Straight Up: Chris Parker on representation, challenging norms and his new book – New Zealand Herald

After conquering Celebrity Treasure Island in 2021, winning the hearts of thousands with his lockdown social media antics, and picking up one of the country’s top comedy awards, Chris Parker has become one of the country’s most beloved entertainers.

But the road to stardom has not been easy. In 2015, while staging his solo show No More Dancing in the Good Room at Q Theatre, Parker broke his foot during rehearsals. Rather than accept the injury though, Parker convinced himself it was only a sprain, and told a doctor he would change his performance in order to get signed off to do it.

“I was about to perform nine nights of this show and I’d self-funded it, I’d put all my money into it,” Parker recalls. “So I was doing pirouettes on a broken foot a week just on a couple of Panadol.”

It’s the story Parker uses to open his new book, Here for a Good Time: Organised Thoughts from a Disorganised Mind, the latest venture for the superstar comedian that details his experiences in the spotlight and growing up in Christchurch.

Talking to Herald’s Straight Up podcast, hosted by Niva Retimanu and Beatrice Faumuina, Parker said that his decision to perform on a broken foot reflects the pressure for self-funded artists in New Zealand trying to make things work.

“I did have great producers and stuff, but two would be like, ‘You need to look at this properly’, and I just wouldn’t do it. I definitely put my health first, but at the time, you know, you just think you’re invincible and it’s gonna be a great story and you seem to be coping fine.”

Parker got his first taste for the struggles of being artistic after attending Christchurch Boy’s High School, which is better known for producing rugby and cricketing greats than it is for camp comedians with a flair for dance.

He said that he found a tribe of fellow artistically minded boys within the school, and created a strong bond with them as “we were trying to survive inside of this force that was not really wanting us to flourish”.

However, while the difficulties he faced there have shaped much of his comedy, Parker said he would not take it back.

“I do feel like those challenges in your life like teach you something or you learn or they shape you. And so I feel like in a way this rugby-obsessed all-boys school was a microcosm for what it is like to be an entertainer in this country sometimes. You are pushing against the mainstream.”

Parker also faced feeling different due to being gay, something he didn’t fully come to terms with until he had left Christchurch and gone to drama school in Wellington.

He puts the feeling down to sensing something in the distance that you can’t quite put a name to, and only get closer and closer to as you get older, until you finally find yourself face-to-face with it and have to name it and accept it.

“That whole process of the figure in the distance, I felt like everyone had that, and I didn”t think it was just me. And I think that is true of like adolescents, we’re all as teenagers got something we’re trying to figure out, and mine was the big G-A-Y question, but I just sort of thought everyone was questioning that.”

The feeling was “isolating” – “it’s just you and your internet search history” – and Parker said the lack of LGBT representation at the time made things harder.

“The pendulum has swung now the other way, and we are getting all this beautiful representation, but it’s happened so fast to the point where people kind of roll their eyes when they talk about representation.

“But what it was like when there was no representation, we didn’t see ourselves and we knew what that felt like to try and form an identity when you couldn’t have this public discourse about it. And so, growing up there was like, I couldn’t, who was gay out there? Who was gay and talking about it? I just didn’t know.”

Parker said he felt it was superficial to write a chapter in his book about haircuts, but realised while writing that it was the first time he had ever met anyone gay and had been a way his mum had tried to introduce him to the idea of sexuality.

Over a decade on since leaving school, Parker has helped create the representation that he didn’t have. His victory on Celebrity Treasure Island, which won $100,000 for Rainbow Youth, helped cement his status as a local gay icon, but Parker said it is difficult to actually physically be that representation.

“What I’ve kind of learned is the art of just existing and putting yourself out there allows other people to comment on it. But I just have to keep following my intuition and just keep ticking true to my voice and putting myself out there. And then it’ll have this ripple-out effect, hopefully.”

He said that there is a need to constantly challenge what we accept for representation, something he faced writing a book about gay dating, being very aware that his audience is often made up of older women.

“I think that it’s important to share not only ‘love is love’ and pride and be yourself, but actually like what is it to work through shame, what is it to be dating when you don’t accept or love yourself and you are doing horrible hookups in places that you know you will regret.

“It’s hard to write about that, but actually that’s like what it means to represent myself now. When I was coming out, I needed someone to be honest with me because just to be all ‘Be yourself’ was not enough. Like I needed to learn, ‘oh my god, these public figures also have shame and weakness and vulnerability’.”

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