California’s passage of the same-sex marriage ban
Proposition 8 was a recurring theme running through
Cracked Xmas 11, the annual holiday fund-raiser for
the teen help line the Trevor Project. Newly out comedian
Wanda Sykes got a standing O, Anne Hathaway auctioned
herself off for a night of drinking, and Fantasia
stomped her way through the audience in song.
Anne
Hathaway, Charles Robbins (Executive Director, The Trevor
Project) and Sigourney Weaver. Photo by Jennifer Kennedy
California’s passage of the same-sex marriage ban
Proposition 8 was a recurring theme running through
Cracked Xmas 11, the annual holiday fund-raiser for
the teen help line the Trevor Project.
Held at Los
Angeles’s Wiltern Theater, the December 7 event
brought thousands out for what the Trevor Project
describes as its annual “evening of irreverent
comedy, music, and awards.” One of the
charity’s main fund-raisers, Cracked Xmas helps
the Trevor Project maintain its 24-7 crisis and
suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ youths. Since its
inception in 1998, Trevor has taken over 100,000 phone
calls.
After opening the
show with a performance from the traveling production
of the Tony Award–winning Spring Awakening,
comedian Wanda Sykes was introduced by Kath &
Kim stars Selma Blair and Mikey Day.
Sykes, who
recently came out at a post-election Prop. 8 protest in Las
Vegas, got a standing ovation when she came onstage.
“It’s like you’ve never seen a black
lesbian before,” Sykes quipped.
During a stand-up
routine that referenced everything from Michelle
Obama’s “nice butt” to Sykes’s
own battle with her stomach roll (“I call her
Esther,” Sykes said, “my Esther roll”),
the comedian touched on Prop. 8. Sykes ridiculed the
arguments put forth by Prop. 8 supporters that banning
same-sex marriage was necessary to protect traditional
marriage.
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All photos
by Jennifer Kennedy, courtesy of the Trevor Project.