Fair warning: Some stuff in this essay is very explicit and relates very much to sex.
Having watched a comedy special last week, I was in the need for some more comedy specials. As I was looking through the Stand-Up section on Netflix, a certain special caught my attention: Amy Schumer: The Leather Special. The reason this got my attention was not because I like Amy's material (in fact, I really REALLY do not like her material). However, while the critical reception for this special was relatively positive, the reception from audiences and the internet was BEYOND negative. Which is why the special sits a lowly 2.9 on IMDB and 1 and a half star on Netflix. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and I was in a forgiving mood. Her earlier stuff was absolutely trashy, but she couldn't have gotten worse over time.
Having watched a comedy special last week, I was in the need for some more comedy specials. As I was looking through the Stand-Up section on Netflix, a certain special caught my attention: Amy Schumer: The Leather Special. The reason this got my attention was not because I like Amy's material (in fact, I really REALLY do not like her material). However, while the critical reception for this special was relatively positive, the reception from audiences and the internet was BEYOND negative. Which is why the special sits a lowly 2.9 on IMDB and 1 and a half star on Netflix. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, and I was in a forgiving mood. Her earlier stuff was absolutely trashy, but she couldn't have gotten worse over time.
Boy, do I hate when optimism doesn't pay off.
The thing about Amy's humor is, unlike Demetri Martin's humor which relies on wit and well constructed jokes, her humor style is more reliant on being as vulgar and offensive as possible. And is that ever amplified in this special. Right after the first joke (which is about a nude photo she sent out over Twitter), we get our second joke about a stranger "eating her out" as she was coming out a drunk blackout. The punchline: He is brave. The reason for that I'd rather not type out because it's fucking disgusting, but I will say it involves bad personal hygiene (mind you, this is after she goes on a minute long shtick about her cleaning "it"). Less than 5 minutes later, we get an oral sex/semen joke. Then we get another oral sex joke a few minutes later. Then a joke involving semen and breasts. And it honestly goes on and on for the rest of the show. The show can largely be summarized as Amy Schumer being a drunk, trashy whore. Although, I do wanna talk about a certain joke because it made me angry. She talks about how she's talking with her boyfriend she found on a dating site about whether either of them have any STDs, and the guy replies with "I haven't actually been tested," only for Amy to reply in a coyish manner, "mysterious." Like, the man possibly has AIDs or HIV. Don't just think about having sex with him. The man may have a serious condition. I know I'm being a bit critical over a dumb comedy, but let me explain.
Regarding Amy's humor, it's not that anything offensive or disgusting can't be funny. It just needs to be funny. The typical punchline of Amy Schumer's jokes is that she is a slut and doesn't even try to put a funny/interesting spin on it. She is just a slut. If you want something offensive AND funny, there is Sacha Baron Cohen, specifically Borat. The thing about Borat is that the racist jokes can be laughed at because there are racist people that think it's funny on a basic racist level. However, they are intricately made to the point where it's also making FUN of those people who are laughing at the jokes for being racist (key moments include the rodeo, the Jewish cockroach, and the Running of the Jews and "Jews use their long noses to their athletic advantage"). That is funny because there are people that genuinely think stuff like that, and it pokes fun at those people. Not to mention that some of the jokes are recorded in public, so the reactions given from people also help make it hilarious. Two other ways that offensiveness can be hilarious are South Park and It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, where the comedy comes from the over-the-top nature of it all (similarly to Borat), and the fact that the main characters are horrible, horrible people and thus they either get a comeuppance for being offensive OR something offensive happens to them, respectively.
Amy Schumer, however, does none of that. It's just along the lines of "I love it when guys fuck me" or "Look at my vagina." It's the worst kind of toilet humor. It's BORING toilet humor. Dull revulsion. And that's why this special is as revolted by the internet as it is. I'm sorry if this has been a harsh reading and I may have made you angry because you like the special. You can like it and find it funny all you want, I simply do not want to ever see it again. I promise the next blog post will be on both a non-comedy special and something good.
There is certainly a lot that goes into deciding whether a stand-up comedian is "funny" or not. I remember seeing a tv series on CNN all about these very concepts.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that the main comparison you made to this comedy special was a Comedy Film (rather than another stand-up comedian), and more so, that it is a man making the comedy rather than a woman. What I've come to discover is that most female comedians' content tends to have that crass sexual nature you spoke of. I wonder how much of it is repulsion at these jokes due to content versus who makes the joke (a man or a woman). Would it change if a man made similar jokes? (Honestly, I think it probably would).
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DeleteI wouldn't think so. A similar person to Amy Schumer would be Seth MacFarlane, and I think he's also terribly unfunny. And I simply used a movie because Borat is at the top of my list of crowning achievements in offensive comedy. Going by stand-up Comedians, one that is both disgusting and offensive but also hilarious is British comedian Jimmy Carr. He makes quite a few raunchy sex jokes, but he usually mixes it up with other dark and taboo topics such as death, sexism, racism, necrophilia, pedophilia, etc. He's not just a one trick pony of offensiveness (plus he also structures and delivers jokes in an well-done manner). It's not the person that is making the disgusting jokes, it's how the joke is told and the variety of the jokes. As for women comedians, from what I have seen, most of them do use that kind of humor, however some have done different things in the past, such as Sarah Silverman and Lisa Limpanelli
DeleteSorry for the deletion. I made some typos.