Amy Schumer

About

Amy Schumer is an American stand-up comedian known for appearing in the reality television show Last Comic Standing and for starring in the Comedy Central sketch comedy television show Inside Amy Schumer.

Career

On April 10th, 1992, the American musical drama film Newsies was released, in which Schumer appears as an extra dressed as a boy. On June 1st, 2004, Schumer performed stand-up comedy for the first time at the Gotham Comedy Club in New York City. On June 29th, 2007, Schumer appeared in an episode of the Comedy Central stand-up comedy television show Live at Gotham. That same month, Schumer was a contestant on the NBC stand-up comedy reality television series Last Comic Standing. On April 25th, 2011, Schumer released her debut stand-up comedy album Cutting. On April 18th, 2012, Schumer's comedy special Mostly Sex Stuff was aired on Comedy Central (shown below).

On April 30th, 2013, Schumer's sketch comedy show Inside Amy Schumer premiered on Comedy Central (shown below, left). In May 2014, Schumer began filming a comedy film with costar Bill Hader titled Trainwreck, set for release in July 2015 (shown below, right).

Online History

On September 19th, 2011, Schumer delivered a joke about deceased stunt performer Ryan Dunn during the Comedy Central Roast of actor Charlie Sheen, which received a significant backlash online from Dunn's fans (shown below).^[5]

On July 1st, 2013, Schumer participated in an "ask me anything" (AMA) on the /r/IAmA^[4] subreddit, which gained over 2,500 votes (79% upvoted) and 2,000 comments prior to being archived. On the following day, BuzzFeed^[3] published a listicle featuring "10 Incredibly True Facts" about Amy Schumer. On May 5th, 2014, Thought Catalog^[6] published an article titled "Wait A Second, Did Amy Schumer Rape a Guy?," which discussed a monologue in which Schumer confessed to having sex with a drunk man at college who repeatedly fell asleep mid-coitus. On November 13th, Schumer appeared on comedian Jerry Seinfeld's web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" (shown below).^[1]

During Time Magazine's Time 100 gala event on April 21st, 2015, Schumer was photographed falling in front of Kanye West and Kim Kardashian while walking down the red carpet (shown below). On April 24th, BuzzFeed^[2] published another listicle titled "19 Times Amy Schumer Perfectly Summed Up Being A Woman," featuring image macros and animated GIFs of the comedian.

Social Media Presence

As of April 2015, Schumer has more than 1.08 million Twitter^[7] followers, 507,000 Facebook^[8] likes and 333,000 Instagram^[9] followers.

Controversies

Plagiarism Accusations

On May 6th, 2014, YouTube comedian Joseph Tran posted a video titled "Did Amy Schumer Just Steal Our Bit?" asserting that some of the jokes featured in Schumer's "Magic Man" skit on her sketch comedy TV series Inside Amy Schumer bears many similarities to the ones from his comedy web series "Reasons Not To Date a Magician" which ran from May to June 2013 (shown below)

On January 19th, the comedy news blog TheInterobang^[14] reported that several other comedians, including Wendy Liebman, Kathleen Madigan and Tammy Pescatelli, had also accused Schumer of stealing their jokes, citing a series of tweets from the comedians which have since been removed. The following day, Redditor HowsThatFeelFucker posted a video titled "Schumer stolen jokes evidence" to /r/videos,^[11] which compared several of Schumer's standup routines to jokes by Liebman, Madigan and Pescatelli (shown below). Within one week, the post gained over 3,500 votes (78% upvoted) and 5,400 comments. The video was subsequently removed from Vimeo, but was mirrored on Vid.me.

Also on January 20th, comedian Wendy Liebman posted a tweet acknowledging that it was "possible" that Schumer had independently written the "when a man pays for sex" joke.^[12][13] Later that evening, Schumer made an interview apperance on comedian Jim Norton's Sirius XM Radio Show, during which she denied the accusations and speculated that Tammy Pescatelli was "trying to get something going."

"Kathleen and Wendy know me and they don’t believe I would do that – I think that Tammy is trying to get something going, I don’t know… I think she is upset … people get upset by success … I’ve never even seen those jokes from those people."

LCJReviews Tweet

On January 18th, 2016, 17-year-old movie critic Jackson Murphy posted a photograph of himself with Schumer at the CriticsChoiceAwards along with the tweet "Spent the night with @amyschumer. Certainly not the first guy to write that." That evening, Schumer expressed her displeasure by replying, "Cause I'm a whore? Glad I took a photo with you. Hi to your dad" (shown below).

That day, Jackson replied to Schumer apologizing for the joke and thanking her for taking a photo with him (shown below).^[10] Following the apology, many Twitter users responded to Jackson's tweet by assuring him he did nothing wrong and criticizing Schumer's hostile response.

That evening, YouTube Shoe0nhead posted a video titled "Schumer can't into humor" criticizing her response to Jackson's tweet (shown below). Within one week, the video garnered upwards of 200,000 views and 3,700 comments.

Glamour Plus-Size Label

On April 5th, 2016, Schumer posted a photograph on Instagram^[15] of a Glamour magazine page listing her as one of four "women who inspire us," along with a caption claiming the magazine put her in their "plus size only" issue without consulting her first (shown below). Within six hours, the post gathered upwards of 69,000 likes and 5,600 comments.

Shortly after, the entertainment news blog Elite Daily^[16] published an article titled "Sorry, But Amy Schumer is Definitely Not Plus-Size," which criticized Glamour for including her in the issue. That same day, Glamour editor-in-chief Cindi Leive posted a series of tweets explaining that the magazine did not refer to her as "plus-size," but included her in the issue due to her "longtime message of body positivity" (shown below).

Also on April 5th, People^[17] magazine published a statement from a Glamour spokesperson, who echoed Leive's message and apologized for offending Schumer:

"First off, we love Amy, and our readers do too – which is why we featured her on the cover of Glamour last year. The cover line on this special edition – which is aimed at women size 12 and up – simply says 'Women Who Inspire Us,' since we believe her passionate and vocal message of body positivity IS inspiring, as is the message of the many other women, of all sizes, featured. The edition did not describe her as plus-size. We are sorry if we offended her in any way."

That afternoon, Schumer tweeted a video of herself running on a beach with a kite, along with the statement that she is "done with these unnecessary labels which seem to be reserved for women" (shown below).

In the coming days, several news sites published articles about the controversy, including USA Today,^[18] CNN,^[19] E! Online,^[20] Jezebel^[21] and UpRoxx.^[22]

Search Interest

External References