WITHOUT YOU I’M NOTHING (1990) | Dir: John Boskovich I already knew of Sandra Bernhard (@sandragbernhard) from her brilliant performance in Martin Scorcese’s KING OF COMEDY, where she held her own and more opposite Robert De Niro. This was something entirely different. I had moved to New York City just two weeks after graduating from NC State, too late to have seen Bernhard do the show live during its successful run in the East Village. The filmed version of the show was directed and co-written (with Bernhard) by John Boskovich, an avant garden visual artist. I saw the film at the Anjelica Theater on Houston Street and had never seen anything quite like it. Bernhard created a persona for herself that was alternately brash and tender, irreverent and sincere. It was a critique of celebrity, provincial attitudes about sex, and cultural appropriation. She is so unapologetically herself in the show, something that spoke to me deeply at the time. And her bit about growing up Jewish in a predominantly (and aggressively) Christian world had me doubled over with laughter. But it was a sequence about gay culture, gay panic, and gay pride that resonated the most — and introduced me to the genius of Sylvester. WITHOUT YOU I’M NOTHING isn’t exactly a gay film, per se, but it’s aggressively queer. I still love it. And her.