Amy Schumer is a divisive figure. And now she’s trying to overcome that divisiveness by bragging about being rich and handing her money out to us poor plebeians. The comedian-turned-actress went on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM show on Wednesday, and the topic of what you do with your money when you’re filthy rich came up. Which I guess is something you talk about when you’re sitting in a room full of filthy rich people and you are also filthy rich. And Stern’s show isn’t really batting for intellectual banter. But the whole thing felt a little tacky. It’s great for a celebrity to be generous, especially in philanthropic scenarios. But to publicize it is a very un-Oprah move.
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Schumer’s made many a problematic turn, though, most memorably with her denouncement of Glamour magazine distinguishing her as plus-size. The problem there was that she has made an entire standup career off of owning her weight and the stigma from society for not being extra thin. It seemed as though she was fine calling herself bigger as a comic, but now that she is an A-list celebrity, she doesn’t want to be seen that way. She spun her response as standing up for women not being pigeon-holed into weight-based boxes, but she also made it a point to announce that she fluctuates “between a 6 and an 8,” and that felt very defensive.
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The other especially controversial recent moment was when she released a video of her and fellow castmates from her upcoming film Snatched in which she’s co-starring with Goldie Hawn as a mother-daughter pair of the two of them lip-syncing to Beyoncé’s very political single Formation. The issue there was that with the exception of a brief appearance by co-star Wanda Sykes, the video was essentially white women co-opting a song that has become a cornerstone anthem of black feminism. Tidal, the brainchild of Beyoncé’s husband Jay Z did premiere the music video, if you can even call it that, which would suggest support from Beyoncé’s camp, but it doesn’t remove the ickiness of what Schumer and co. put out, only emphasizing that Bey is above all drama. Schumer wrote a rebuttal to criticisms on Medium that continued her defensive trend to most pushback she gets.
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In the interview with Stern, Schumer admits that she tips well because she worked in the service industry for 10 years. And that makes sense and is a noble reason to put some extra zeros on the tip line. But she went on to add that, “It’s because it does make me feel great and I feel like I have no other choice.” And that’s not the most benevolent sentence I’ve ever heard. She ended with, “Are people with money not doing stuff like this? I think they should do more, because you’ll feel better. And then they’ll do that for someone else, you hope.” Great, I’m glad Amy Schumer thinks that when a waiter making $2 an hour gets a tip more than 20 percent that could make a huge difference in their lives, they should give it to someone else. Whatever, Amy.
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