A Bit Fruity with Matt Bernstein - Amy Schumer & the Plague of White Feminism (with Broey Deschanel)

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Girlbossing too close to the sun can cause a real trainwreck. Today, we examine the unstable foundation of Amy Schumer's feminist brand of comedy and how it all fell apart. Support me on Patreon! Thanks to Rocket Money for sponsoring the show. Uncover and cancel your unwanted expenses at www.rocketmoney.com/fruity.  Here’s Maia’s YouTube channel, and here’s her fantastic podcast Rehash. Find more of A Bit Fruity. Find more of Matt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, and welcome back to A BitFruity. I'm Matt Bernstein, and if you like the show and would like more of the show, or just to support the show, you can do that over on Patreon. I believe by the time this episode is up, we'll have a new bonus episode on the fifth year anniversary of the by-sister James Charles Tati Westbrook, vitamin supplement homophobia scandal. It has been five years. Can you believe it? Cat Ten Barge, friend of the show Kat Ten Barge, who is an influencer expert, and I will be doing a five years later unpacking of the events and how it changed the internet forever. Today, we are in for a little bit of a different but equally rich journey. We are going to be talking about Amy Schumer.

Amy Schumer is someone who I think everybody has opinions about for better or for worse. Amy Schumer was just featured on the cover of Variety Magazine's Power of Women issue after an extraordinary seven months of highly controversial posts on social media, and one could argue a highly controversial career at large. And so today we are going to take a look at the life and times of Amy Schumer and try to understand what she represents at the intersections of whiteness, of womanhood, of feminism, of entertainment, and all of the things she's come to stand for and represent in the limelight. To do that, I am so, so excited because we are joined by Maya, also known on YouTube

as Broi de Chanel, also known in the podcasting world for her show Rehash, which I have spent the last three weeks binging without knowing Maya personally, but after listening to so many hours of her speaking and her just brilliant social commentary, I was like, I need to figure out a way to get her on this show. And I'm so happy she's here. Maya, welcome to A BitFruti. Thank you so much for having me. I feel honored to be here. I talk a lot and a lot and a lot about feminism. It's something I studied in school. It's something I've always had an interest in. Thinking about Amy Schumer, especially in context to this geopolitical event that's happening. I think, what's happening with her right now and especially with what happened with variety.

Definitely comes at the intersection of a lot of things. Well, let's dive right in. So what is your cultural understanding of Amy Schumer? Where did she enter your life? Amy Schumer entered my life actually quite early on in her, like actually a bit before she blew up in the mainstream, I would say. I first came to know of her through, I'm so embarrassed to admit this, but I came to know about her through the roast of Charlie Sheen. I used to watch the Comedy Central roast with my mom. I would have been in like grade 10 at this point, but she was on the roast of Charlie Sheen.

And I remember finding her extremely funny, honestly. Like I actually noted her down as someone to look out for because I thought that she was really good. I actually rewatched that roast just in preparation for this. And I do think it still holds up. Obviously, some of the jokes are astonishingly out of pocket. she roast Patrice O'Neill for being diabetic and he actually passed away that year. So just things that maybe have definitely not aged well in or out of her control. But I do find her quite funny.

And then ever since she's kind of been this cultural figure who I've had a complicated relationship with, she's someone who like I think I hold a lot of nuance for in a similar way to Lena Dunham, where I do think a lot of the criticisms of them are extremely valid. But a lot of them also stem from this place of like sheer. misogyny as well, especially because very similar to Lena Dunham, like, she doesn't, Amy Schumer doesn't really adhere to certain beauty standards or certain forms of, like, feminine etiquette. And that really tends to rub people the wrong way, especially men.

So, so I've always tried to kind of hold the criticisms of her with a grain of salt because I don't know. You never know where they're coming from. That is obviously until recently. And I think one of the hallmarks of Amy Schumer's relationship to the public in a way that we're going to get to later in this episode is this like what is valid criticism what is misogyny and fat phobia and also where to she blur the lines between those two in a way that's convenient for her to like dodge actual criticism i think i think that's exactly what's going on i think she which we'll talk about but i think that she definitely weaponizes that or i don't even

know if it's an intentional weaponization but it's like a knee-jerk inclination and a knee-jerk uh defensive response regardless of what the criticism coming her way is. Okay, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Amy Schumer. Amy Schumer was born on the Upper East Side of New York City into a wealthy family. Her parents owned a furniture company. And for the first nine or so years of her life, she lived in Manhattan wealth.

The furniture company, though, ended up going bankrupt. Her parents got divorced. Again, this is around the time she's like nine or ten years old. and she moves to Long Island with her mother. Amy Schumer is famously second cousins with the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who, as many nepo babies are, she's very strident in her like, I'm not a nepo baby. Like my relationship to Chuck Schumer has nothing to do with my successful career

and entertainment. And for all I know, that could be entirely true. Like, I don't know what Chuck Schumer can do for her as a second cousin high-ranking politician? Yeah, it's hard to know. I think with nepo babies, there's there's kind of like two types of nepo babies. There's the one that's like the child of two A-listers who are, who was always destined to kind of fall into the path, the same path as their parents and was a celebrity since they were a baby. And then there's the type that's someone who got their foot in the door by way of their own kind of like privilege by way of their own wealth. I would assume like maybe Chuck Schumer

didn't help Amy in terms of like the comedy circuit and going to gigs because I think I think comedy is pretty difficult to enter as a Nepo baby. I think it's something that you do have to kind of work your way up through. But I'm sure her, her connections or her, her wealth growing up, helped in some way. Yeah, I mean, it can never really hurt. Amy Schumer, after going to college, she starts gaining some popularity in her early TV career with various gigs on Comedy Central. This is like during the late 2000s, she was interestingly a recurring guest on Greg Gutfeld. like Fox News show at the time, which I think is like, I'm not going to be like, she was a right winger the whole time, but I think is like kind of accidental foreshadowing a

little bit. Unfortunately. She gets her big mainstream breakthrough in 2015 with her movie train wreck with Bill Hader. Since then, she's had, you know, a whole lot of career success. She's had multiple televised comedy specials on HBO and Netflix. This is actually where Amy Schumer comes into my life. I think I became aware of her once she was already very famous. I was on an airplane and I think her first Netflix special was like on like the free like things you could watch.

And so I was watching it and I was like laughing to the point of crying in my seat. I'm not here to be like I disagree with this person now on politics. And so I'm going to say like I never thought they were funny. My personal opinion, Amy Schumer has been funny. She was making a lot of like jokes about diet culture, which felt in the 20s. tends to be pretty subversive, would you say? Yeah, I think a lot of her comedy was quite subversive for the time. She made a lot of jokes about, you know, casual sex as well. And so like on top of jokes about diet culture, you know, she's, she kind of was a member of the like

sex positivity movement and kind of championed that a bit. Obviously, sometimes it gets a little tired with, with her. But yeah, I think, I think she was ahead of her time in certain ways, for sure. I feel like the hallmarks of Amy Schumer's comedy, it's sex, it's feminism, it's fatness and like body empowerment. Integral to the brand of Amy Schumer has always been this like liberal irreverence, which again, like at the time, especially for a woman in comedy, was kind of groundbreaking. Totally, yeah. And I think she was also, she would often kind of play this role of like an ignorant person that had a veneer of like self-awareness. to a degree. And that's why it's been kind of hard to tell and, like, go back and look at jokes that are ranging from off-color to, like, outwardly offensive and know which of them are coming

from this, like, role that she was putting on and which of them are coming from her. The double-edged sword to when your image is this, like, progressive person, is that people hold you to that. And when you behave in a way, unbecoming of that image, I think it sticks out like a sore thumb. And when she's kind of continued to bring these like off-color jokes into her routines because yeah she has kind of positioned herself as a champion of feminism and a champion of women's rights. But then she'll kind of like make fun of like Latinas for no reason at all in a award ceremony speech. And so this image that she gives of herself as a champion of women has been called into question a number of times throughout her career,

especially with her punching down at racial minorities. And then really went south earlier, I guess late last year and into this year, which, which, her what has become pretty prolific commentary about Israel and Palestine. So Amy Schumer is a Jewish woman, like anyone, you know, in Jewish communities or Muslim communities, but really anyone, Amy Schumer has had a lot to say about what is happening right now in Israel, Palestine. Maya, did you witness any of the Instagram spiral that happened over on at Amy Schumer? Unfortunately, I did. It was astonishing to behold. It was astonishing to behold. as were most of the things that were happening online in October, but I don't know, it never

ceases to amaze me like the lack of empathy. I feel like what Amy Schumer had to say about Israel became like a genre of news in and of itself. It's like there was what was actually happening in Israel and Palestine. And then there was what Amy Schumer was saying about what was happening in Israel and Palestine. And so there is really a rich body of work from this era of Amy Schumer's social media presence. I have curated some selected works for us to analyze together. I think they kind of offer a window into the worldview of not only Amy Schumer, but the specific brand of feminism and liberalism that Amy Schumer represents that I think a lot of people subscribe to. And I would like to start by sending you one of these posts, Maya, and having you,

describe to me what you see. I'm scared. You should be. So in this one, she shared a post from an account called Living Jewishly, and it's like a brick wall with a black star over it. And in the star is this text, and the text reads, saying this out loud is going to be tough. Yeah, strap, strap in everybody. First, they came for LGBTQ, and I stood up because love is love. Then they came for immigrants. And I stood up because families belong together. Then they came for the black community. And I stood up because black lives matter. Then they came for me. But I stood alone because I am a Jew. Where do we begin? It's basically like a reversed version of an extremely famous poem from World War II called First They Came. Yeah. I think most people have probably heard this, but the poem that this is,

lifted from, but wildly twisted from. It's from 1946 post-World War II, and it is by a German pastor who was writing about the Nazis rise to power. And he wrote, first they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to

speak up for me. It's essentially about the ways that fascism and social prejudice can take a hold and the ways that it can escalate if the public is apathetic essentially to the suffering of others, to the oppression of others. It's about complicity. It's a devastating poem. It's an apt one. And Amy Schumer's post essentially completely bastardizes the sentiment behind it. The way that Amy Schumer has flipped this. Amy Schumer didn't write this poem. She's published it as if to co-sign it. And the way that she's written is like, well, they came for everybody else and I stood for everyone. And it's like, it completely inverses the meaning of this original poem to like make it about your own self-victimization. And the funniest part is that like it could easily actually

be applied more adequately to the plight of Palestinian people and the apathy that the world has essentially shown them in their suffering for the past seven or more decades. I love the way that it's written because it's just like all of the liberal sloganeering. Like, you know the, you know the memes about like the yard. I mean, they're not even memes, like their actual yard signs that people will have up like well-intentioned liberals will have in front of their yards that are like, in this house, we believe love is love. Black Lives Matter.

Science is real. It's like that. Science is real. Science is real. Like, brown people are human beings. It's like the craziest liberal sloganeering, but it's like, then they came for the black community. And I stood up because Black Lives Matter. People were very angry about Amy Schumer posting this for reasons which I think are understandable.

A lot of people belonging to the minority groups listed in this poem, queer people, immigrants, and particularly black people were basically just like, what have you done for Black Lives Matter, Amy Schumer? Like, what have you done for Black people? Like, what does this actually mean? Yeah, and it's also like not only, yeah, positioning herself as some sort of like martyr, but also asking people to, essentially equating her so-called solidarity with, let's say, like, Black Lives Matter, for example, with someone essentially agreeing with her Zionist views

to like indiscriminately bomb an entire population of people. And it's like, hmm, one of those is not the same. What do you think it represents about how Amy Schumer views solidarity with other marginalized groups? I think it comes across extremely transactional, like a bit tit for tat. I'll only performatively associate with you and your movement and I'll only perform my allyship so long as I know that I'm going to get the same thing in return. And, you know, a lot of the time when you do stand for marginalized communities, it's supposed to be, it's supposed to be unconditional.

And it's supposed to be standing up for those who don't have the resources that you do. It makes it very clear that her allegiances are conditional and that she's doing it for that reason. Which is not solidarity. I'm still stuck on like what Amy Schumer has done for black people, but I don't know. I would like to show you another Instagram post. So this is one where people were like really starting to take note of Amy Schumer's increasingly wild Instagram presence during this like October, November period. But this was the one that, well, actually the previous one I saw and my jaw dropped, but like this one even more so. I was at an art museum and I like sat down in the little cafe in the lobby afterwards.

and I opened my phone and Amy Schumer had posted this. And I, like my jaw was on the floor. And I think this was the post that most people reference now when they're talking about like the Amy Schumer controversy. Everyone brace yourself. Oh yeah. All right. So, oh God. If someone were to take a sound bite out of this and decontextualize it, I would look very bad.

Very bad. What we're seeing in this image is essentially a cartoon. tune of a group of people, many of whom are white, holding up protest signs, they're standing in like a city street. And the signs say things like beheading its resistance. Stabbing parents in front of children is legal. Throwing grenades at kids hiding in closets is not terrorism. Burn babies burn, proud of our rapist martyrs. And then the front sign, the biggest one, says Gossens rape Jewish girls only in self-defense, which is crazy. And then the caption says, yeah, yeah, totally ceasefire.

But mind if we get the babies back? Can y'all give that a shout too? And also try not to kill all the Jews again. Thanks. Have the best Friday. Insane. Insane. There is once again so much here.

I actually think, though, that the caption is one of the most revealing parts because I'm going to read it again. Yeah, yeah, totally ceasefire. but mind if we get the babies back. Can y'all give that a shout too? And also not try to kill all the Jews again. Thanks, have the best Friday with no punctuation between thanks and have the best Friday. Like, I think that that is the kind of revealing of Amy Schumer's like mental state at this point.

Like, she's just typing. Erratic. There's erratic. There's never like thought. There's never stop and pause. There's never go back and revise. There's just post, post, post, post, post. Yeah, this is like meant to be a satirical illustration of a,

pro-Palestinian protest. And this was on the main grid. Like this was on Amy Schumer's main feed. This was not an Instagram story. She saw this one and she was like, this is going to hit. Oh, she posted on Maine. I think for days about what I post on Maine, weeks even. And she just, she just went ahead and put this right on Maine. What stands out to you about this post? Immediately two things. I think, yeah, yeah, totally sees fire is an incredibly flippant way to address the situation. The other is Gossens rape Jewish girls only in self-defense. To say Gossens raped Jewish girls, whereas like the picture, the shirt right behind says, I love Hamas.

But then to equate Hamas with Gazins is incongru- it's unconsible. And to say that they rape Jewish girls only in self-defense is just not even taking into consideration what the IDF has been doing two Palestinian women in the complete indian. verse and for decades is just like truly insane. I just think it's like this insane lack of empathy and bigotry, of course, like just blatant Islamophobia, blatant racism. The thing that made a lot of noise about this post was that the most prominent protester in this drawing at the front is the one holding the sign that said, Gossins rape Jewish girls only in self-defense. It's that replacing of Hamas with Gazans, right?

Like, it's, it's no longer about Hamas. It's about Palestinians living in Gaza, which is just, it's so disgusting. It's so Islamophobic. She would end up deleting this. She ended up deleting, like, a lot of the ones she got criticized most for, but never really meaningfully retracting anything.

There was another Instagram post, and this was crazy. It was a headline, and it said, Ivy League, among top recipients of $8.5 billion Arab funding. And so she's making a claim that, like, colleges receive funding from Arab people, and, like, that's why young college students are against the genocide in Palestine.

This one, it's just like, we went from Hamas to Ghazans to Arabs. It's just so incredibly, like, so racist and, like, far right. Yeah, when it descends into like invoking the word Arab, it's just like barely concealed at that point, like the disdain and the racism. It's barely concealed. Yeah, I actually didn't see this one when it came out. Oh yeah, this one got, this one got deleted. Another, we're going to move on for the Instagram post, I promise. I told you there's a rich body of work.

I'm sorry. But another one from this period of time. During this time, Instagram, as you may have heard, introduced. a feature that they turn on by default that limits what quote-unquote political content is shown to you on your explore page. They're obviously doing that because like Adam Osseri and the Instagram people want to be more friendly to advertisers and people are increasingly talking about politics all the time. That was just a fucking crazy decision because what is considered political, right? Like are cis bodies political or are trans bodies political? Are white people political or our black

people. It's just, I'm really interested to know, like, who's writing these algorithms and what they consider political. I know as a political content creator, what of my content has gotten limited in how they push it out and what hasn't, and I can tell you, whenever I talk about Palestine, it is severely limited in the algorithm. I made a post, as I do, where I was making people aware of that they should be turning this limit political content thing off. And where does it end up on Amy Schumer's Instagram story. Again with her just not thinking before she posts, like just look into it a little bit further, babe. Well, so the amazing thing about, first of all, for me to end up on Amy Schumer's Instagram story, of course I was gobsmacked. But I included in the background of this post that I made to make people aware of this feature, I included a picture of a bomb being dropped on Gaza, which Amy Schumer clearly doesn't realize that that's what's on the post. Well, it's so similar to what, I think it was like Jamie Lee Curtis, and I think maybe Justin Bieber were posting after October 7th, they were posting all these images of Gaza and being like, look at what they're doing to Israel.

And it's just like, oh man. Yeah, and then people were like, that's not Israel, that's Gaza. And then they deleted it. Then they deleted it. And I'm like, I wonder if that changed your views at all. It was so bad when the white children are dying. But then I learned that it was actually brown children that were dying. and suddenly, I don't know, I think I just need to carry on with my day.

Suddenly, it just didn't seem to affect me anymore, and I don't know why that is. Amy Schumer posts a video of Martin Luther King talking about Israel and anti-Semitism, and Bernice King, Martin Luther King's daughter, was not having it at all. And so I am going to send you her response to read. So Bernice King said in a thread, Amy, certainly my first. father was against anti-Semitism, as am I. He also believed militarism, along with racism and poverty, to be among the interconnected triple evils. I am certain he would call for Israel's bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released, and for us to work for true peace, which includes

justice. He said, justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. We have so much to correct. White people love to use Martin Luther King. as their kind of like perfect black, you know, voice. And they love to do it. They're like, well, he was against violence and he was against, whatever, he was against violent protest. He was nonviolent. And so they kind of use that as like a reason to chastise people whenever they speak up,

whenever they protest, whenever they, whenever anything ever happens, essentially. And they always do it incorrectly. And they love to make him kind of like the one civil rights advocate as if there were, weren't so many other people around that exact era doing similar things. Conveniently, they love to not think about Malcolm X and his values or teachings because it just doesn't align with their own. It's very interesting how white people will cherry pick the kind of like civil rights heroes who make them feel good about the things that they already believe.

And they love to kind of bastardize his concept of civil disobedience as a way to, like we're seeing it right now with the protests at Columbia and all these other universities. like people saying that they're getting, they're becoming too much essentially and being really confused about like the disruptive power of protests. And I think Martin Luther King often becomes kind of like the symbol for that in a way that I think is just so unfair to his legacy and unfair to what he, what he really stood for. And I think this is a great case. Like he, of course he was against anti-Semitism, but why would you ever think he'd promote a genocide? Right. Yeah. And Amy Schumer ignores Bernie's King's response.

I think we can accept that as like her version of defeat. Like she had that, what can you say against that? What are you going to argue with Martin Luther King Jr's daughter? Yeah. Amy Schumer silenced at last. Thank you, Bernice King. I mean, if it took Martin Luther King Jr's daughter to silence her, wow, that's incredible. I would like to take a quick, quick break from the show to give a shout out to the sponsor

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Now let's get back to the show. Amy Schumer got into another row with another black woman. Someone named Asia Jackson on Twitter was writing about, you know, the double standards for what people are allowed to say in defense of Palestine versus in defense of Israel. And to the tune of 162,000 likes currently, she wrote, It's so crazy to me how Bella and Gigi Hadid, who are Palestinian supermodels, had to tiptoe around their statements. And then Amy Schumer is like, Ghazans are rapists and will still have a career.

And so Amy Schumer really didn't like that Asia Jackson said this and DM'd her on Instagram. She wrote in a series of texts to Asia, which Asia published on Twitter, Amy wrote, did something I post about my people being massacred upset you? Asia responds, the Islamophobia and generalization of Ghazan people did. And then Amy writes, really sorry about that. Eventually, and so she's like going viral every single day, you know, six months ago. And eventually she comes forward with a statement. And here is where we are going to pick up. So I am going to send you that statement, Maya, and we'll read it.

So she wrote in a notes app note. Classic. She said, classic. She said, couple things. What I want is every hostage back, all in caps. I want safety and freedom from Hamas for Palestinians and Israelis. I want safety for Jewish people. Muslims as well. Everyone. Just like you, I want peace. You will never see me wishing harm on anyone,

saying I'm Islamophobic or that I like genocide is crazy. So here you go by popular demand. Comments on, please keep the below in mind. When you say I'm rich, please add in, self-made. I come from being dirt poor. Senator Chuck Schumer is my dad's second cousin once removed. I didn't meet him until I was 25. I have never been given any money to support a cause other than tampons. I've never stolen a joke. People call me a failed comic. I'm the most successful female comedian of all time. I'm ugly slash fat.

Okay, sorry you aren't attracted to me. I found someone who is. I hope you find someone too. We are all in a lot of pain. What hurts the most is that we all actually love each other. You hate Jews. You don't know why. I still love you.

It's just difficult because, like, baked into that are some truths, you know, like, she is an excecate. She is a very successful female comedian. It's not nice that people keep calling her ugly and fat as a reason to critique her. She maybe probably didn't know Chuck Schumer until she was 25, and that's okay. You know, I think that what I find frustrating about a lot of critiques online is that people tend to kind of deviate from the subject at hand. And it just undermines the point.

Sure, there are some truths in there, but then they're couched within a whole bunch of troubling things. I think I was just reading this, and it's like, how have you made the entire thing about yourself. Yes. And to be clear, like, the way that a lot of people talk about Amy Schumer is directly related to how she looks and is about her weight and is about her face. And like, I think that's wrong and I think it's stupid. And I think if you have a critique of someone, you should be able to make it without commenting on how they look. But so much of the critique about Amy Schumer has nothing to do with how she looks, especially amidst everything we were just talking about and then to just go and do that like, well, you hate me because I'm ugly, but

whatever. Fuck the haters. It's like, Amy. Part of me, yes, does understand why she's so quick every time to jump into like people hate women defense in that variety article, which I know we'll get into. She says, like, you know, they save a special kind of vitriol for us. It's not new. I think it's because they fear women.

But that being said, like couching that within these kind of like Zionist talking points that are so devoid of empathy. Amy's behavior in this is this like really unfortunate confluence of white feminism and Zionism. Like such a big hallmark of white feminism is this whole idea of like white women's tears, right? And I think Amy weaponizing her womanhood to like absolve herself of everything she says and does is just such a facet of that. And I think that's exactly what she's doing in this. I guess you could call it a notes app apology. I don't know if we could even characterize it as an apology, but a statement. I think people are coming to this podcast from varying levels of having been involved in feminist discourse. Could you explain a little bit about

what white feminism is and what the tenets of it are? Yeah, white feminism. And this is something I do, like I actually like to talk about recently because I think recently it gets conflated with like white women who are feminists. And they're not the same thing. Like there are many white women who are obviously vocal against what's happening in Gaza and the West Bank. And like Susan Sarandon got dropped by UTA, Billy Elish has spoken out, boy genius, like all these people. White feminism is like a brand of feminism that is essentially exclusive to white says women. And I think one of the tenets of it is that it really centers the self and like the individual

as like the most important part of women's rights essentially. And so you kind of see that within these like more defensive, these defensive positions that Amy Schumer takes on or in her comedy, right? Like she, like we were saying, she has made quite a bit, quite a lot of leaps in terms of what she's doing for white women in comedy, but then she simultaneously will have these routines that are at the expense of marginalized people, marginalized women. I think she is like probably the poster child for white feminism. And it's what she's doing here in this instance as well. Should we talk about the variety article? The variety article was kind of my impetus for wanting to make this episode. Because Amy Schumer was one of a number of celebrities that had like sort of wild social media outbursts over the last year.

But then for her to be given this crown of like variety magazines power woman and given this magazine cover, that was the thing. that was the thing that like kind of sent me over the edge a little bit because I have watched as so many people in the entertainment space have tried to like tow this tightrope of trying to stand up for what they believe in without the very real risk of professional consequences and we've seen people face the wrath of those professional consequences like you said Susan's Randon I mean there's been a whole bunch of people who have faced consequences for speaking out Melissa Barrera the young actress who was fired from Scream 7 for advocating for Palestinians. And then for Amy Schumer to be able to post these like heinous things about Gosson's only rape and self-defense. And I stood up for black people. So where are the black people standing up for me? And like just these fucking crazy things.

And then for her to like delete half of it, ignore the rest, move on. Which look, from a social, like as someone. who's been prolific online a little bit, like, I understand posting through it. I'm with you, Amy. I get it. Sometimes we flop and we have to post through it. I'm giving you empathy where I can. But to be rewarded with like power woman of the year magazine cover is like kind of where I started to lose my marbles a little bit. I just think generally these awards are so bizarre. Yeah, like handing them to celebrities for just like doing their jobs. I don't know. What is the purpose? behind these. I think like what initially stuck out to me and like my immediate thought was like

the instance of variety choosing to award Amy Schumer, who hasn't really done anything super noteworthy this past year, just felt like a really blatant move on the part of the publication to like really let us know where they stand. To me it was like extremely symbolic of Variety's beliefs. After October 7th, Variety did a summit on anti-Semitism, which had been planned like in the months prior to October 7th, but like during the summit, it actually kind of turned into more of a discussion about Israel, Palestine. And during the summit, the magazine apparently expressed that it stood in solidarity with Israel. And then it also published like 28 articles about anti-Semitism in Hollywood, which of course it is within its right to do. It was just like the

timing of it was a little interesting. And, you know, some of the articles, like one of them was by Noah Tishby, who's like this super, super Zionist, let's say. Yeah, she's kind of the Zionist spokeswoman. Yeah, exactly. And her, the article's called anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. And that was published by variety. So that's her slogan. Yeah, exactly.

And so it felt like this was them kind of like digging their feet in the ground. And just like at the heart of the piece is just, it's just bad journalism. It's bad faith journalism. It felt like rage bait in a way. And if it's, if it's rage bait in a way. then it did work. I mean, people were livid on all of the social media platforms, including myself. I'm so sorry. I sometimes, look, I'm not immune to being baited variety.

If you want to bait me, then, you know, you've pulled my trigger, I guess. I want to send you the cover, like the cover of the magazine. And I want you to describe it. And I want you to tell me what you think about it. So here we have a backdrop. It's just like a beige backdrop. Is that beige? Grage. Grage. We have a grage backdrop.

It's very simple. It has the variety logo in black font. It has power of women beside it. And then we have Amy Schumer standing with a Rosie the Riveter kind of like arm like this. Yeah. She's like flexing her bicep. She's flexing her biceps. She's giving us her empowerment fist, I guess.

And she's wearing a black dress. And in text over her, it says, Amy Schumer back at the mic. I had kind of a strong reaction to the way that they posed her doing this like Rosie the Riveter thing. Because it is, it's the power of women issue. It's the like poster child of all feminist poses, you know. And I think in the context of like you said, I mean, the thing that she's been known for over the past year more than anything else, more than her like work and comedy or art or anything is her kind of callousness. towards the death of Palestinians.

There's something so, like, first world about celebrating this woman for all of her, the adversity she's faced while women in Gaza are being bombed in their beds. And it's just, like, it's just so distasteful. And I think, insulting in every single way, and I think that's exactly what they were going for. Like, I'm not going to absolve them at all. I think that they wanted to insult us. I've pulled out some excerpts from this variety article.

It's fascinating. how sympathetic the author is towards her. But then again, it's fascinating how sympathetic this entire publication is towards her. So here is the first quote. This is actually the opening of the article. Amy Schumer was in the zone. I need to not read it like sounding like an asshole. Matthew, be nice.

Be nice. All right. Amy Schumer was in the zone. This was in March when she was filming on the street in Brooklyn for her upcoming movie kind of pregnant, a comedy about a woman who pretends to be knocked up for attention. In one take, Schumer emerged from a subway station while answering a phone call and was interrupted by a stranger shouting at her from the sidewalk. Fuck you, Amy Schumer.

You're a Zionist. You love genocide. Disruptions of the four letter of variety, meaning fuck. Describing fuck you as disruptions of the four letter variety is like, I guess it's, I guess it's of writing flair. Bad journalism. That's all I'll say. Disruptions of the four-letter variety aren't unusual in a recuous place like New York,

though they're usually less pointed. Schumer didn't break character, refusing to stop working as the woman carried on. The actress finished the scene finally, packed up her stuff and went home to her husband and their four-year-old son. It didn't even raise my heart rate, Schumer says, over brunch at a cozy Brooklyn Heights Tavern a couple days later. I didn't cry. Nothing. All right, my initial thoughts. I just think Ruben, like Rebecca Rubin, who wrote the article, her main fallback in it is to kind of point to all of Amy Schumer's like accomplishments and how how much she's able to brush things off in this like material way.

And like I think, I think this is just one of those examples. Like she refused to even stop working even when she got berated on the street. Like she continued to work. I don't know. It's just, it's just funny to kind of. of paint her as this like resilient Yeah. Person. It's like, oh, poor Amy. Like, it's just, it's trying to score her sympathy points in a way that I think is just so lame. Like, oh, poor Amy, you said something racist on the internet.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Like, someone yelled at you on the street for like saying a bunch of racist shit online. Well, and it's using, to your point, it's using this language that I think we usually apply to like working class women. This like, she had no choice but to keep working and she carried on. before going home to her husband and her young child. It's giving she's a single mom and works two jobs.

It's literally she's a single mom who works two jobs. It's that. Amy Schumer struggling single mother. It's like she has no choice but to keep up the work and like brush off the haters. And it's like we're describing an A list working Hollywood actress who has like tens of millions of dollars. Oh my God. Yeah, totally.

And is like the disruption in question that she can't let, like, get in the way of her work is, again, like, her being called out for a bunch of, like, heinous, racist shit online. I don't know. This isn't really like the plight of women. This is the plight of Amy Schumer. It's really playing into that kind of like whole capitalism, individualism thing we were talking about where it's like painting Amy Schumer. And she kind of does this in her notes app statement apology where she was like, you know, I was dirt poor. Like this article is really kind of positioning her. Simultaneously is like the scrappy underdog.

And then also as this like extremely successful woman. And it's like, you can't have both. Right. Pick Elaine. Something that I think a lot about is the drama triangle. Do you know what the drama triangle is? No. Please inform me.

So the drama triangle is this like philosophical idea from the 60s that everyone in any situation is always playing one of three roles. This is also a big theme in Christianity, where the three roles are the rescuer, the persecutor, or the victim. And there's no, like, blending of these. Like, I think something that is a hallmark of the drama triangle is the lack of nuance. And so you're always either in any situation, a victim, a persecutor, or a rescuer, like, who's saving the victim. And so I think, like, the way that Amy Schumer sees herself and also the way that she's being portrayed in this article, really leans into this idea of the drama triangle where like Amy Schumer is always

overcoming something. It's like a, it's a persecution complex. No, totally. I think the reason that this kind of like, you know, okay, so I think the article, like I was saying, it kind of falls back on this like, Amy Schumer so accomplished, all of her material accomplishments. They go into like how none of her views have hindered her ability to get jobs, which is like conveniently not interrogated any further in the article. Like, yeah, good question. Why is Amy Schumer continuing to find work? pretty obvious answer. Like, she belongs to an industry that sides with Israel. And so people who call for ceasefire are the ones who are actually being, you know, losing their jobs. It mentions how she got

a role in the new Jerry Seinfeld movie, which is like conveniently forgets to mention that Jerry Seinfeld is a notorious Zionist. Like, you know, all of this could be said, but it isn't. And I just think the reason that this, this kind of like accomplishment based line of argument is such a centerpiece in the article is just because like, I think neoliberal or like girl boss feminism places its attention on this idea of like woman as survivor. There's this like really great quote from Martin Fradley that I picked out when I was doing some research on this where he says it's this he wrote this chapter about like girl boss feminism essentially and he said the idealized 21st century female subject a confident

endlessly resilient agent of her own destiny illustrates how post feminism has become in effect the gendered version of neoliberalism. And I just think that's so apt to here, like the defense of any successful woman these days is to be like, you know, she has all these haters and yet here she is still standing. Here she is with all her businesses. And like the way that she's still standing is like, oh, she has no friends left, but at least she has this empire. Yeah. So I think, I think that positioning yourself as the victim is kind of like a part of that. Something that was really funny that came out as a consequence of this article was, so it talks about how the guy came out of the subway shouting at her about how she's a signet. And some guy on

Twitter, Twitter user at Young Chomsky, screenshoted that part of the article and wrote, that was me. Which if I laugh too hard, my bronchitis is still going to trigger me coughing, but I really did laugh at that. I love that. I love that his name is Young Chomsky. He knows Amy Schumer is manufacturing our consent. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so like you said, the author writes, none of this has stopped Amy Schumer from getting jobs. And it's like, okay, yeah, exactly.

Which it's just like, I don't know, how do you, how do you inject that into this article that's framing Amy Schumer as a victim? It would be like, well, she's still getting cast in everything. And like, she still has a top 10 movie on Netflix. So it's, they're trying to make her having like to take zero responsibility for her actions as this kind of, again, this resiliency narrative. And I think that's just kind of part of the disease of girl boss feminism. Like, yeah, you're so resilient because you didn't get fired because you're basically establishing, you're aligning yourself with the establishment viewpoint.

Like, cool, you're very subversive Amy Schumer. And it's just so disingenuous, this entire article. And so then the author and Amy Schumer are at this restaurant a few days later. And the author writes of this experience, moments later, a 20-something woman approached our table and addressed Schumer. Thank you for everything you're doing for Israel, the Brooklynite said. I follow you on social media, and I used to live in Israel. And thank you.

We support you. After the woman disappears, Schumer says, that moment you just saw, maybe 10 times a day that happens to me. Whatever, I guess if the author is just uncritically describing her experiences, like, I'm sure that did happen. But it's again, it's like, she's this hidden hero. And it's like, a bunch of other people who support the genocide of Palestinians come up to me all the time to thank me for my bravery. It's like, I don't know what that proves about you being a good person. It's just, yeah, other people agree with you on, like, you're a callousins towards Palestinian life. It's kind of giving my boyfriend lives in Canada.

Like, cool. You know, when people in school would be like, yeah, I have a boyfriend, but he lives in Canada. Like, I swear people still like me in secret. Yeah, even just what you're saying about her trying to position herself as virtuous, like this article, even going back to the constantly listing out, you know, all these new jobs she's getting, all of her successful projects. Like, I just think that the past few decades of feminism, like, really reoriented women's progress into the market. And it kind of went from, you know, women fighting for, like, financial independence in, like, the 60s and, like, a life outside of the domestic sphere to, like, women making as much money as possible. So now, like, a woman making a lot of

money and, like, having all these projects and being materially successful is viewed as inherently virtuous and, like, a symbol of progress, regardless of, like, who's who she is, how she got there, what her views are. So I don't think Amy Schumer, like, I wouldn't characterize her as like a girl boss in the traditional sense, like someone like Sophia Amaruso, who created nasty gal, for example. But I think she like does lean into a lot of like neoliberal feminist ideas. Like we kind of see in this article so often, like she really conflates her material success with her virtue as a person. Yeah. And as a feminist.

Something that also kind of speaks to this, which in like my podcast, we had an episode about girl bosses. And so that's why I'm just thinking about this so much. which I highly recommend, and it is the episode that made me reach out to Maya because she does such a fantastic job covering this topic. And I think in a lot of ways, Amy Schumer is kind of a quintessential girl boss. Like, she doesn't run a fast fashion empire yet. But she has kind of like positioned her comedy in this girl boss way that, like we said at the top of the episode, in the 2010s worked a lot more than it does now because people are becoming so much. more aware, I think, of, like, class inequality. But, like, I think she does position herself as, like, the girl boss. Oh, true. She's definitely, like, if she was in girl boss land,

she'd be kind of, like, a few foot feet in the gate. Like, she hasn't yet exploited thousands of people under her, but she is, but she's on the way. Right. She's on her little, she's walking on the path. Yeah, and she definitely, she's bought right into that ideology. Yeah, and so, I'll give my co-host Hannah credit for, for that episode. She did, she did the research for that one, she, um, essentially what we talked about is like, any successful woman now is kind of inherently considered a feminist. And I think that's, you know, that's something that's such a big theme in this article. So like over the years, you know, you'll have these like, these feminist picture books for children. They'll be like great women throughout the years. And it'll have like Harriet Tubman

on one page. And then on the next page, they'll have like Margaret Thatcher. And like, or they'll have Malala. And like even doing the research on this episode, like I, I was kind of looking into variety and the CEO of variety, Michelle Sorbino-Stearns. She was profiled in this article on Forbes for kind of like paving the way for women. And there's this photo of her in it next to Malala. Fuck off. Stop. Is there any meaningful difference between like a woman who owns a media empire and a woman

who was shot in the head for advocating for girls' education? I don't know. According to white feminism, not really. No, like they're truly, and that's what I'm saying. material success equals virtue. And it's like, yeah, if we break it down, Harriet Tubman and Malala are a part of these like extremely, this is such an oversimplification, but like these community-based movements, right? Malala's fighting for like the other women in her community to go to school. Harriet Tubman is, like, I shouldn't even have to break this down, but it's like,

what is A.B. Schumer doing? What is Michelle Sorbino-Sterns doing, right? So, you know, Amy Schumer even getting up there, she did a speech, an acceptance speech for her award. And she quoted people like Bell Hooks and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And essentially, like, in doing that, you're putting yourself on the same level of these women. And it's just, it's just so indicative of her brand of feminism. It reminds me of, okay, this is maybe kind of a deep cut, but it reminds me of when the self-help author and influencer, Rachel Hollis, made a TikTok comparing, herself to Harriet Tubman.

I'm telling you, the brunk guys, I can't laugh. No. No, it's truly, it's truly unwell behavior. Unwell behavior. To really sit there and be like, I own this, this like, scrunchy brand. And you know what? Me and Malala? We're kind of the same.

I could see us getting along. Yeah, she did as part of this, like, kind of like variety power women media tour, she gave a speech, like you mentioned, in a room full of very wealthy and mostly white women, where she does invoke people like Bell Hooks. And I fact-checked this because I was like, there is no way Bell Hooks was not in solidarity with Palestinians. And in fact, there was no way. She signed a few years before her death, which was a couple of years ago, Bell Hooks signed a statement in solidarity with the Palestinian people in 2014. And this, it does really make me think just about how embroiled, like, mainstream contemporary

feminism is with capitalism because it's like, capitalism tends to bastardize these figures who are, who are, like, anti-capitalists, who are known for, who are activists essentially. Like, you think of the way it's, it's kind of co-opted the art of like Jean-Michel Basquia and, like, Frida Kalo. And you kind of see this similar thing happening with. Amy Schumer's speech and invoking bell hooks. Like you can readily assume bell hooks is against imperial violence, you know, but she, she would never stop to think about that because it's like, oh, bell hooks is a strong

woman. And so, of course, I could use her in my speech, use her words to accept an award and where I'm essentially like saying that I'm resilient because of, because of like hate comments on Instagram about being racist. Yeah, exactly. And it's just, it's just shocking. She also had this, she ends it off on this Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote where she goes, I ask no favor for my sex.

All I ask of our brethren. And then she goes, I'm sure you can all say it with me. And she says, is that they take their feet off our necks. Ruth Bader Ginsburg quoted Sarah Grimke when she said, I ask no favor for my sex. You can probably all recite the end with me. I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off. are next. And it's just, that's an extremely powerful quote to use that like in light of

a genocide where actual state oppression is happening against women and people, everyone, men, women, children, everyone, queer people, everyone. It's just so wrong. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's unbelievably out of touch with like, like, I'm not a woman, but like it feels unbelievably out of touch with like, women's issues. It's what you mentioned before about how white feminism, kind of one of the hallmarks of it is like the individuality of it and the sense of self. And it's like Amy Schumer, I think sometimes talks about women's issues, but I think a lot of times she's just talking about Amy Schumer's issues. Totally. And I think something that it can be often, I feel like frustrating about the women's rights movement or like just feminism in general as a like blanket

concept is that a lot of people take it and just take it to mean like, okay, this is about me because I'm, let's say, a woman. And it's like, no, it actually has teachings. It has tenets. It has debates within it. It has, it advocates for so many different types of communities. It's inter, it should be intersectional. But because I am a woman, I don't actually have to look into any of that. Like, I am just a woman's woman, inherently a feminist. And it's like, I do think actually it takes some work to be a feminist. I think it takes, I think it takes learning, you know and I think it's she just makes it clear that she hasn't really done that or she's been very selective in the type of learning she's willing to do yeah someone else who I think kind of

famously engages in this type of feminism is Taylor Swift we're not talking about Taylor Swift this episode uh that is a separate episode for another day but like a lot of times first of all like people are misogynistic about Amy Schumer and people are misogynistic about Taylor Swift but these people and like Taylor Swift tends to only invoke feminism when it is in defense of herself as an individual. They are saying this about my music because they are misogynist. And while in the moment that may be true, like making jokes about how Taylor Swift only saying about her relationships was like what plagued the early years of her career.

And she rightfully pushed back by saying that's sexist and kind of brands herself as a But then kind of just, that's oftentimes the extent of these, of these celebrities, activism, about women's issues. It's just kind of like personal individual self-defense of their like own reputations. It's very much the brand of, sorry, I've named probably so many brands of feminism in this one episode, but it's kind of the brand of like feminism is me and my girls. And it, you know, it kind of reminds me of the whole girls' girl discourse, which I could go on about forever. But it's very like, me and mine. Like, you come from my girls and all stand up for them, but I'm going to be really atrocious to you. Another woman.

And I think it's like a similar kind of co-opting of feminism in a way that's extremely self-serving. And like apolitical. Someone described Taylor Swift a few years ago. I think it was in 2016 as obnoxiously apolitical. And I think that's such a beautiful way to describe this entire type of, type of feminism, I guess. Could you say more about that? Just that like, it's like you're saying, Taylor Swift not speaking out against. you know, specific issues that are plaguing women, you know, and instead just kind of making it

like a, what's happening to me today kind of thing. Like, that's not political. I think the personal is political. Like, feminism can be about the self and it can be about, like, who we are as individual women, but I don't think it's a very social approach to feminism. Not being issue focused, not being, again, intersectional is quite apolitical, you know, it's, it's taking feminism and it's making it an individual thing. And I don't think that it is. I think it's a community-based thing. I think it's communal. I think it's social. And it's just frustrating. It's frustrating because I think that's the type of feminism that's really taken hold. And it's like a very palatable type of feminism. It's very digestible. You can put it on a t-shirt, but I don't actually think it promotes

progress in any, like, constructive way. Maya, as we continue to move forward in the world, in feminism, what do you think is the place of Amy Schumer and the type of quote-unquote, feminism she represents. I think what we've been seeing since, you know, the beginning of her career in just over the past decade or so that she's been in the public sphere, I think we've seen like the waning of her feminism and how much it actually is valued in our society. I think like at the beginning, it really had a lot of value and it made sense because she was paving the way. but now that the conversation has changed a bit and we're starting to kind of critique the parameters of that type of feminism and its blind spots, the way that she kind of digs her heels on the ground and sticks to that one kind of feminism is now starting to feel quite dated or it has been quite dated for a bit now.

And I think, you know, the amount of eye rolls that she elicits just within that one speech goes to show that. I think when you pair that with her like Zionist beliefs, I think we're also kind of starting to see the world turn on that as well as this genocide continues. I think we're starting to see people become, if not skeptical, if not skeptical, then like outright intolerant towards that that viewpoint. And I think that's a good thing. But I think that she'll just always be a very complicated figure to me because of the beginnings of her career and because of because of the obstacles that she does face. And I think, I don't think she lies when she says she is one of the most successful women in comedy.

Like, we can deny it all we want. And I don't, I don't agree with that. I think that, I think that she is. And I think it's, it would be naive to say otherwise. But I hope that this conversation will lead to, you know, opening up the door for other women, other voices, other people in comedy to, to be able to have a spot and people who, who don't have these bullies. and who don't share weird, scary memes on the internet. I hope I put that adequately enough. No, I think you absolutely did.

No more Instagram. No more Instagram for you, Amy Schumer. To close out, I want to read a little excerpt that I cobbled together from an article from a website called The New Arab, which is titled, Where Are the Voices? A deafening silence from the West's white feminists on God. Gaza by Yusra Samir Imran. She wrote, recently when the 2023 movie Barbie did not take home any Oscars in March, they considered it a loss for feminism. Just a snapshot of what is currently happening to Palestinian women in Gaza. More than 9,000 women have been killed by the Israeli army,

while those who have survived are giving birth without painkillers, undergoing cesarean sections without anesthetic, menstruating without access to toilets, sanitary towels, or water, while many others are being unlawfully detained by the Israeli army, treated degradingly and forced to strip. While all this should have been a cause for uproar by feminists worldwide, the only thing white mainstream feminists can seem to muster energy for is the misogynistic hate against Taylor Swift and women's football. Maya, thank you so much for being here today and for blessing this episode with your insights. Where can people find you and where can people, might I recommend, consume more of your work?

Well, thank you so much for having me on. This is a lovely podcast, so I'm grateful to have been a part of it. And yeah, you can find me on YouTube and Instagram at Breway Day Chanel, and you can find Rehash Podcast. wherever you get your podcasts. And all of those links will be in the bio, in the bio. All of those links will be in the episode description. If you made it this far, first of all, I'm kind of like sorry for the journey that we've taken you on today

because I think it's been a little bit painful. But also, I don't know, there's so much to learn here about what feminism is and what it isn't and what it's come to look like in its kind of most evil forms. And I think it's good that every now and then we stop and look around and unpack that. So I'm really grateful that you joined us today. And until next time, stay fruity.