Daniel Tosh Defends Gender-Bending Dance Troupe, Blasts Haters

If you’re not watching Comedy Central’s Tosh.0, you’re missing some of the most subversive post-gay TV on the airwaves. Comic-host Daniel Tosh, who is straight, loves him some queer underdogs — and the freakier the better. Yet to his credit Tosh treats everyone on his show equally — gently mocking and celebrating them simultaneously — regardless of their sexual orientation. This week he interviewed members of Prancing Elites, the gender-bending dance troupe which caused a ruckus while performing in a parade last December in their native Alabama when some spectators were “outraged and appalled” that their innocent children had been exposed to gay men dancing.

“Even Martin Luther King didn’t dare to dream a group of black crossdressers would be allowed to shimmy their way down Main Street in Alabama,” Tosh says before introducing the men. “Getting kicked out of a parade for being too gay is like being kicked out of a gay orgy for being too gay.” Testify!

Tosh gives the barely-clad guys a pep talk in the dressing room, with the encouraging words: “You’re upset because a parade in Mobile, Alabama didn’t like you? Boo hoo!” He learns to tuck, and admits he doesn’t want to live in a world that doesn’t accept the Prancing Elites. Neither do we.

Properly motivated, Tosh then takes the guys to Torrance, Calif. and interrupts some ball-playing “thugs” with a dance routine they won’t soon forget.