It’s tempting to say Amy Schumer, comedian and star of the new film “Trainwreck,” is the “new sexy,” a reflection of the times when women no longer have to be so shamed by every ounce of fat on their body that they have to leap into the shadows for fear of–gulp–being thought of as anything other than an ideal sex object.
But to do that would suggest that Schumer fits the mold of one of those horrific body-shaming terms that people use these days. Whether trying to remain PC–“full figured,” or flat-out mean–“butterface,” these terms are designed to exclude, or at least justify why the fat girl is at the party with the cool kids.
But let’s be real here: Schumer is not fat. She simply is not afraid to look like what a real woman looks like. And as she pulls no punches on the stage, neither has she shown the prediliction for starving herself down to nothing in order to look more appealing in front of a movie camera that, yes, captures every imperfection and magnifies it tenfold.
But Schumer’s unabashed willingness to share her weight–which dares have a number higher than 2 in the tens column–makes her sexiness that much more, and is a reflection on changing times that she lands what we can call a romantic lead (hell, she’s the flat-out lead) of Judd Apatow’s movie, hopping in the sack with the likes of WWE’s John Cena (mirroring real life, in her oft-discussed relationship with another hunky wrestler, Dolph Ziggler).
And is it telling that in a discussion of a new raunchy sex comedy from Apatow that in more than 250 words I’ve not yet typed the word “funny” or any of its synonyms? It says more about us as a society than anything else.
And that may be the legacy of this film, and of Schumer’s movie career, whatever it eventually becomes. And that is something that we should be simultaneously proud of, and completely ashamed of.
