At Least Denis Leary Got the Title of His New Special Right

If you've been reading AfterElton.com for more than three years, you should know that Denis Leary isn't exactly our favorite person. First there was the badly done bisexual storyline on Rescue Me. Then there was Leary's frequent use of the word "fag" including a chapter titled "Matt Dillon Is a Giant Fag" from his book Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid. Then there was his observation to a reporter that he'd rather shoot himself in the head than sleep with a man to save his life. (In fairness, how dumb of a question is that?)

As I said, we're not fans. So it was with some trepidation that I watched Leary's upcoming Comedy Central special Denis Leary and Friends Present Douchebags and Donuts which airs on January 16th. The point of the special is supposedly to go after "douchebags" and Leary starts off with a song that pretty mercilessly skewers the Catholic Church for its sex abuse scandals. Fortunately, Leary keeps it clear the abusers are pedophiles and not gay men. Which isn't to say he doesn't take some "gay" shots at those protecting them calling them "queens."

His next bit is about noted homophobe George Rekers and former Senator Larry Craig, both of whom had very anti-gay track records. Rekers was the antigay activist who hired a rentboy to "carry his baggage" for him on Reker's infamous trip to the Caribbean. Meanwhile Craig got busted in an airport men's room for soliciting a cop.

Leary doesn't have anything particularly insightful to say about either man or the issues that drove them to persecute gay men while apparently engaging in same-sex sex themselves. Mostly Leary uses the airport incident to talk about, um, well, let's just ten-year-old boys probably talk about this stuff a lot. And pretty much only ten-year-old boys will find it funny.

Leary closes the show with a "theme" song based on the show's title.  He introduces the number by saying "This is a song about a bunch of people we f***king hate." Here is the opening verse:

Well, you can't say retard and you can't say fag
Because the PC people think those words are bad
Douchebag, douchebag
No, you can't say retard and you can't say fag
Douchebag

Apparently Leary hasn't changed his mind about using that particular antigay slur, and doesn't think those that oppose its use have much of a point.

Leary is hardly the first comedian to rail against the idea that certain words should be off limits to comedians and I even agree with him to a certain extent. To be fair, I don't think Leary uses the word in a particularly homophobic way meant to demean gays. Instead, he's just a straight guy who can't bear to be told that perhaps he could be a little more thoughtful about how others feel.

Which isn't to say Leary thinks much of gay people. What I find most telling about Leary's attitude toward gay men comes up several times during the special in segments that have nothing to do with sexuality at all.

While riffing on rather stale and obvious subjects as the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs and the topic of "manbags," Leary several times slips into "characters" meant to be ridiculous and pathetic. And each time that happens, the character is effeminate, mincing and lisping in what 99 out of 100 people would identify as stereotypically gay.

In other words, Leary thinks the best way to insult a point-of-view is to make it seem gay. To me that says more about him and his views than the use of the word "fag" ever could.

On the upside, I can't think of a better comic to perform a show with the word "douchebag" in the title.