4. Trainwreck's Amy Schumer Is Called Out For A Perceived "Racial Blind Spot"
Amy Schumer has been pulled up a few times by the media on what has been perceived to be the comedian's tendency towards "casual racism." Her acclaimed debut movie, Trainwreck (which Schumer wrote and starred in as a character called "Amy") received a similar response on the racial front, with much of its content being labelled as "casually racist" by a number of movie critics and journalists. The jokes in question were those that many deemed to be "pointless" - jokes about race that failed, perhaps, to explore anything or add to the race conversation. One frequently cited example occurs during a funeral scene, in which a white female character tells a black man that she has dated black men and - as a kind of come-on - would be up for doing it again. Lots of critics deemed this joke to be totally unnecessary, though there are arguments on both sides of the fence. Was the gag merely poking fun at the white woman's awful attempt to act "PC" when she didn't really need to? Perhaps. It's all still up for debate, and though Amy Schumer did not apologise for Trainwreck directly, she did admit that she was "growing as an artist" and " she didn't hurt anyone," having been called out on similarly "racially insensitive" gags in her stand-up.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
