’s coming out experience isn’t uncommon. His family are – and always have been – supportive. That wasn’t necessarily the problem. When he was younger he’d be fascinated by strong female characters in movies, he’d do recitals of Britney Spears’s Oops... I Did It Again for his family, and even his Godmother encouraged him to perform and wear wigs. “I’m sure there were suspicions at the time,” he laughs. But it was within those first years of school that it started to become tough. “I remember it was second grade and you start to hear the word ‘fa¡ot’ and you start to shut down all of those things that would associate you with that label, which at the time sounded so terrifying and bad,” he tells us. “I went to a Catholic school so that was thrown in on top of it. I was in a largely Red State – Idaho – so yeah, it was all the things in school.
I was just like, ‘OK I’m just going to completely pretend all of this isn’t a thing. That I’m not gay. That I don’t love doing these things. That I’m not this very outgoing extroverted person.’”
This internalised shame resulted in Benny shutting off that side of his truth, denying himself the freedom to live authentically throughout his formative years. He threw himself into his studies, he played football, and got himself straight As and accepted into one of the US’s most prestigious colleges, Georgetown University. But once he got to college, he was still struling to accept his identity. “I was so sad and confused,” he admits. “I had these super supportive friends, a great family, and I was just truly so lost.”
While at Georgetown he studied drama and film, which led him to start writing sketches and cultivate his innate talent for comedy. This helped him open up and start to come out to a few friends. “It just completely changed,” he says. “A lot of it I owe to comedy. And truly, I think I started to love my queer identity through comedy. The second I put on the wig and I was Hayley, I started to love all sides of me; masculine, feminine, everything. It just poured out of me at that point. You’re taught these things in a lot of ways, they weigh on you for so long, and you can only let them weigh on you until you realise that you have to live your life because there’s no way to do that but with an authentic one. Once I realised that I was ready to go. I was ready to go on tour! But you still catch yourself at times. I’m like, ‘No, that’s not the way I think of myself anymore.’ The feminine sides of me are so special, and I find in a lot of ways I love them more than things that are identifiable as masculine.”
Of course, as queer people we also know that while coming out is a huge weight lifted, in many ways, it’s only the beginning of a much bier journey. “Years of feeling uncomfortable weren’t going to snap away in a day,” agrees Benny. “Also, coming out, a lot of time in media it’s one scene with a queer person and their parents, they come out, they cry and it’s done. It’s a process though. It’s a process with the relationship you have with other people, but also the relationship you have with yourself and trying to figure that out. And finally seeing that this thing you thought was so sad is actually maybe the best part about you, and will maybe make your life so special.”
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Benny got hard to work producing sketches and characters, creating outrageous and hilarious personas that began to capture an online audience. If he wasn’t lovingly parodying a pop girl, he was meeting fan demand for the next instalment of his hugely popular astrology dating series. Through all of this, comedy played a significant role in helping Benny dismantle any internalised shame he had about being gay. In turn, his comedy now has the potential to help others come to terms with their own inner strules. What social media has done for comedy is open it up to a much needed diverse range of people. “So many more people have a voice now and are able to use it and showcase their talent,” says Benny. “They can be like, ‘If you’re not going to feature me in my own stand-up special, I can just post it on the internet. If I can’t get this one role I wanted in a movie, then I can just write my own little character here, or take it to somewhere else.’ I think the internet has given so many people who desperately needed voices a voice.
“That’s why I think comedy is so special right now,” he continues. “I feel like it’s changing, and as all these people keep complaining that it’s being repressed by ‘woke’ culture, I don’t think it has at all. I think in a lot of ways so many more people have been able to enter the space than ever before, and if your comedy is rooted in racism and bigotry, you’re not a comic. You’re a racist and a bigot. I follow such a range of comedians and I feel very lucky to be a part of a community that is getting more and more queer, and more and more diverse. There’s so much beauty in seeing a comedian that you truly are nothing alike, that you come from different places, or identify as different things, but that you can still laugh at our experience as human beings.”
Benny has proven that there is such an appetite for what he and others like him are doing not only on the internet but in theatres all over the world. This year has seen him play headline shows across the United States, Canada and in the UK. Benito Skinner Presents Overcompensating explores the idea of breaking free of queer suppression in a live setting, whilst at the same time bringing all of his characters to life on stage. If you like your Albus Dumbledore “very queer” then skip over Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and see this show instead. “For three years I just spent the time writing sketches and editing videos holed up in a coffee shop, so it’s been nice to actually feel real laughter,” Benny says. “It’s been creatively stimulating and also just, like, so much fun to go to these cities and seeing that these videos that you’re putting out there are connecting with people.” The gag is that Benny now gets a little taste of the life all of his favourite pop girls enjoy. “It’s hilarious to me that there are meet and greets,” he laughs. “I love it. It’s so fun.”
It’s why we couldn’t be more excited to announce that Benny Drama will be the host of Gay Times Honours this year, when it returns for our biest celebration yet in London on 21 November. He tells us that he’s already working on his opening monologue, and we’re preparing ourselves for a costume (or wig) change or two. Gay Times Honours is about celebrating trailblazers who have had a profound impact on the lives of LGBTQ people and that’s why for us, Benny and his comedy is perfect for this momentous occasion packed full of queer entertainment.
If there’s one thing Benny wants young queer kids to take away from his content, it’s to realise it’s okay to be “strange and weird and feel good about it”. He will continue to poke fun of his former inner conflict and use comedy as a way to inspire a new generation in the hopes they will avoid a similar experience. “I always say that I want someone to come to my page and not feel the pressure of some of the perfection that we see on the internet,” he adds. “I want them to feel like, ‘Okay, maybe I can put that lipstick on that I thought I couldn’t.’ That they can be extra and stop thinking of that as a negative thing.” That’s a world view I think we can all agree on.
“I STARTED TO LOVE MY QUEER IDENTITY THROUGH COMEDY. THE SECOND I PUT ON THE WIG AND I WAS HAYLEY, I STARTED TO LOVE ALL SIDES OF ME MASCULINE, FEMININE, EVERYTHING. IT JUST POURED OUT OF ME AT THAT POINT. ”