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Amy Schumer: America’s Answer to Dave Chappelle

From Buzz Feed

I can be notoriously out of the loop. I’ve “discovered” life-changing songs and excitedly shared them with my friends who respond, “Um, isn’t that from like 4 years ago?” That said, have you all heard about Amy Schumer? Apparently she’s been hot sh*t for at least a year now. There’s an ad for her Comedy Central show Inside Amy Schumer with a pixelated boob hanging out of her dress all over the NYC subway system, so I thought I’d check it out. I watched two episodes shortly after reading Lesli-Ann Lewis’ excellent opinion piece on Dave Chappelle’s shrug-off of White consumption and its demands of entertainers of color.

In contrast, Amy Schumer, a blonde, blue-eyed 30-something from the suburbs of Long Island, niece of Charles Schumer, and former gentrifier of my hometown, affirmed the following things for me:

  • Hipster or ironic racism is still racism. If racism is so old-school and ironic, why is it so much easier for a blonde blue-eyed WASP to get a standing show on Comedy Central than for a woman of color? And why is it okay that the only people of color on her show are props for her ironic liberal humor, whether it be a black actor cast as a mugger or sales clerks she can’t tell apart in a sketch? Schumer has likened her show to the Chappelle Show. If only.
  • Amy Schumer is a racist. This is from her stand up: “I used to date Hispanic guys, but now I prefer consensual!” Are you serious? Schumer gets a lot of cred for a sketch she did on a political-correctness training program for octogenarians, but that’s exactly it. Your white grandma calling people “colored” is kind of not as problematic as your narrative that Latinos are rapists.
  • Rape is rape—not “grape”. After that racist comment, Schumer follows with, “We’ve all been a little bit raped, am I right?” and in an NPR interview , Schumer says “There’s a gray area of rape, and I call it ‘grape.'” It’s true: hetero sex with cisgender men within the rape culture that is the U.S. isn’t clear cut. Consent and power and pleasure are all contested fronts. This notion of “grape” could have been an important opening for some kind of commentary or re-framing of sexual violence. But unfortunately it didn’t happen.
  • White feminism. White liberalism. Yawn. Liberal media outlets are unanimously lauding Schumer for her clever POV, stuff like a female-market version of Hooters (O’Nutters). It’s possible that what she’s doing isn’t exactly the hypersexual content that so many female, femme-presenting comedians have to do to get noticed, but it’s clear that Comedy Central and Amy Schumer have a specifically white audience in mind.

Schumer’s big selling point is that it’s mostly but not all “sex stuff” but a great deal of it is. She peddles in the novelty of being able to call herself a “slut” and a “dirtbag”, hipster-feminist rape jokes, and referential jokes about sex work and porn as a middle class White American woman. What’s novel and cute for Schumer are ascribed to the bodies of women of color every day. Not very funny.

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By Alison Roh Park

Alison Roh Park is a big personality from Queens, NYC. Pushcart nominated poet, communications head, and writer, Alison enjoys raging about, cracking on, and inspiring thought and action on unfortunate things like racism, capitalist greed, misogyny, cultural hegemony and stuff like that.

14 replies on “Amy Schumer: America’s Answer to Dave Chappelle”

While I agree with this article, I find the title conflicts with its content. When you claim that Schumer’s work is “America’s” response to Dave Chappelle, you exclude Chappelle’s work from the American narrative. Dave Chappelle is not separate from America. This title suggests that white is the default, furthering the ideology of white supremacy.

Really interesting perspective, Asia. Thanks for the comment. I learn so much from our comments feed! It’s like going to school for free:)

I was wondering if anyone else viewed the show the way I did. I was first annoyed by how weak the skits were, I was then annoyed that she got a show on comedy central to serve such a narrow minded demographic, but I was most annoyed by the lame racist jokes on her show. Your article was an awesome, refreshing read. Shows there is a positive movement towards writers like you who are intelligent and balanced in their thinking and writing. Great job.

I agree. I just saw her on Comedy Central tonight. She was talking about black men being brothers she would date if they had nicknames like Pookie and had no job. I am African American and most of her jokes were crude, stereotypical and narrow minded. You can talk about racist and be funny like Seth McFarland. She is not funny and I will not see her movie and tell friends about her act and show her racist comments she has said about different races. I am black and do not tell when I talk. Stick with what you know. I should start a site that shows people how deep her racis is based on knowing nothing about minorities who yes will be the majority and you will be the minority soon. She is a biggot and does not even know it. Unconscious racist stick with what you know and stay away from race do not make a racist e en richer by seeng her mediocre comedy.

I can’t believe I only found this post in 2015, (I am seriously behind the times on tv shows). Amy Schumer is all over my Facebook feed and on tv, and I was not impressed with her standup or show’s material once I finally saw it. Super validating to find out that I’m not the only other POC really disturbed that she has somehow made it in Hollywood without so much as a whisper of criticism. I keep seeing friends and acquaintances posting videos of her, or forwarding articles about her and it feels like a lot of pressure to accept her as some sort of role model or champion of women’s rights, without much examination about what group of women she is championing (supposedly). Bullseye with all the issues you brought up, such great work! Thank you 🙂

Most of his race related skits were against his own, so I’m not sure if it counts as racism.

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