As it is for many queer people who grew up in red states, going back home for Benito Skinner is more complicated than it used to be. Nowadays, when Skinner, who lives in Los Angeles, visits his hometown of Boise, Idaho, he says he mostly sticks to his parents’ house.
“I’m very disappointed in everything going on in Idaho right now,” Skinner, 31, says of his home state, where many anti-trans laws have been passed and earlier this year, state legislators introduced a resolution urging the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges. “But it’s sadly a very beautiful place taken over by, it seems, a lot of very hateful people.”
To survive growing up in a conservative stronghold, Skinner was closeted through high school, focusing his energy on sports like football and hiding his secret love for music video choreography, Lady Gaga, and Glee. Eventually, he left Idaho, attended college at Georgetown University, and then moved to New York City, where he started his comedy career before ending up in L.A.
Skinner knows there are still plenty of queer teens just like him who haven’t left home and says his number one advice is to “be safe” and “find communities that will protect you.” For Skinner, that community came in the form of female friends, including a best friend he met in college, who allowed him to be his fullest self for the first time and “saved his life,” he says.
That community and support he’s received from women throughout his life is the basis of his new A24 and Prime Video show Overcompensating, which Skinner created, wrote, and stars in as Benny, a closeted high school football player who goes away to college and tries to create a new identity for himself with the help of his new best friend, fellow freshman Carmen (Wally Baram).
Benito Skinner, Wally Baram, and Holmes in OvercompensatingCourtesy Prime Video
“I was really inspired by this idea that women, as they’re getting just absolutely dogged, just treated like absolute shit, still find time to love and support queer people, and protect them and use their voices to protect us,” Skinner says. He loves comedic depictions of friendships between gay men and women, but wanted to show how they can also be “so deep” and “so emotional,” he says.
Skinner named the character Carmen after his godmother, who passed away when he was in college. Although he never got to come out to her, he says she was the first person in his life who encouraged him to do things like “wear pajama pants on my head as a wig” and told him to perform. He says he’s in awe of how much women do while getting so little credit.
“I was being so applauded for something that felt so basic and boring, just a football guy or boy next door,” he says, “while these women around me were so unbelievable and resilient and strong. And they just didn’t get the applause that I got so easily for being this very caricature version of a masculine man.”
With Overcompensating, which premieres on Prime Video May 15, Skinner hopes to spotlight the types of women who have helped him. He also hopes he can create a space where other queer people in situations similar to his high school experience may see themselves and escape.
Skinner is part of a generation introduced to gay culture at least partially through Glee, and there are strong echoes of Kurt and Rachel’s bestie relationship in Benny and Carmen. “Oh, my God. Well, Glee was my secret love in high school,” Skinner says. “It’s just about seeing anything that feels like you on screen. And I think that’s sometimes all that people need…to see yourself in any way makes you feel less alone.”
Overcompensating
Amazon MGM Studios, A24
“I think there was something really beautiful to me in media [like Glee],” Skinner adds. “And I’m not saying watch my show and you’ll feel great, but I did dive into the things I loved to almost get me through it…. I really dove into the things that made me happy, because I think you have to take care of yourself and try to find any peace within the hellscape that are these places that clearly don’t want our communities to exist.”
Skinner knows that a TV show won’t change the laws in states like Idaho, which have only gotten more heavily anti-LGBTQ+ in the years since Skinner left. But he also knows how much a show like this can mean to someone who feels trapped in the place they call home.
“I thought it would be less scary than when I was in school. But now it seems it’s more scary. So, that’s terrifying to me,” he says. “And so, I can only hope that this show is one really nice binge session with a bestie in bed, and you feel a little less alone and know that so many of us in the community have felt that way, and we got out. And you will too.”
This article is part of the Out May/June "Pride" issue, which hits newsstands May 27. Support queer media and subscribe— or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader starting May 15.
