“I wanna get [the word ‘feminism’] tattooed on my cl*t,” Amy Schumer announced recently at SXSW, where she’s debuting the comedy “Trainwreck.” The raunchy rom com marks Schumer’s first lead role in a film, as well as her first credited feature screenplay.
Schumer continued, “I think people don’t know what the word ‘feminism’ means.” Asked to define the F word, Schumer didn’t hesitate to answer, “Social and political equality for women. I think if you’re against that, you’re a crazy person, or you don’t know what it means, and that we don’t actually have it is a bummer.”
Our admiration for Schumer is well-documented — we’ve previously called her Comedy Central show, “Inside Amy Schumer,” “one of the most incisive and brutally honest feminist commentaries in mainstream media today.” So we’re delighted, if unsurprised, to hear her take what some might consider a controversial stance with such aplomb. Like her work, Schumer herself is unapologetically feminist.
The comedienne, who wrote the script for “Trainwreck” based on her own personal experiences, once again addressed her reservations about being pigeon-holed as a “sex comic”: “When I brought [the stand-up special “Amy Schumer: Mostly Sex Stuff”] to Comedy Central, they said, ‘It’s mostly sex stuff.’ And I said, ‘Well, let’s just call it Mostly Sex Stuff.’ They said, ‘Okay!’ Sex sells… and I’m a sexual person, so I like talking about it. But there’s a double standard. Some of my favorite male comics talk about sex a lot and they don’t get labeled that. The double standard of that bothers me.”
“Trainwreck” has received rave reviews out of SXSW. Among its vocal supporters are our colleagues at The Playlist, who praised Schumer’s “focused, warm script that retains her comedic DNA, and… a lead performance that’s utterly watchable in a sea of watchable performances.”
One of our most anticipated films of the year, “Trainwreck” will hit theaters on July 17. In the meantime, you can catch Schumer in the third season of “Inside Amy Schumer,” which premieres April 21.
[via Salon and Marie Claire]
