In her first feature film Trainwreck, Amy Schumer plays a commitment-phobic career woman. Photo / Supplied
In her first feature film Trainwreck, Amy Schumer plays a commitment-phobic career woman. Photo / Supplied
Comedian plays to brilliance of her sexist parodies.
There's an ongoing and fairly well established myth that women comedians just aren't funny. It's true that some female comedians aren't. Neither are the majority of male comedians.
Of all the artistic endeavours, comedy truly is a just and brutal judge. Gender, race, politics, sexual orientation or anything else you may choose to get hung up on are irrelevant. A comedian is either funny or they're not. End of.
opened in cinemas yesterday, is not the funniest comedian in the world right now - for my money Jerry Seinfeld and his meticulously crafted, nit-picky observations continue to reign supreme, untouchable.
Amy Schumer and Bill Hader star in Trainwreck
But Schumer is the most important comedian in the world right now. Which is something Seinfeld has never been. That she's incredibly funny, occasionally brilliant, can be considered a bonus.
Her shtick, for want of a better word, could be dubbed subversive feminism. Many of her routines, the majority of the skits in her telly show Inside Amy Schumer and the underlying theme in her film, all deal with the gross absurdism inherent in interactions that take place between the sexes. One memorable skit has Schumer parodying the classic courtroom drama film 12 Angry Men, reframing it as a network focus group examining whether or not male viewers of her show want "to bang her" or not. An example of the latter has a group of female friends bumping into one another on the street and all failing to accept a compliment without complaining about some perceived, imagined flaw.
Schumer's proved she's just as comfortable confronting the casually sexist attitudes displayed by men as she is taking on the societal norms that women place upon themselves. No one is safe. She is taking on the world. And winning.
A scene from Inside Amy Schumer
Her big trick is in her ability to highlight how awful and ridiculous we all are while still managing to keep us onside. An insanely difficult feat. Especially considering a large chunk of her comedy persona is centred around a filthy oversharing of sexual exploits and x-rated failings.
She largely manages this by getting a lot of the pot shots in first. She slips into character as a self-deprecating, vulnerable, clueless woman who's unsure of her looks and is wilfully desperate for male approval, all the while highlighting just how ludicrous and potentially harmful all that stuff is.
It's a classic defensive manoeuvre, the smart dummy, and one that insulates her from most criticism and allows her to get away with just about anything. Just about...
Schumer came under fire earlier in the year for being "racially insensitive", a charge she vigorously denied on Twitter. "It is a joke and it is funny," was the gist of her defence. "Trust me, I'm not racist," she tweeted. This kickstarted more discussion and analysis of how race figured into her work - largely as nothing more than a punchline.
Amy Schumer's comedy is largely based on gender dynamics
Instead her targets are gender stereotypes and inequalities. But even here her view can be messy and her point confused. Her work ruthlessly sends up the sexual objectification of women while her methods of promotion often end up embracing it. A recent GQ cover shoot to promote Trainwreck had Schumer dressed as a sexy Princess Leia from Star Wars sucking suggestively on a lightsabre. Was this satirising overt sexuality or shamelessly pandering to it? Both, perhaps?
And that's the rub - excuse the filthy pun. Schumer wants it both ways - again, sorry. She embraces the very thing she mocks from within the safety of her bunker of knowing winks.
That she has to ultimately proves her point far better than even the sharpest of her skits or stand-up.
Let me put it this way, ain't no one asking Louis CK to pose topless in a double bed with two droids.
