In 1962, Robin Tyler fell in love with Pat Harrison, and the couple became a powerful team both in real life and onscreen. After Tyler became the first openly lesbian television personality, their late-night show was quickly canceled, but their impact has not been forgotten.

On Wednesday night, Visions and Voices screened “Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution” and held a panel discussion, celebrating the history of LGBTQ+ stand-up comedy at the Stark Family Theatre.

“Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution” chronicles the history of LGBTQIA+ stand-up comedy and highlights the comedians who served as instrumental leaders of the queer rights movement. The screening of the film was followed by a conversation with award-winning director Page Hurwitz and producer Trish Bendix.

The event was part of a three-part series called “Standing Out with the Queers of Comedy,” which also includes a stand-up comedy workshop and a stand-up comedy showcase on Friday.

“Queer humor has a very specific lens and a specific pain, and I think that’s really awesome to see,” said Olivia Souter, a freshman majoring in stage management.

The film highlighted prominent LGBTQIA+ comedians who shared their experiences coming out publicly and showcased the power of comedy as an act of resistance and a way to make light in the darkness of the queer experience. Some of the comedians featured in the film included Rosie O’Donnell, Lily Tomlin, Margaret Cho, Sandra Bernhard, Wanda Sykes and Eddie Izzard.

The interviews were intercut with archival historical footage and clips from on and off stage of “Stand Out: An LGBTQIA+ Celebration,” a comedy special filmed at The Greek Theatre in 2022. Hurwitz pitched Netflix on doing the special as a part of the documentary, but it was put on hold due to the pandemic. After being rescheduled, it was incorporated into the “Netflix is a Joke” festival.

At times, the theater laughed along with the audience onscreen, particularly when Robin Tyler said that she had the same reaction to figuring out that she was a lesbian that she did when she found out she was an Aries.

“It was just nice to see how comedy is so important to the civil rights movement as a whole,” said Elisa Torres, a sophomore majoring in industrial and systems engineering.

After the screening, Hurwitz and Bendix shared behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the film, as well as their thoughts about where LGBTQIA+ rights currently stand.

“The very act of standing on stage and being out is still a political act,” Hurwitz said. “It may not seem that way in Los Angeles, but imagine then being in other parts of the country or the world where you know it’s not as progressive as a place like Los Angeles. It’s still difficult in many places to stand on stage and stand in your truth and to perform.”

Hurwitz said she started out as a stand-up comic in San Francisco at Josie Cabaret, a well-known club where other queer comedians like Margaret Cho got their start. She said she remembers feeling safe in that space to talk about her girlfriend and her life without feeling judged.

“There is something safe about being in a room full of people who understand your experience and who don’t hate you for or diminish you because your experience is different from theirs, and so I think there’s a lot of value in still having those spaces,” Hurwitz said.

She underscored the importance of preserving those spaces, but said that at the time, breaking into the mainstream meant appealing to straight audiences as well.

“I remember having a conversation with another lesbian comedian and we were talking about at what point do you come out on stage in your set, because you don’t want to turn people off too quickly,” Hurwitz said. “That was how we thought of it, and it was true. So we had to really be strategic about when we said something that might clue the audience into the fact that we were gay.”

Even though Hurwitz and other queer comedians of the day had to contend with the difficulty of building a diverse audience, she advocated for never compromising on authenticity.

“The trick to great stand up comedy, in my opinion, is being able to speak on stage in your normal voice, your authentic voice, not having a character, not doing an impression of what you think a comedian sounds like, but being able to stand up there and speak in the same voice that you speak in offstage,” Hurwitz said.

The film showcased the progress that has been made toward equal rights and honors the LGBTQIA+ trailblazers who made it possible for a film like this to exist, while still acknowledging that the fight for visibility is far from over.

“I hope there’s a time when people don’t care if someone on stage is queer, that would be nice. But as of right now, we’re still not there yet,” Hurwitz said. “It does feel like with queer rights, it’s one step forward, and sometimes it feels like it’s two steps back, but we just keep moving. And I think, ultimately, I hope that’s the message that we can take away from the film, is that you don’t stop and we just keep pushing.”

Hurwitz and Bendix emphasized the value of comedy in allowing people to come together over their similarities, rather than fight over their differences.

“The best comedy makes you laugh first, right? But then maybe if you can make people also think and change their minds, that’s the best, because you’re changing people’s minds without them even realizing it,” Bendix said.