Why You Should Be Watching "Inside Amy Schumer"

By Elana Goodwin on May 3, 2015

If you’re not already watching “Inside Amy Schumer” on Comedy Central then you’re missing out big time.

The sketch comedy show, which stars Amy Schumer, is currently in its third season and has progressively improved since it premiered in 2013; in fact, it just won a Peabody Award.

“Inside Amy Schumer” covers everything from relationships to sexuality and gender to everyday real life situations, with a mix of sketches, comedy, and street interviews.

Photo Credit: Comedy Central

This season kicked off with an episode featuring Tina Fey, Patricia Arquette, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus in a skit called “Last F-able Day.” The three women are having lunch together when Amy stumbles across them while jogging.

The idea behind the skit is that in Hollywood, women have an expiration date as far as when they’re no longer really considered “sexy” and in the running for prime female roles, while the media and Hollywood don’t place the same judgements on men.

The video, which was uploaded to Comedy Central’s YouTube account about a week ago, has already amassed over 1.4 million views.

Schumer’s tongue-in-cheek and clever skits are not only funny, sometimes raunchy, and often packing star power: they’re also thoughtful and powerful pieces of social commentary.

For example, the recent “Friday Night Lights” parody sketch called “Football Town Nights” addressed the controversial and always difficult topic of rape. At an “Inside Amy Schumer” panel at Tribeca Talks After the Movie in mid-April, Schumer talked about how she succeeded in writing a comedic skit about rape that balanced humor and sincerity.

“It’s a risk because some people will be upset just at hearing the word and you can maybe look at that scene and think we’re making light of something so serious, but we really are trying to educate,” she said. “It’s like, we know what message we want to send and we also think of what premise is funny and then we’ll go to town.”

While the skit was serious as it shed light on the pervasive rape culture that exists in America and tackled a difficult topic, Schumer lightened the sketch with her Connie Britton-esque role and her ever-growing glasses of wine. On YouTube, the sketch already has over 1.1 million views.

“Rape is good fodder for comedy because it’s the worst thing in the whole world, so it’s this untouchable,” added Schumer later at the panel. “We’re never worried about going there because we know we have good intentions.”

This week, the musical comedy sketch “Girl, You Don’t Need Makeup” premiered in which a boy band tells Amy that she doesn’t need to wear makeup because “she’s perfect when she wakes up.”

Of course, when Schumer goes ahead and takes off all her makeup before reappearing in front of the boys, the boy band quickly changes its tune and tells her to put it all back on since they’ve changed their minds. In less than a day, the video had over 1.2 million views on YouTube.

The whole sketch is a clever reminder of how society’s beauty standards have become ridiculous, and especially the trend of women getting “beauty approval” from men. Often, this approval comes in the form of men telling women they don’t need to wear makeup.

Besides being super catchy, hilarious, and kind of poking fun at One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful,” the “Girl, You Don’t Need Makeup” sketch also inspired women to go makeup free and post pictures on social media.

Amy Schumer herself started the trend by tweeting a picture of her and a friend without makeup on before the episode aired and urged other users to post pictures in a similar vein using the hashtag #girlyoudontneedmakeup. And women of all ages did just that — they tweeted pictures of themselves sans makeup.

After the incredible response and support Schumer received from her hashtag and movement, she tweeted:

“I have been brought to tears with all the strong, badass, incredible women tonight. In jungles, jumping out of planes, holding their babies and mothers hands. All the strong lovely men who tweeted too. We are all different and beautiful. Let’s waste no time stressin bout looks. We are sisters and fighters and laughers and happy strong women. Smile at yourself in the mirror girl. #girlyoudontneedmakeup much love!”

If you haven’t already seen the video, it’s definitely worth checking out, and if you’re not already a fan of “Inside Amy Schumer,” I guarantee you will and should be.

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