Bowen Yang & Matt Rogers Love When A Pop Girlie Acts In A Music Video

All month long, Bustle is celebrating Pride by convening its very own Gay Guy Music Video Night — that sacred exchange of YouTube videos that inevitably occurs with any gathering of queer men, their friends, and allies — and asking LGBTQ+ talent to pay tribute to their favorite songs, live performances, and Internet esoterica. First up: Excerpts from our conversation with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, who are bringing their annual Las Culturistas Culture Awards, an offshoot of their wildly popular podcast, to the masses once again at 9 p.m. ET June 17 on Bravo and Peacock.

For a show built on in-jokes and IYKYK references, the two aren’t worried about how it’ll translate to stray channel-surfers stumbling upon the action. “It’s ultimately a variety show, and everyone has a way into that,” Yang says. And, hopefully, those viewers will be too busy laughing to scratch their heads at such signature colorful awards categories as “Lil Avocado Who Is a Man Award for Iconic Designs on Graphic Socks.” “We like a lot of jokes, and we like when they come hard and fast,” Rogers adds. “And the thing about that is: You don’t get one? Wait three seconds — we’ll hit you with something else. And maybe if you don’t get that one, three seconds again. We just want it to always be surprising, both for our audience and the general audience.”

The Staples

Matt Rogers: I’m going to say it so Bowen doesn’t have to plug his own friend, but “We Can’t Be Friends” by Ariana Grande was the best music video of 2024. It was a little preview into what an amazing actress she is. I love when a pop girlie acts. I love a preamble scene, I love dialogue. And then that amazing moment where she realizes she’s losing her memories and wants to stop? I love any music video that plays with harkening back to another time. One of the best music videos of all time [in this vein] is Gwen Stefani’s “Cool.”

Bowen Yang: It put Italy on the map.

Matt: These all speak to each other. And I hate to say a band of men, but you got to give it up for this one too because there's an iconic female performance: “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5. Kelly Preston, rest in peace — you are iconic.

Bowen: I’m going to pull from a recent example: Alysa Liu [performing] “Stateside.” I think people recognize that as canonized into Gay Guy Music Video Night. You get to listen to PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson, but also you get to watch Alysa Liu skate an exhibition where she’s just having fun because she won the medal.

Then — this is just because I was on a high from talking to Cher — I put on the first Cher show after she and Sonny split. She opens up her show with “Let Me Entertain You,” and you feel like you’re the only person she’s singing to. Timeless. There’s a reveal, a Bob Mackie reveal, which just gags everybody of all generations. And then, a third one, a new addition: “I Like Your Look” by Kim Petras.

Matt: I thought you were going to say a New Edition song.

Bowen: That’s cool! That’s left! But Detour by Kim Petras — fabulous album. I think this Pride Month, people will really dig into it.

Matt: You know who’s an underrated video queen? Mariah. My favorite Mariah Carey video is “Honey,” when she does her James Bond moment. She plays Agent M. She’s tied to a chair, and she fights her way out and jumps from the mansion balcony into a pool, takes off her gown, and is Jet-Ski-ing away from the bad guys. It’s really good. She does a little choreo even!

Bowen: Yaaaas!

Matt: My other pop diva is Kelly Clarkson, and her best music video is — can you guess?

Bowen: Oh my gosh. Oh, no. I’m scared.

Matt: “Behind These Hazel Eyes.” Classic “I’m running away from my wedding in a white wedding gown collapsing in the rain in the forest.” She looked perfect. There’s one shot where the light is just hitting her, she’s got her blond hair, and she’s just belting at the sky. Really good stuff.

I wonder if you could fill an entire Gay Guy Music Video Night with just pop stars running away from their weddings.

Matt: You probably have at least three hours of material there just from that concept alone.

Bowen: One of our best tropes.

The Deep Cuts

Bowen: There’s no formalized thing with Gay Guy Music Video Night. There’s no Partiful. It’s just like, OK, who’s around? But people show up. We’re going to sprinkle in some Jackbox games. There’s probably a lot of Diet Cokes flying around. Diet Coke is essential for me. Matt’s a little more masc and likes his Coke Zero.

Matt: Well, now I’m going to take my masculinity away by saying you know what has to be on the list? The Barbara Cook Kennedy Center Honors. The best Kennedy Center Honors.

Bowen: You’ve got Sutton Foster.

Matt: Patti [LuPone]. Audra [McDonald].

Bowen and Matt: [In unison] Glenn Close!

Matt: Doing “Losing My Mind” from Follies. I’m leaving out Laura Osnes because…[thumbs down].

Bowen: Tough. Can this be the pull quote? “Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang call Laura Osnes… tough.”

Matt: And here’s another live performance: the Best Tony Awards performance of all time — Jennifer Holiday [for Dreamgirls]. Because they don’t just do “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going.” They do all of “It’s All Over,” so it’s got Sheryl Lee Ralph, Loretta Devine. That’s a little bit of a longer one for Gay Guy Music Video Night, but it’s a winner.

Bowen: You know what else? Clips of “Deep House Dish” from SNL — Kristen Wiig singing “Fashion,” Maya Rudolph singing “Tiny Moves.” These are James Anderson classics, the writer behind those sketches.

Gemini’s Twin was also very formative for me. I love Girls5Eva, but that is the girl group parody in my mind.

Bowen: Oh, my God! [singing] “Whack, whack! Like a flap jack!” And then they’re on TRL and Carson Daly [played by Jimmy Fallon] asks them, “What is this song about?” And Maya says, “It’s about when your lover’s being whack.” And then Ana Gasteyer says, “It’s also about a pancake breakfast.”

Matt: Well, you bring up Girls 5Eva, which makes me [think of] other shows that Tina Fey helped to bring forth. And I think any Gay Guy Music Video Night is not complete without a “best of Jane Krakowski in 30 Rock.”

Bowen: Oh yeah. “Muffin Top.”

Matt: “I see myself in you” — the song she sings to the mirror.

Bowen: Girls5Eva, “Dream Girlfriend” is a great video. And then girl group comedy properties: Josie and the Pussycats. “Pretend to Be Nice”? “Spin Around”?

Matt and Bowen: [singing] “Come back home, you’re runnin’ out on a line!

Bowen: I think the full film of Josie the Pussycats should cap off Gay Guy Music Video because you get to see Parker Posey and Alan Cumming be villainous.

The North Star

Bowen: The thing that Matt and I constantly go back to — and I think a reminder of the deepness and the specificity of the friendship is — we always watch Tracey Ullman as Helen Mirren promoting her movie Fish Out Those Old Teats.

Matt and Bowen: [In a British accent in unison] “What I liked about the character is that she isn’t at all embarrassed about her body. So many actresses, even younger ones, have a problem fishing out their teats.”

Bowen: You synchronize your sensibilities with someone else. Your wavelengths start to construct around each other. It’s a moment of alignment. That’s why [sharing YouTube videos] is intimate.

Matt: You get the idea like oh, I have other people out there. Because that’s such a specific thing, getting onto YouTube and logging on and choosing to search for something to spend your time with like that. Once you find out someone has the same reference, it’s a big deal.

Bowen: We were really, really lucky [finding our people]. We met in college. We met a lot of other people at the same time who would then go on to do really cool things. It was always a matter of cheering them on and us all rooting for each other. Matt and I were both in these comedy groups. We started performing, we started taking classes. There’s a thing in sociology called passive contacts, which is just people you would see out and about. And that’s happening less and less. We have fewer passive contacts now in the world, in our day-to-day lives. We were in a place and time and culture and social climate where it all kind of came very fortuitously.

Matt: The best thing you can ever feel is safe. And so we came up in a creative community where — maybe it was because we did comedy or because we were queer or some combination of that — we all accepted each other in many different forms. When someone was trying something new, we went out and supported each other. And I think that that is something that I’m so grateful for now, looking back. That is the most meaningful thing anyone could do: just show up. So we’ve always tried to do that for people that we care about.

Bowen: The thing that we’re proudest of with the podcast and with Culture Awards is that we project that outwardly and have that be, hopefully, an inviting thing. The biggest compliment that we got after this year’s taping and last year’s is that there’s this community of people in the audience and people on stage.