Last night, HBO aired the one-hour standup special Amy Schumer: Live at the Apollo. It was good, if you’re into that sort of thing (i.e. Schumer being Schumer). My favorite bit centered on cum. It started, “I’m just reminding you that we’re all disgusting. No one in here is better than anyone else. Like, you’ve all caught a hot load, you know?”
In her latest sketch, Amy Schumer comes back from the future to give her present self some good news and some bad news. Bad news first: She has to give the wack guy she’s dating a blowjob in the bar bathroom, or else she’ll butterfly effect humanity right into extinction.
Q: What would a joke skewering Disney Princesses look like if it were actually funny? A: [This Amy Schumer sketch.]
It’s clear that Amy Schumer has been expanding her range in season 3 of her show, and it’s mostly been a success (see her foray into music videos in episodes 1 and 2), but Tuesday’s episode of Inside Amy was the most ambitious yet: One long black-and-white 12 Angry Men spoof where an all-star (and all-male) cast debates whether Schumer is fuckable enough to be on TV.
One of Amy Schumer’s greatest strengths is the cutting joke about how everything in popular culture conspires to control women by convincing them that they’re basically undesirable shambling mountains of ham in human clothes, and even successful, attractive women with their own goddamn TV shows aren’t immune.
Do the dolts who think that women aren’t funny finally feel stupid? If they watched last night’s Season 3 premiere of Inside Amy Schumer, they sure should have. Every single sketch examined gender relations in ways that were playful, unexpected, and hilarious. Exposing the stupidity of men and the bullshit they get away with has long been an m.o. of Schumer’s, but there was a consistency throughout last night’s episode that I hadn’t yet witnessed on Inside. The show felt pointedly political and was better for it.
What is it about a quick puke that's so suited for comedy? In some ways, it's like laughter: a sudden, violent, convulsive hijacking of your body, accompanied by a dollop of involuntary oral ejaculation. Like laughter, it's a kind of possession; it can strike anyone, anywhere, any time, heedless of the protective barriers of wealth, status, or dignity, only instead of a creepy raspy voice coming out of their mouth, it's a torrent of hot duke. And then you have to pause whatever you're doing and deal with that. Puke blasts through abstraction. It doesn't care about consequence. It's the great egalitarian killswitch.
