Dan Soder: Make Your Own Opinions

Dan Soder wears the most painful parts of his life like a badge of honor in his first-ever HBO special, Son of a Gary. His father’s alcoholism and subsequent death, as well as growing up “20% white trash,” are prime fodder for his dark style of comedy.

“[C]omedy, great comedy, is born out of a lot of pain,” Soder tells me in the skyscraper Warner Media calls home. He has a booming, charming voice that makes the glass-walled conference room a little less sterile.

Soder worries about the devaluing of people’s suffering, which he claims is a byproduct of recent changes in the comedy scene which have aimed to make spaces more inclusive for women, people of color and LGBTQ+ people. “Listen, I understand I’m a straight white male and I understand that there’s been a lot of privilege allowed with that in my life, but, great, I acknowledge that,” the Colorado native explains, “So now you’re going to tell me my life wasn’t hard when my dad died or when my sister was killed in a car accident or when I grew up without any money? Like what are you gonna tell me about my life that says I don’t know what pain is?”

The new state of comedy—sometimes derided as an off-shoot of so-called “woke culture,” but also celebrated for opening doors to comics traditionally shut out by the establishment—has been a hot-button issue for Soder as of late, considering that Shane Gillis, one of his “closest friends” and a frequent guest on his podcast The Bonfire, was fired from Saturday Night Live over racist and homophobic remarks. In Soder’s eyes, “I think a lot of people should be very, very ashamed of themselves and how they acted because it—you didn’t help fight racism, you buried a man that you don’t know, a man that I know very well.” He acknowledges that Gillis used the “worst words possible for a joke,” but stands beside his friend against what he considers the gentrification of comedy.

“It’s been very disappointing to see how people have reacted to Shane,” Soder says, “because there’s no context. There was no humanity involved.” Humanity is an interesting word to use. The slurs which Gillis uttered have long been employed to dehumanize the Asian and queer communities. No action precipitated this ire; their mere existence has historically been considered enough reason for both populations to experience prejudice.