Sandra Bernhard is not a queer icon

Come back to the five and dime, Barbra Streisand, Barbra Streisand.

*yawn*

[Quote] AND SHE SAID DON'T TOUCH CALVIN KLEIN UNDERWEAR ADS BECAUSE THEY GIVE YOU AIDS.

I was in my 20s during the AIDS crisis of the 80s. I think this is funny. Lighten up for fuck’s sake.

She’s too ugly to be a queer icon.

What’s the medical term for someone with baby teeth as an adult?

It would be childish to say r4

Well at least she is actually bisexual unlike gay icons who are actually heterosexual women.

She also used the n-word unironically and with a hard R to describe Mariah Carey and her entourage in the 90s.

Really r7? Please link. I'd like to read about it.

OP don't you have anything fun or relaxing to do? Getting your acrid moist panties in a bunch about old has-been Sandy. Who is, darling, a minor gay icon, no matter what the outraged Debbie Downer brigade says.

I've never heard of anyone claiming that Bernhard is a queer icon before.

What the fuck are you ranting about? She's been out as bisexual for decades! She was practically making out with Madonna ON the Letterman Show!

She was not closeted for decades - I don't know what made you think that.

Very famously, Madonna hung on to her in the late 80s / early 90s and they talked about going to the lesbian bar, The Cubby Hole, together.

She was always openly bisexual - and was so on the Roseanne show.

Really - I don't know where you get your information.

Plus she hung out with k.d. lang in the late eighties/early nineties.

Until r7 posts a reliable source I'm going to point and say LIAR!

OP, show us on the Ken doll where mean Sandy made fun of you.

Ya know, there are lots of reasons to hate Sandra Bernhard, but that's not one of them.

I'm still stuck on the OP claiming that anyone thought Bernhard was a gay icon in the first place.

I think the point was TCM was showing her film in their night devoted to queer cinema along with Milk about a real gay icon.

Reportedly it's in her HBO special "I'm Unfortunately Still Here...Damn It!", R13.

She may have thought she was closeted but most of us knew.

A few decades ago no straight people knew who she was but EVERY gay man knew who she was. I'd say she qualifies.

She slept with Madonna so she qualifies!

Sarah Bernhardt was a turn-of-the-century stage and film actress from France. Sandra Bernhard is a... I don't know what the hell.

I loved her joke about the Speaker Phone Interlude from Janet’s The Velvet Rope album.

The uproarious Without You I’m Nothing automatically makes her a gay icon.

r18 But what was Mariah's response to Sandra's umm, "joke"?

Naomi is being a buttinski. She's forever unlikeable too.

There must have been dust on those mints.

OP, we include reference links in posts such as this. Do better.

r27-control freak

Meh, I was around in her heyday, no one thought she was pretty not even then. Down right coyote ugly. She was more of a celeb wannabe and when she started riding Madonna's coat tails she thought she had it made until they had a big cat fight. She's been a nobody ever since.

Sure everyone knew who she was, hanging out in WeHo trying to be somebody. But then everyone knew who the Mexican lady was with the Roses. That dose not make her a gay icon.

R7, it wasn't the hard "R" at all

in light of the combs-trial deliberations, bernhard’s celebrity-obsessed, race-playing riff holds up.

bernhard’s mariah line is: "now she’s trying to backtrack on our asses, getting all nig’rish at the royalton hotel with puff daddy and all the greasy, chain-wearing black men. oooh, yeah, daddy. i got a little bit of black in me, too. i didn’t tell you that?’ and do not try to compete with the fierce, ghetto divas! because they will go down, in, around and off on your ass! mary j. blige and her white, fendi sunglasses. l’il kim. missy elliot....

and on and on

until bernhard lands the punch.

"phony white bitch!"

R4 Are you 12?

R12 Don't bother. This thread is supposed to be PROVOCATIVE, not informative.

It was the crookedest street in the world, and I never felt straighter!

She was out as bisexual when she’s really gay.

Camille Paglia called Sandra “The male Lenny Bruce.”

i'll have a side-order, ma’am

WEHT Camille Paglia?

Hasn’t she been institutionalized?

There's no way she's a gay icon. Otherwise everyone is a gay icon - which is ridiculous. There are only a few gay icons.

She's not a gay icon - but she's a gay woman. Most gay icons are not actually gay.

I don't understand how someone who has been out for decades and has stood up for gay and lesbian rights does not belong in a film series around pride and gay/lesbian people.

She's gay - she belongs. You're the one attaching 'icon' to her, nobody else.

Whose tunnel were you in?

Her bisexuality isn't fake, but she obviously prefers women. The way her character's sexuality was handled on "Roseanne" didn't do bisexuals any favors and I always wondered if that was her doing or Roseanne's.

I love her.

Sandra's bit about Mariah starts around the 3:00 mark.

OP, do fuck off.

R42, that character on Roseanne was absurd.

No one speaks of pavilions anymore. And that saddens me.

Her show Sandyland on Radio Andy is fun at times and there’s a kind of Stritchy quality to her ability to from sweet and sympathetic to full-on borderline in a span of 30 seconds.

[quote]Campbell said that Bernhard’s quip was “rude and disrespectful”

So was throwing a cell phone at my head!

I never liked this snaggletoothed cunt with her extra dry jokes and perpetually sour demeanor. Most comedians are good at hiding their bitterness, but snaggletooth was never a good actress. Just look at a rerun of Roseanne. If I were a lesbian I would be super nervous having her go down on me with those chompers.

[quote] Very famously, Madonna hung on to her in the late 80s / early 90s and they talked about going to the lesbian bar, The Cubby Hole, together.

Sandra has flip-flopped and backtracked her opinions on Madonna so many times. She used to trash Madonna in the press for years, and then she would say something nice but eventually go back to snarking again. No wonder Madonna lost her number. Sandra is a confused backstabbing bitch.

Did she actually "sleep with" Madonna? That seems like something a hanger-on would milk for a decade at her cabaret show.

Has Madge ever confirmed it? I know she's deep into dementia now, but did anyone ask her in the 90s?

There must have been DUST on those mints.

You want to REALLY understand and hate Sandra Bernhard?

Fast-forward to about 43 minutes into the Roast of Jerry Stiller. She drunkenly caterwauls "Magic Man" and does a half lapdance for the old man, who is blessedly too out of it to know what the fuck he's watching.

Christ, she's a mess.

I was at a Pride event at the Beacon Theater in 1999 called “So Over the Rainbow” that featured Bernhard, Lea Delaria, and Scott Thompson. It was a lot of fun and at the end, one of the straps on Bernhard’s top broke and while she tried to hide it at first, she proudly shook her boobs.

But she did indeed say, “I am a gay icon!”

It boosts your yay’s!

R53 you described that through your bitter, lowbrow, old-fag filter.

Sandra on Letterman megamix pt. 1:

Sandra on Letterman megamix pt. 2:

Sandra on Letterman megamix pt. 3:

r36 Well the real definition of "icon" relates to saints and the Catholics have a trillion of them.

r50 You ok?

I'm in the mood for a little bit of Burt

I’ve only had one interaction with her and it was bizarre. I stage doored Patti LuPone’s concert at Carnegie Hall in 2024 and Sandra walked out of the stage door afterward. She was dressed up and looked great. There was a crowd of people outside the stage door and not one person stopped her or said anything.

It occurred to me that she is “known” but she is not famous.

R50 - I appreciate her humor and her style. As far as Madonna goes, she was 'dropped' by her as Madonna seems to do with so many people. And she was tired of forever being associated with her. I can understand that. Every single interview with Sandra - even to this day - Madonna's name comes up.

Last I heard, Sandra said that they're friends but they don't hang out or talk much because Madonna is so busy with her 5 kids - which makes a lot of sense.

Who is long-time friends of Madonna's? No one it seems. Feels like only a couple of her sisters are still close.

R3 I figured she said it during a standup act. I hate disingenuous cunts.

On an episode of The Sopranos, she played herself, filming a movie; her character is in a relationship with Janeane Garofalo.

She presents hole and bush in her performance of Little Red Corvette.

she gave howard stern the goods

Give it a rest, OP. She's fabulous.

The way she handled Ruby Wax alone raises her to DL icon status.

Shit lemme try again.

Ruby was a cunt from the start of that interview. Why?

And then someone handed him... a TAMBOURINE!

We’re driving down what was once Hollywood Boulevard…

Somebody came in and said, “What do you think of the fires burning?”

Every summer we had fires in LA.

He said, “Well, if you want to know my opinion, sit down and I’ll tell you about it. If you don’t, don’t waste my time. And I won’t waste yours.”

He said, "I’m curious. What do you think?”

“It says here — in The Book of Revelation — the end of the world will be near when men start fires.”

Ruby Wax is the absolute unfunniest yet luckiest person working in entertainment. A person suffering that degree of talent deficit going on to be form a working relationship with Jennifer Saunders is one of greatest professional feats of the ages.