Amy Schumer stealing someone’s jokes is news. That I think is something that needs to be addressed and reported. But Amy Schumer getting bad reviews on Netflix because of a legion of Trump supporters encouraging others to give a 1 star review doesn’t really fall under the “eager to report” bin on my desk. Schumer’s been criticized in the past for plagiarizing jokes of other comics and in her new Netflix special she’s been accused of the same. However, I’d like to address this.
You don’t get to a point in your career where Amy Schumer is without working extremely hard and having talent. I’m not saying that stealing jokes is a good thing. But I will say this. If you steal a joke from a person who isn’t famous or someone who never really made it and you can make that joke kill and that person did nothing with it, eh, too bad. It’s done on the internet all the time. It’s called “renewsing.” High authority websites find little stories from all over the web, make them their own and then get all the credit. If you’re not taking something word for word then it’s a slippery slope but if there’s enough modification of the original idea, it’ll usually pass for original.
Is this the path Schumer was on? Nope. I don’t even think she was even close. Despite there being a 12 minute video out there that highlights all of her stolen jokes, it doesn’t matter. Again, not advocating directly stealing jokes here but modifying existing ideas and expanding on them is how we progress in our advancement in every walk of life. One movie will take an idea from a movie 10 years prior, expand on it and create something completely new and better than the original. It’s evolution. None of the jokes were EXACTLY the same nor were they delivered the same way. And despite the fact that I’m not an Amy Schumer fan, she’s a funny and talented person. That much is very hard to argue.
It takes talent to make people laugh for as long as she as. It takes talent to be an actress and actually pull off the transition from stand up comedian to comedic movie actor. You have to work well with directors, producers, writers, camera crew, and plenty of others. It’s not just Schumer’s stand up work that makes her successful. It’s the whole package.
The funny thing is that I think her entire poking fun of her body as a way for her to get validation from people as in “look, I know I’m not hot but you’d at least have sex with me right?” is kind of lame and almost sad in a way. In reality I personally think she wears revealing clothing not to say she’s proud of her body, but to assure herself that she’s a desirable female. But that’s all besides the point and frankly is psychoanalytical.
The real point I’m making here is that people as successful as Amy Schumer don’t generally land where they are by accident or because of a few plagiarized lines. They land there because of a little luck, a lot of hard work, and a ton of persistence. There’s definitely an element of “in the right place at the right time” but Schumer’s been on top for over 5 years now. If she was so bad or so unlikable she’d have faded away a long time ago.
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