That sketch “Hello M’Lady” aired on Inside Amy Schumer, and it’s the one that should’ve gone viral instead of a very funny but mostly predictable Aaron Sorkin parody.
I’ve already seen bunches of comments online that the point of the sketch is to make fun of socially awkward creepy guys who come on too strong. Anybody who’s spent any time in any geek-oriented field like comics or video games or physical games or existing as a human being is already familiar with the myth of the “Nice Guy,” the hopeless romantic whose shyness dooms him to a lifetime of unrequited love. What makes the sketch so on-point is that it shows how, even when we’re acknowledging it as a problem, we still concentrate on how it affects the guy. It’s just one more thing that women are expected to just deal with.
Even when we say we’re doing something for the benefit of the ladies, it’s still always ultimately about the dude.
Believe me, I’m well aware how insufferable it is when somebody on the internet tries to explain a joke. But I’ve spent the last couple of days watching clips from Inside Amy Schumer, and realizing that they’re not just funny, but actually kind of brilliant. But I’d never bothered to watch it, not because I wasn’t aware of it, but because I thought I already knew exactly what it was.
The creepiest realization is that the reason I’d always dismissed it is exactly the kind of thing the show frequently makes fun of.
Red Bull and Slim Jims
I’m about to get to my mea culpa for being a Bad Progressive, but I’m not letting Comedy Central completely off the hook. They’ve done a lousy job of promoting the show. Not in terms of exposure — there’s been no shortage of promos for the show, and Schumer herself has been inserted into what seems like every single one of their Comedy Central Roasts and stand-up specials.
But the promos have made the show look essentially like Ms. Tosh.0. She makes a raunchy joke and then does a look how naughty I am! grin. I’d heard a mention of “feminism” here and there, but it looked like nothing more than another example of the vapid “women can make jokes about sex too and that’s empowerment!” flavor.
From the bits of her comedy routine I’d seen, I assumed I had that all figured out as well. I thought it was all just the surprise of seeing raunchy jokes coming from someone you wouldn’t expect, kind of like a female Bob Saget. (She even has a gag about finally having sex with her high school sweetheart that’s a lot like Saget’s joke about finally marrying his girlfriend of nine years). She’s a party girl, but she’s all edgy! And then the twist was her character of a ridiculously clueless, self-absorbed, over-entitled white woman… so kind of like a blonde, gentile, Sarah Silverman. Nothing wrong with it, really, I just felt like I’d seen it before.
Inside Amy Schumer has a sketch specifically about the series’s own marketing. A group of guys in Comedy Central’s target demographic are being asked about the content of the show and the ratio of sketches to interview segments, and all their responses are about Schumer’s appearance and whether or not they’d bang her. At the end, they’re rewarded with Slim Jims and Red Bulls, and Schumer considers it a victory because a couple of the guys said they would bang her.
It’s not exactly subtle. So it’s a little creepy to realize I’d essentially done the same thing. I’m not in the “would bang her” camp for obvious reasons (obviously, she’d need to have at least a 10% better dumper), but I still was basically dismissing Schumer based on her appearance. I’d thought that she was too pretty to be saying anything all that complex.
Liam Neesons Though
I can’t even use the excuse that my time is valuable or anything; I’ve seen entire episodes of Workaholics and Tosh.0. And they’re every bit as much the shallow, predictable “outrageous” comedy you’d expect. I’m wondering if that’s part of their (assumed) popularity, even: they’re easy to watch because they don’t take any effort. There’s nothing challenging about them.
But a lady-oriented sketch comedy show with a transgressive feminist message has to be didactic, though. You’re laughing, but really you’re learning about yourself, and life, and cat massage.
When Key & Peele was first announced, I wasn’t interested in that, either, for much the same reason. I assumed that it wasn’t “for” me. Even if I didn’t end up feeling like that one awkward white guy on stage at Showtime at the Apollo, I’d still feel like I was watching Chappelle’s Show. I’d be on the outside looking in. Sure, there was nothing telling me I couldn’t watch, but the show wasn’t really going out of its way to include me.
Which turned out to be total bullshit, obviously. Smart comedians can make their material relevant and universal. Key & Peele start from being movie nerds more than anything else — something I can totally relate to — and pull in satire and comedy about race and gender politics and never make it feel inaccessible, preachy, or alienating. They’re almost always more absurd than message-oriented, and it helped that Jordan Peele’s impression of Obama, plus their goofy East-West College Bowl video going viral, gave everyone an “in.”
That’s a message in itself, really. Take that mild hesitation and unease over “am I going to be able to enjoy this show without worrying whether I’m in the target audience?”, multiply it by every other show on every other television network, and then keep trying to make an argument that asking for more diversity in the media is unnecessary and the equivalent of introducing quotas.
All of that makes that Newsroom parody sketch the safest way to introduce people to Inside Amy Schumer. Mostly it’s a pitch-perfect parody of an Aaron Sorkin series, with the one line that delivers the real “voice” of the series: “and I realized: A woman’s life is nothing unless she’s making a great man greater.” Then there are jokes about finger-banging and a short bus, to make sure there’s something for everyone.
Tell Me What All My Remotes Do?
It’s not the best one, though. This sketch about sexting (after the street interview section) is so good; just about every second and every detail is brilliant, from the emoji to the romantic music to having it start and end with her eating plain spaghetti out of a colander.
There are silly sketches about “Finger Blasters” and an inappropriately homoerotic workout and TV makeovers and unconventional therapy and dating a guy who only loves her for her terrible perm because the show’s first obligation is to be funny, and because Schumer’s never afraid to make herself the butt of the joke.
But then there’s the sketch about what it’s like to be the only woman at Hooters. Or how women and men have wildly different impressions of a one-night stand. (Most comedy shows can only aspire to one day having a scene as brilliant as the one where she’s tasting wedding cakes while he’s wanking to the picture on a jar of pasta sauce). Or how women are never allowed to graciously accept compliments. Or a very realistic military game in which nobody else’s character was sexually assaulted, so Amy must’ve done something wrong. Even in a three-way, she’s got to acquiesce to what the men want.
Even when the premise of a sketch is relatively straightforward, it’s still smarter than it needs to be. A sketch where Amy negotiates over herpes with God is an extended riff on her Clueless Party Girl character, but it’s filled with little bits of brilliance. In particular, Paul Giamatti’s “I have got to stop making so many white girls,” and the completely unexplained older man putting his hand on the shoulder of Amy’s sister.
And of course, Schumer’s already addressed my assumption “She’s too pretty to be saying anything that complex” and made a joke not just about how dumb that is, but about how women are supposed to believe that something like that is a compliment.
You Can’t Win
The “Hello, M’Lady” sketch is brilliant for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is the way the friend answers “Is that your boyfriend?” with “Fuck you, no,” without skipping a beat. The most brilliant aspect of it is showing that even “look at the poor pathetic losers” is giving more sympathy to the guys than to the women who have to deal with them. Romantic comedies teach us how unrequited love is so romantic and how you should just keep at it guys, and you’ll eventually win her over. What the woman actually wants? Irrelevant.
Extra double-plus brilliant is presenting it as a combination of dating app, Angie’s List, and Turbo Tax. First the app lists all the aspects of the woman that only the guy can recognize, and then it lets ladies take advantage of these “human hobbits,” ungratefully using them for things like helping a boyfriend move, or getting a free iPhone. That’s exactly how a lot of these guys think: self-obsessed while telling themselves they’re being selfless, and absolutely convinced that women exist to take advantage of them. It shows that this “harmless” passive-aggression comes from exactly the same place as outright misogynist aggression: the belief that women have something I want, and they’re keeping it from me. Even when “nice guys” convince themselves that it’s noble because it’s about romance and chivalry instead of sex, that’s bullshit because it’s really about something just as crass and base: power.
Meanwhile, the actual, not-imaginary women are left in the same place as always: powerless. “You can’t win.” And “it’s inevitable.” Just another chore to deal with because some guy decided to make you feel guilty.
That’s already a lot packed into one sketch, and then there’s the punchline that carries throughout the whole series: “Fuck it.” She’s not a victim. As long as she’s stuck with it, why not have fun with it? Ultimately it’s a comedy show, not a message show, and the savvy part is realizing they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Not Really JK
When somebody’s entire public persona is a character, it can be hard to tell what’s sincere and what’s part of the “satire.” I think it’s a lot braver to trust the audience enough — or more accurately, not be so hung up on the audience — to feel that you don’t have to draw the line for them. Male comedians don’t have to stress out about telling too many jokes about drinking or about sex, and they don’t have to keep winking at the audience to let you know they’re not really that racist, or they’re just kidding about being so self-absorbed.
There’s something implicit in Schumer’s comedy that turns every criticism into a kind of commentary. Anything you might be thinking about or saying about her, what is it really saying about you?
The joke in “Love Tub” seems on the surface to be just another version of Amy Poehler’s one-legged Amber character from SNL: she’s on a dating show, she’s a mess, and she doesn’t care. But there’s a little more going on here.
For one thing, she’s not explicitly playing a character; she’s just “Amy.” She’s not making the best life decisions, but she’s also not the one getting hung up on a reality dating show where the “prize” is a dude choosing among a pack of women to join him in the love tub. She’s the only one who’s getting what she wants, and what she wants right now are vodka and some curly fries.
The clincher is when the bachelor takes off Tiffany’s dress while creepily whispering “Congratulations.” When you see Amy riding off in a limo finally getting her curly fries and then leaning out the door to throw up, you’ve got to wonder who really is the “winner.”
And then you look at the YouTube comments calling her fat, or calling her a bitch, or making some sexual comment, and something magical happens: they’re rendered even more irrelevant than YouTube comments already are. When somebody owns every aspect of his persona, he’s unassailable. And when a woman owns it — you don’t get to make comments about my drinking, or having sex, or what I wear, or what I eat, or what I look like, because I’ve already commented on it — it’s the most frustrating and threatening thing for an insecure man to see. And that’s awesome. She doesn’t have to say what’s “real” and what’s not; it’s all real, and it can be tragic and frustrating and unfair but most often really funny.
A young female comedian is already starting out in an environment where hecklers are going to try to shit on her live set. TV executives are going to try and concern troll her into losing weight. Entertainment journalists and bloggers are going to talk about her responsibilities as a feminist. Some people in the audience are going to call her fat or ugly. Other people in the audience — including at least one well-intentioned but dense gay man — are going to say she’s too pretty to be taken seriously. Other comedians are going to announce that they don’t think women can be funny, in their own feeble grabs for attention. There’s going to be pressure to be highbrow but not so highbrow as to be alienating, and pressure to keep the politics out of comedy and just be absurd. And then pressure to split the difference, making funny videos that’ll go viral while still having a very special episode tackling some social justice issue.
Inside Amy Schumer navigates through all that and ends up with a sketch about sending a sext photo. It starts with the pressure that’s put on women to look sexy, then puts Amy through all kinds of abuse for the sake of making her look good, and then ends with a simple moral: “Just get fucked.” Said not as an insult or an objectification, but a simple reminder to get what she wants and enjoy herself. That’s not just naughty; it’s genuinely subversive.