So says GQ, putting her on the cover of their annual comedy issue. In advance of the issue’s release next week, they’ve released Schumer’s Star Wars-themed cover shoot, in which she’s dressed as Princess Leia and dances with stormtroopers. These kinds of photoshoots always remind me of that 30 Rock episode where Jenna warns Liz Lemon about doing “funny themed” photoshoots, because once you pose with the rubber chicken, they’ll never let you not pose with the rubber chicken. But Schumer is also on the cover of Glamour, too, in your generic Fashion! pose, so I suppose it all evens out.
Trainwreck opens this weekend and is projected to earn around $20 million, which would be a #3 opening, up against Ant-Man and the hold over Minions. Projections this summer have been crazy unreliable, though, and I think the whole weekend will be higher than expected, so Trainwreck could open over $20 million, which is really good for an R-rated comedy even if it isn’t #1. Trainwreck is getting great reviews—it’s one of the best-reviewed movies of the summer. Amy Schumer is about to become a legitimate star, like Melissa McCarthy after Bridesmaids. With all the talk of increasing diversity in film and getting more movies made by women—Judd Apatow directs Trainwreck but Schumer wrote it and everyone is referring to it as her movie—comedy is the genre evolving the fastest to include more female voices.
As for the recent kerfuffle over some dubious jokes, she ended up offering a second apology, more sincere and actually apologetic than her original “I tell the jokes I want to tell” non-apology. She pointed out that as she realized her audience had grown, her club persona of a “dumb white girl” no longer played as well, and she’s stopped “telling jokes like that”. That’s what I was getting at, that comedy is an evolution and if you’re truly a good comedian you’re constantly growing and changing your act as you grow and change as a person. I’m a little troubled by the subtext of Schumer’s statement that it wasn’t so much personal growth that pushed her to change as much as realizing a bigger audience means less room for playing in the margins, because that’s the thing that’s hurting comedy, but regardless she claims a change has taken place. Which means the expectation bar is now higher and she can’t repeat the “dumb character” excuse the next time everyone gets mad at her. And we will, because this is the cycle we live in now.
See more of Amy’s Star Wars shoot for GQ here.
