Humor & Life Quote by Lea DeLaria

DeLaria packs three identities into one sentence, then lets the punchline rearrange their hierarchy. The opening promise, "As a standup, I try to change the world", invokes the loftiest version of comedy: the club as a civic engine, the mic as a lever. She immediately deflates that with "As an entertainer, I try to entertain", a tautology that reads like a shrug at the industrys demand to be palatable. Then she swerves into the personal: "as a lesbian, I try to pick up the prettiest girl in the room". Its a sex joke, sure, but its also a claim of presence. The line insists that queer desire is not an aside or a lesson plan; its a motive with its own unapologetic momentum.

The intent is double: to get a laugh and to puncture the expectation that marginalized performers must constantly audition as educators. DeLaria came up in a time when being openly butch onstage was still treated as confrontational. By framing lesbian identity as ordinary lust rather than tragic backstory, she normalizes it through the most old-school comic tool available: the relatable pursuit.

Subtextually, she is negotiating the politics of visibility. "Change the world" nods to activism, but "pick up the prettiest girl" refuses to let activism consume the whole self. Its also a sly reversal of the male gaze baked into comedy history. She takes the rooms power dynamic and flips it: the observer is queer, the desire is confident, the target is "the prettiest" - not a consolation prize, but the center of the scene.