I’m a pretty big fan of Schumer and her show, but I do not think she should be any more immune from criticism over her writing staff than Jon Stewart or anyone else.
The nature of that criticism, however, is fucked up.
“I feel like keeping this person on staff is the antithesis of what you espouse as a comedian and as a person.” - I’m ok with this sort of thing
“Die rape fat bitch die rape!” - Not good with this kind of “criticism”.
It’s a hit or miss proposition. Sometimes you get Kurt Metzger, sometimes you get Louis C K. It’s always been like this with comedians: in order to be this transgressive, there almost always has to be something “outside of the norm” (can’t think of a better word or phrase). At the very least, it takes a certain perverse mindset to do the club circuit…
The trouble is, most police departments these days won’t investigate without an eyewitness.
I mean literally, they just send “rape kits” involving dna swabs to “evidence warehouses” and never open the file again.
There’s an article about it somewhere on boingboing here.
I know, and that’s why I think that all the effort that goes into social pressures of various kinds should be diverted into setting these people on fire. This is the burning issue, if you forgive me the pun.
Louis C K is transgressive and “outside the norm” (in a creative and positive way). May I suggest “beyond the pale” for Mr Metzger.
I’m not sure I understand why it should be an either/or proposition, though. The social pressure decreases the need for police intervention, so they seem like complementary strategies to me. And frankly, I’d prefer to live in a world with less work for the police rather than more.
If my choices for sorting out a buddy are giving him a good talking to or waiting for him to commit a crime and then calling the police on him, in most cases I’d prefer the former.
More on topic, I do think it’s ridiculous to hold Schumer personally accountable for what Metzger says. As we can see from the result here, guilt by association ruins everything.
Fair enough. I just mostly see what appears to be ineffectual and would (I mean, I don’t live in the 'States and can’t rightly do anything myself) really like the police held to account over this. For once, there’s no ambiguity. What they are doing is terrible and needs to stop instantly. No exceptions.
But… fair enough.
Sometimes it isn’t worth it.
No, I hear you entirely – it is deplorable how unserious the US legal system is about sexual violence. But this is a combination of both the fundamental structure of our legal system (innocent until proven guilty and other limitations placed on powers of prosecutors, still not enough to prevent widespread wrongful convictions and railroading) and elements of US culture.
I see the cultural elements to be more amenable to change by individual action than the legal ones, and less susceptible to unintended effects. If you give the government exceptional powers of investigation and prosecution in cases of rape, then sooner or later the authorities will use those powers in authoritarian ways.
It’s an extremely complicated ethical issue, which is all the more reason to give Ms. Schumer leeway about Metzger’s IMO unhelpful contribution to the discussion.
Yea, but… wasn’t she targeted by her “fans” this time?
Who are you referring to?
Amy’s fans?
FTA: Many Schumer fans considered her non-response antithetical to her show’s brand of feminism, and when she began blocking some Twitter accounts demanding a response, the frenzy built even more. Schumer’s new book The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo came out on the 16th, and it quickly became subject to a downvoting campaign on bookseller sites. The story continued to gain momentum as she was doing press for her new book
Assuming they were fans, this shows again how bad behavior on line is more than just trolls. It’s regular people being jerks.
Though just because you follow someone doesn’t mean you are a fan.
I’m not sure it’s fair to refer to people who would go out of their way to do that to her “fans”.
Amy has been the target of harassment and hate online for sometime now. I can’ tell you how many negative posts I’ve seen on reddit alone. So I think it’s safe to say that a lot of the people following her are not “fans”, any more than many who followed Leslie Jones via twitter and so on.
Cuz “fans” are always nice, rational people who give you a chance to explain if you do something anything that they perceive to be a slight.
Riiiight.
Are you saying the the people who followed Leslie Jones on twitter and used the same service to call her an ape were fans?
While I suspect there are a lot of Schumer’s detractors gleefully piling on, it really does seem as though this affair was started by some overzealous intersectional tumblr types reacting badly to someone stepping just slightly outside their orthodoxy.
The left eating itself is not exactly a new or rare phenomenon.
You’re not reading the same article I am are you
Too true. As a hardcore Star Trek fan, I see what some supposed fans say about the show and movies, and I’m just flabbergasted by what some of these “fans” say. I saw a comment yesterday from one who claimed that Trek had never been about diversity. LOLWUT
Anyway, I thought the BuzzFeed story had some interesting stuff in it.
You could argue that it’s not Schumer’s responsibility to condemn all of the reprehensible actions of the people who’ve worked for her. You could argue that it’s “feminist policing,” that we expect more from our female celebrities than we do our male ones, that it’s put Schumer in an unwinnable position and we shouldn’t take her to task for her reaction, that she probably hopes it will just blow over. You could argue that she’s entirely within her rights to block whomever she wants on Twitter.
The problem with these arguments is that Schumer — whether she likes it or not — does have a responsibility, which she finally acknowledged Wednesday. She’s become an icon for millions of women. She’s powerful, and she’s been adept at using this power when she wants to. She tweeted “much much love and respect” at the writer of an Elite Daily article published today headlined “How Amy Schumer Empowered Me to Come Forward as a Rape Survivor.”
And…I don’t know. Maybe?
In April, when she criticized Glamour for implying that she is plus-size, Schumer was then criticized for being so quick to reject the label. As Christina Cauterrucci wrote in Slate, “More than once, in the same breath as Schumer has promoted the idea that women of all sizes are beautiful and worthy, she’s slipped in the fact that she’s a size 6. Her message is sometimes less ‘I’m cool with my body, and you should be too, because there’s no wrong body’ than ‘What a shame that someone like me, who isn’t objectively fat, gets lumped in with all the actually fat women.’”
And that’s where I just flat-out say no.
Yes, she’s a celebrity; no, celebrity status doesn’t make a person public property. If she doesn’t want to be called “plus size”, that’s her business, isn’t it? We’ve had this argument on here before, and I came down on the contrary side back then; I’ll take the converse now. If Amy Schumer decided to convert to Islam and started wearing a headscarf to protect her modesty, that’s her own damn business, isn’t it?
I mean, I think George Takei should have had a shot to spend more time as Captain Sulu, and my feelings on that have nothing to do with his sexual orientation, and knowing that he’s an asshole doesn’t change my mind that he would have made a fantastic show lead.
And finally,
Metzger has responded on Facebook. His response reads, in part: “I was talking to the perennial social media mob who, without knowing victim or accused, GLEEFULLY want to be part of social mob justice. Some of whom are my friends. And I apologize for using the term ‘lynch mob.’ Lynch mobs sometimes actually hang a rapist. This one merely got a rapist banned from a monthly UCB show and then patted themselves on the head. I am always on the side of the VICTIMS, and I felt that this does them a great disservice.”
I…actually agree with him. I understand where some of you are coming from, which is that too many rape cases are taken too lightly. Hell, in my college years, I knew two MEN who had contacted the police, and both of them were literally laughed at by the police. Having said that, the Internet horde doesn’t always get things right, and it’s capricious. I note the near-total lack of outrage when Max Temkin was accused.
But the use of the phrase “lynch mob” is an interesting choice
I am. Here is the first response to her tweet about Kurt:
“@amyschumer Keep it up Amy. You’ve opened my eyes to how all men are rapists and showing off your butt is empowering”
