Trainwreck's Amy Schumer muses on funny females in Hollywood
Comedian Amy Schumer writes and stars in her first film, directed by Judd Apatow
Ask Amy Schumer about the current wave of funny women at the movies and she makes a joke.
"We've been having secret meetings. Lady Meetings," she says, leaning in with a conspiratorial whisper.
It's easy for Schumer to laugh it off, but the plan could be working. From Pitch Perfect 2 sideswiping Mad Max: Fury Road to Melissa McCarthy's latest movie Spy, women are ruling the box office this summer. Part of this could be attributed to "The Bridesmaids Effect": the 2011 movie (starring McCarthy and Kristen Wiig) showed Hollywood that women were an under-served audience looking for their own wild and raunchy stories.
Bridesmaids bearing fruit
"It takes a few years to catch up," he says. "But it's fun, because I have a movie this summer and Paul Feig, who directed Bridesmaids, has a movie this summer and they're both female-driving movies. We're carrying the torch forward."
In his new book Sick in the Head, Apatow is slightly more critical, suggesting Hollywood's studio system didn't embrace Bridemaids's success and the notion of funny female-dominated movies because "they don't know how to do it."
The problem stems from a lack of equality behind the camera and in the boardroom. According to a study from the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, the number of women directing the top-grossing films has actually declined the past 17 years. In Hollywood, the situation is so dire the American Civil Liberties Union is demanding an investigation from federal and state agencies.
A hot mess who is human
But the issue goes deeper than that. It's also about the typical female characters seen onscreen: women who are perfect and petite, quirky but also never too rough around the edges.
None of those genteel adjectives would describe the human wrecking ball that is Schumer in Trainwreck. For her first screenplay, she held nothing back in creating her character: a bawdy, hard-drinking, take-charge woman who stumbles reluctantly into a romantic relationship.
Onscreen Amy is a hot mess who's doesn't think she's worthy of love. It's the kind of real woman Schumer says she doesn't see enough of.
"In a lot of the portrayals of women that I've seen in movies, they're not treated like a human. It's more of this idea of an old model of a woman. So I just wanted to write something and be in something that told a story of an actual human being just doing her best, but messing up left and right. "
From Lucille to Amy
As Apatow and Schumer point out, there's nothing revolutionary about finding women funny. Apatow talks about growing up watching Gilda Radner, who was his favourite actor from Saturday Night Live.
For her part, Schumer credits Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball and Whoopi Goldberg – each, for a time, were ground breaking performers who shifted the landscape with their wit and their ability to laugh at themselves.
Now it's Schumer standing on their shoulders. Her sketches skewering inequality have gone viral. She dares us to judge her wanton ways in Trainwreck.
While she laughs off the idea that she's a sign of something bigger, she's certainly struck a chord – and she's just getting started.
