Tuesday, March 14, 2017

So, Finally, it's agreed Pudgy Amy Schumer ain't Funny

Amy Schumer's new special is NOT FUNNY.

Is that a surprise? She never was funny. She was always obnoxious. It just took a while for the easy-laughing morons of the world to realize, "what were we thinking of? This is really boring tripe from an unsightly annoying bitch."

So, approximately 700 out of 800 people leaving comments didn't like her show.

That alone isn't so bad. Most people who leave comments are trolls. They don't like anything.

BUT...many of the bad reviews came from people disappointed that this show was so terrible when "Trainwreck" was SO good and her last special was SO hilarious.

It's possible that Schumer (a cousin to the not so hilarious New York Senator, Chuck Schumer) simply ran out of ways to bludgeon her jokes and find new topics for her "outrageous" observations. Which is like saying that maybe Adele is going to run out of ways to bellow about ex-boyfriends dumping her like 150 pounds of manure from a hippo's cage.

Look at the picture. Does that look like somebody funny? Or does it look like a MMA fighter saying, "Yeah, I came in ten pounds over the weight limit, and if I'm not allowed to fight, that's somebody else's problem not mine."

First thing a comedian has to do is win people over visually. That walk to the microphone is where it starts. Does Amy look as comical as Phyllis Diller? As vulnerable as Joan Rivers? As smart as Tina Fey? As warm as Amy Poehler? As ethnic/exotic as Margaret Cho or Sarah Silverman? Who identifies with someone who looks like Amy Schumer? Then she opens her mouth, and the number who are laughing dwindles even more.

For me, whether she stole jokes or borrowed ideas from other comedians didn't make or break her. Don Adams stole from Jackie Mason but he had a great comic personality. Amy simply wasn't saying anything I wanted to hear. The aggressive fat bitch who would wedge herself against me to sit down on the bus and then have her purse on my thigh and start yapping on a cellphone is not the person I want to get comic stylings from on a stage. She appealed to rude annoying women but even they've lost interest.

You have to identify with the performer and, usually, LIKE them. LIKE how they sound, LIKE how they look, and LIKE the comic truths they are telling. But if they sound and look bad, and aren't telling truths, or are just tossing softball cliche and dirty jokes, no thanks.

Some are insisting this is a "sexist" situation. Female comedians aren't being respected. Poor poor Amy.

What a crock. This is the best time for female comedians. They just haven't produced. Chelsea Handler was handed a late night gig, and loused it up. Samantha Bee's got one now, and she's doing better.

TV networks are desperate for "diversity," and would like nothing better than a flock of funny ladies. The fact is, there isn't even a bunch of funny men anymore. Stand-up is, like progrock or magic acts, is a stagnant art form. Everything's been said. We know how it's done. An opening monologue from Maher or Kimmel is plenty. To sit for a half hour or an hour and have some pest stand around with "observational" humor is worse than spending that time in a dentist's chair.

At one time, there were plenty of well-paid and successful female comedians. In the late 80's, when I was editing RAVE MAGAZINE, you could enjoy sharp, intelligent women such as Brett Butler, Rita Rudner and Ellen Degeneres. There was the old school yammering of Roseanne Barr, and her more outrageous and edgy rival Judy Tenuta. There was still Joan Rivers and even Phyllis Diller. Times have changed.

Even kooky oddballs of either sex are no longer much of a factor, and that would be Norm MacDonald for the men, and Sarah Silverman for the women. Both were amazing and offbeat. Now? Both are a bit predictable and appeal mostly to their cult following. That's unfortunately a problem with stand-up. Like magicians who do the same card tricks, comedians who just tell jokes had better tell damn good ones. Rodney Dangerfield always did. He paid for them. He worked them, and hard. He polished and prepared for every "Tonight Show" appearance. Few are willing to do that, and really, he had that "I get no respect" character to use as a baseball bat to drive the little shots out into the crowd.

Today's women have sometimes had to use the "Liberated Slut" persona as the way to turn heads and get butts into the seats. Silverman did it well, making it seem like she was just "out there," and not aware that some of her remarks were gross. But most were intentional, like Lisa Lampanelli, who managed to pepper her insult jokes with salty self-deprecating gags about her own desperate choices in bed. Getting laughs by making it seem like men simply can't handle a woman making demands and being promiscuous, included Margaret Cho and Kathy Griffin. But they did it as themselves.

Look at Schumer and that outfit. The end of Eddie Murphy as a comedian was when he turned up on stage wearing rock star outfits, and all-leather. You have to be a very powerful truth-teller to dress up as some kind of idol. Murphy was not that man. It stopped working for Dice Clay, too. After a while, the shock lessens and you better have good jokes. Murphy relied on "observational" gags and face-making and fortunately, moved on to movies. Clay ran out of dopey Mother Goose rhymes.

Need I even add that we're living in the Internet age? EVERYBODY is a comedian. Everyone Tweets jokes or wisecracks. Everyone tosses memes around. The workplace is full of "hilarious" office comics and quipsters. Late night has a half-dozen people offering monologues, so why go to a nightclub? There aren't many nightclubs still around.

As we've seen in the music world, there are many one-shot wonders. Female comics have it rough? Tell that to Dido. Tell that to K.T. Tunstall or Anna Nalick. You can have a brilliant debut album, and be a has been after the second one. Attention spans are short. People figure out your style very quickly and then move on.

Comedians succeed because they are either vulnerable with self-deprecating humor, or they are perceived as heroic truth-tellers. Amy Schumer is neither. Who is her audience? Pissed off women who are tired of being fat-shamed? Pudgy sluts who are tired of sleeping on the wet spot?

Amy Schumer, according to The Decider, may have had it. If her next movie tanks, she will be finished. Sorry, Amy, but unlike your cousin chuckle-less Chuck Schumer, you weren't voted in for six years. That's show biz.

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