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Legion contributor Christina Janke is reviewing Inside Amy Schumer this season. Follow her on Twitter @IntrotoGeek!

We’re a jumping into this show a little late. There are actually two episodes before this one that aired in April. Comedian Amy Schumer has been such on point this season about how women are treated  (either by men or by other women) that we just had to start reviewing her sketch comedy show, [easyazon_link identifier=”B00S89IPBG” locale=”US” tag=”legoflei07-20″]Inside Amy Schumer[/easyazon_link].

I want to preface this review with a chapter from Tina Fey’s [easyazon_link identifier=”0316056898″ locale=”US” tag=”legoflei07-20″]Bossypants[/easyazon_link]. In the chapter “I Don’t Care If You Like It,” Tina recalls a night in the writer’s room when Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler were talking about some nonsense. Amy said something that made Jimmy Fallon suddenly squeamish, “Stop that! It’s not cute! I don’t like it!”

Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. “I don’t f**king care if you like it.”

With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn’t there to be cute. She wasn’t there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys’ scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not f**king care if you like it.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are my heroes. You would know this if you read my teeny bio at the bottom of all of my posts. These two ladies are at the forefront of proving that women are funny, and Amy Schumer continues to prove that point. Like Poehler, Schumer doesn’t care if you like her brand of comedy or not. She does what she wants, how she wants to and her material is all the better for it.

[easyazon_link identifier=”B00X68UHAQ” locale=”US” tag=”legoflei07-20″]”12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer”[/easyazon_link] discusses whether or not Amy is hot enough to continue having her own show. Let me reiterate: old-timey men argue back and forth not about whether Amy Schumer is funny, but if such a woman (who’s a size 6) can give them a “reasonable chub.” That is the only acceptable requirement for a woman to carry on her own show. You can’t see me, but I’m rolling my eyes pretty hard right now.

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This episode is actually a pretty ambitious one.  It’s modeled after the 1957 movie [easyazon_link identifier=”B0010YSD7W” locale=”US” tag=”legoflei07-20″]12 Angry Men[/easyazon_link] and goes nearly the full 22 minutes on this single sketch rather than the usual several. Amy herself is barely present in the episode (she was busy co-directing. You go, girl!), appearing before and after the deliberations and again in the post-show interviews.

“12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer” stars a bunch of dudes (Jeff Goldblum, Vincent Kartheiser, Chris Gethard, Kumail Nanjiani, and John Hawkes) persistently eviscerating Amy with their double standard man-logic based entirely on patriarchal arrogance. What they have to say against Amy Schumer is hilariously on point to how some men generally view women in sitcoms and comedy films.

The deliberations become increasingly ridiculous with the dialogue bouncing from obscene and chauvinistic to falling into despair about their own insecurities, guilty pleasures, and frustrations.

This sketch directly calls back to a previous episode from last season, “[easyazon_link identifier=”B00MNUYQLY” locale=”US” tag=”legoflei07-20″]Would You Bang Her?[/easyazon_link]” where a bunch of men gather to a focus group evaluates Amy’s looks. It also challenges the “conventional look” of a lead woman in a romantic comedy. Usually you have some skinny bombshell as the lead, where as Amy would typically be the lead’s dumpy yet cute best friend. You could say that Amy is already taking steps to tear down that convention before her own rom-com, Trainwreckcomes to theaters.

It’s hard to be funny in general, but then to add social commentary while paying homage to a classic movie and play? That’s a feat only a few can pull off, and Amy Schumer does it splendidly.

SIDE NOTES:

Dennis Quaid makes an appearance as the judge.

“It’s an undisputed fact that a woman’s value is mostly determined by her looks.”

“If we decide that she is not bang-able, then she is going to lose her television show, or be put to immediate death… Or both. To be honest, I zoned out during that part.”

Juror: “I don’t think she’s protagonist hot…”
Other Juror: “But Kevin James is?”

“This isn’t complicated. It’s just another example of an average-looking chick who watched too much Top Model. Now she thinks she belongs on the cover of (bleep) Magazine.”

“She’s built like a lineman and she has cabbage patch-like features. Her ass makes me furious.”

“Am I the only one thinking with his dick?”

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Christina E. Janke

Christina is the co-host of “Intro to Geek” on Shauncastic and Editor-in-Chief at Agents of Geek. Her love of all things Mass Effect knows no bounds. She also carries an obsession with comic books, video games, and quirky television shows. Her heroes are Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Gail Simone. She hopes to be just like them when she grows up.