Kevin Zak doing a MOMMIE DEAREST! play?

Just saw on Brian Martin’s Instagram story (@btmartz) that he participated in a reading of MOMMIE DEAREST and it looks like Kevin Zak is speaking in the background?


Any ideas what this is?

My, what original thinking.

*whispers* Kevin Zak isn’t as funny as he thinks he is. *runs away*

Owen22 said: "I'm the gayest gay whoever gayed. I adore great camp, especially something produced in all seriousness without the creators realizing the camp potential. And as hysterical as parts of MD are.. I always feel weird about laughing at extreme child abuse..."

We were all abused children in 1981. We had no real political power and most of the world still considered us sick so our humor embraced that reality.

Zak’s sounds like the kind of echoing sensibility that still lives in places like Provincetown, Ft. Lauderdale, and Palm Springs. Nothing wrong with that if it works but I’d take a fresher look at the queer absurd any day. The greatest camp film of the past decade has been “Melania” but it would take some serious tucked-balls to successfully ridicule that horror.

Updated On: 4/9/26 at 10:56 AM

Owen22 said: "I'm the gayest gay whoever gayed. I adore great camp, especially something produced in all seriousness without the creators realizing the camp potential. And as hysterical as parts of MD are.. I always feel weird about laughing at extreme child abuse..."

Agree. The movie came out when I was 12, and a few years later as a teenager catching it on cable, I thought it was hysterical. But trying to re-watch it as an adult, the basic situation is just too unpleasant for humor, absurd as the movie is. I can quote lines from it, or watch that RuPaul video where Christina slaps Joan over and over and over. But watching the movie itself is just uncomfortable.

joevitus said: "Uh, what?"

I get what's being said. All but the luckiest of us grew up with significant fear of what would happen to us when our families, and the world, found out who we really were. This is surely an abusive atmosphere, even if it doesn't mean our individual parents bore much of the guilt.