the Amy Schumer thread

ooh strawmanning well done

really? there's a big market for outrage online.

I'm of "Hispanic" descent and I don't like white people making Hispanic men are rapist jokes. And "she's making this joke on this dumb racist character that she's doing" is a shitty excuse. Old fashioned earnest racist comedy is less reprehensible to me than contemporary "oh I know better this is just a joke" cop-out bullshit.

I have caught like 2 episodes of this show and both had some sort of egregious "edgy" bit of ironic racism.

i find some anti-semitic jokes funny

the only time I've ever found these funny is when it's a bunch of Jews sitting around telling them to each other, which places them in a context of both reveling in our own foibles/failures but also a bit of "can you believe this shit other people think about us".

Which is completely different from hearing them from, say, a cheery fresh-faced German girl.

xxp

the way she slips between the-joke's-on-this-racist-persona and this-joke-is-just-racist is symptomatic of the laziness of her writing

I agree this is the real problem: poor writing. If she was a sharper writer she would know that making jokes about race/racism require more than simply repeating or reinforcing tired stereotypes.

I sort of wish Eddie Murphy were still doing stand-up so we could see if he's moved past all the horrible gay jokes in his routine when he was young. (At the same time, I'm glad we can't because I don't think Eddie Murphy would be all the funny anymore.) Some comics work past this stuff or, if they're determined to stick with it, frame it in better and more intelligent ways. Others don't. Schumer is still a comedy baby, and everything she says when she's called out on some of this stuff makes me think she's on her way to a better understanding of why.

I'm of "Hispanic" descent and I don't like white people making Hispanic men are rapist jokes. And "she's making this joke on this dumb racist character that she's doing" is a shitty excuse. Old fashioned earnest racist comedy is less reprehensible to me than contemporary "oh I know better this is just a joke" cop-out bullshit.

― Rave Van Donk (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, July 7, 2015 6:20 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have caught like 2 episodes of this show and both had some sort of egregious "edgy" bit of ironic racism.

― Rave Van Donk (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, July 7, 2015 6:24 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fwiw i basically agree w/ this. but i still get tired of the outrage-machine-that-must-be-fed. i should probably just stay off the internet for a few years.

OK I watched the "can't compete with an asian" clip and it was just so absurdly terrible. Like, literally, there is an "asians like math" joke, or not even really a joke, just "i will refer to the conventional wisdom that asians like math and you will laugh."

I've liked the pieces of her show that I've seen, but if I'd never heard of her and watched this piece of standup I would never feel the need to see her again.

Jokes need to be funny, she isn't funny.

she's pretty funny

That's what she said.

i think she's not funny and as far as i can tell also not racist

re Murphy, I heard Chris Rock tell Terry Gross about 6 months ago "I'm the only black comedian who's never gaybashed. Ever."

maybe of his generation, but there are certainly younger comics who haven't

Hard to believe Trainwreck still hasn't opened yet.

Was Chris Rock including Cosby?

You mean the pervert who slept with his brother Russell?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xEpSdy99vg
Cosby in 1969, a good four minutes of homophobic bullshit starts at 2.38

Thanks - I'd never heard that.

she's usually very funny. she's had some jokes that are definitely racist in nature and they are her less funny material and I think she's aware of that now.

http://www.gq.com/gallery/amy-schumer-photos-star-wars-trainwreck

reviews for the movie are p good, Zacharek a dissenter.

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/the-taming-of-amy-schumer-trainwreck-has-laughs-but-at-what-cost-7353708

a certain ilxor's pan p convincing

... you could have just linked it without mentioning that

She looks like a cross between an angel on a Victorian greeting card and a Campbell's Soup Kid

This description made me laugh.

You know, I like her, but I have very serious don't want to see it vibes from this. Especially the Apatow factor. I used to like him, too, but his last two have been the worst kind of make-me-angry indulgent. Especially "Funny People."

Stephanie Zacharek posts here?

ugh colin quinn, why do people put him in things

the Zacharek review ends up focusing on the old Apatow "secret" conservatism thing, which I'm not entirely sure is a problem with his films

but, Funny People WAS dreadful, i didn't even see the one after that

I used to like him, too, but his last two have been the worst kind of make-me-angry indulgent.

I'll defend his better stuff but yeah Funny People is p unforgivable. what was the other one you're referring to?

oh yeah Life at 40 or whatever. god that was horrible

this is 40 is one of the worst movies ever made by anybody. there are like 3 jokes thanks to chris o'dowd and the rest is hideous classist aggressively milquetoast bullshit

Colin Quinn rules

im interested in trainwreck tho. it looks sufficiently different from whatever the fuck his last two movies are or were attempting to be (prob because schumer is writing) - like i still cant possible imagine what the fuck he thought he was doing with funny people and this is 40

I liked the audacity of this is 40: how they lived in a multimillion dollar house in Pasadena but we were supposed to sympathize with the fact that, due to paul rudd's vanity record label failing, they might have to downsize.

I did laugh when melissa mccarhy said "this is what happens when you corner a rat"

yeah it was so tone deaf, so removed from any reality

xp

Sounds like it has some of the same problem that Funny People did, in desperately trying to get you to sympathize with rich assholes (who just happen to be really similar to Apatow and his friends and family)

I used to like him, too,

Embrace your fate; you're all going to catch up to my POV eventually.

as referred to above:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/trainwreck

I can understand people having a problem with the "rich people have problems too!" element of This Is 40 but there was a frankness and honesty to the marraige/raising kids scenes that I liked.

This Is 40 was great

Albert Brooks and Melissa McCarthy were great. Could've done without the rest of it.

you're all going to catch up to my POV eventually.

nah, Freaks & Geeks is all-time, and Knocked Up/40yo Virgin def hold up (I would throw Forgetting Sarah Marshall in there too altho he was only tangentially involved)

the trailers I've seen for this make it look like a LeBron James film with some other people in it. Is that accurate?

I hope so!

xp yeah, Apatow (and Feig) will basically get a lifetime pass for me for creating Freaks and Geeks. even anything their collaborators do will merit some interest
pretty much agree with your rankings there Οὖτις. I will catch This is 40 at some point when I can remember to...

I think Apatow is, qualitatively, very similar to Cameron Crowe (nb: have not seen the last two Cameron Crowe movies). People champion some of his films and trash others but they all seem similarly MOR-ish and not bad to me.

What I saw of This Is 40 seemed pretty decent but I was watching from a hotel hot tub so I was probably just vibing with the onscreen opulence.