“Inside Amy Schumer,” a female-centric take on bro-comedy

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:20:00 +0000

Amy Schumer’s new sketch comedy show “Inside Amy Schumer” begins tonight on Comedy Central, a female-centric take on bro-comedy, raunchy and dedicated to exploring the ways girls can be crazy. Her persona combines Whitney Cummings’ bawdiness and Mindy Kaling’s entitlement with a self-proclaimed slutty streak ("I am sluttier than your average bear," she proclaims), a familiar combination that feels original only in flashes. Schumer is sharper than her material.

In one sketch, Schumer plays a girl who starts to plan a wedding with a one-night stand who barely knows her name, going so far as to buy them side-by-side funeral plots. A clueless woman behaving insanely because she’s so desperate for a relationship is both an easy target and an archetype we’ve seen before. (In another sketch, Schumer sits on the couch stuffing pasta in her face, sending unsexy text messages to a dude who gets off anyway. If I never have to see a fictional woman stuffing carbs into her face, it will be too soon.) But Schumer adds a grace note at the very end that should have been the focus of the whole bit: The woman in question is totally unflappable, unperturbed when the guy doesn’t know who she is, moving on immediately to the next dude. She’s not just pathetic, she’s also obliviously overconfident.

Amy Schumer: Women comedians will never be treated equally

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 21:00:00 +0000

Amy Schumer’s 2012 Comedy Central special, "Mostly Sex Stuff," opens with the comic standing in a cartoon forest, surrounded by various flora and faunas: mushrooms, squirrels, chirping bluebirds. Schumer is dressed as Little Red Riding Hood, her blond curls and ski-slope nose peeking out from beneath the cape. When she removes her hood, the camera pans out to reveal a far less idyllic scene: the squirrels are flogging each other with whips, the mushrooms have transformed into enormous phalli, and two unicorns are copulating against a tree.

Like the fairy-tale forest that turns out to be something more akin to a Hieronymous Bosch painting, Amy Schumer is far less virtuous than she appears. The comedian, whose series "Inside Amy Schumer" premieres on Comedy Central April 30, boasts one of the most subversive voices in comedy, imbuing riffs on porn, abortion and below-the-belt grooming (she refers to bikini waxing as “getting my vagina ready for its first quinceañera”) with a sly, oddly poignant sensibility. A bit from "Mostly Sex Stuff," on hooking up with a man without testicles, is particularly illustrative: “Girls don’t care about balls, but when they’re not there we miss them. You know, they’re like grandparents.”

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“Inside Amy Schumer,” a female-centric take on bro-comedy

Amy Schumer: Women comedians will never be treated equally