Why Do So Many People Seem to Hate Amy Schumer? Breaking It Down

The Gist:

• Comedian, actress, and writer Amy Schumer has faced controversy throughout her career.
• She has been accused of racism and accidentally admitting to sexual assault, among other things.

Content warning: This article contains mention of sexual assault.

It seems like with every bit of news surrounding comedian Amy Schumer, there’s always a slew of people ready to hate on her on social media. Of course, we don’t condone this hate, but we are curious about its origins.

Every comedian can easily get “canceled” or face fan hate due to the nature of the job. But why do many people seem to vilify Amy?

Comedians are tasked with saying controversial things — some might find those things funny, and others might not. No one can be everyone’s favorite comedian; trying to appeal to everyone means giving up some aspect of your values or opinions. Amy clearly has no interest in that. She always says what she wants when she wants. Because of that, however, she’s garnered some hate throughout her decade-long career.

She’s often touted herself as a feminist and is very sex-positive, but she has also torn down other women. In her 2023 Netflix special Emergency Contact, Amy made a jab at Hilaria Baldwin for pretending to be Spanish. In her 2015 SNL monologue, she said the Kardashians were “bad role models.” But she often responds to these anti-feminist allegations by sharing that everything she says, she says in jest. She is a comedian, so we can’t deny that.

However, she’s also tried to make jokes about race in her sketch show, Inside Amy Schumer, and her stand-up comedy. And when the famous Will Smith slap occurred, she said she was “traumatized” and “triggered.” Many POC called her out as a white woman for saying a slap, in which she wasn’t involved, between two Black men “triggered” her.

On the other hand, any comedian could feel some sense of fear because the slap set a precedent. Now, if a comedian says something an audience member doesn’t like, they can physically assault the comic.

Amy is happily married now, but that hasn’t stopped her from discussing her wild days of dating in the past. At the 2014 Gloria Awards, Amy accidentally admitted to sexually assaulting a male friend while in college.

In her speech about confidence, she shared how she was really into a guy named Matt in college. He was the only man who paid her any attention, which made her feel validated and sexy, despite not feeling attractive compared to the other women at her college. When he drunk-dialed her at 8 a.m., she immediately took the opportunity to show up at his dorm room and have sex with him.

Throughout the story, she talks about how he was falling asleep, although she also mentions how he tried to go down on her. Yes, in today’s world, this would easily be an instance of sexual assault on Amy’s part — it’s impossible to get consent from someone as inebriated as Matt was. When she was a freshman in college, she may not have known that. Even still, that doesn’t excuse her behavior. And it’s made even worse by a second self-admitted allegation.

In a 2012 podcast appearance on the Opie & Anthony Show, Amy shares how she “let” a cab driver finger her. She was 18 years old at the time of the incident, just after her freshman year of college. The male hosts were very excited by the story as Amy explained how she moved the cab driver’s hand to her vagina, and he made her orgasm. When she (and her friend, who was sleeping in the back) got out of the cab, the driver asked where they were going out, but Amy just paid and left.

She felt immediate guilt and disgust with herself and even told her mom about the incident the next day. Does that make what happened okay? Definitely not. At the same time, the hosts were egging her on, making it sound like she was a sexy hero, and Amy was forced to laugh off some of the uncomfortable things the hosts said. Being a woman in comedy can often mean giving into the male gaze so they’ll actually listen.

Much of this probably stems from Amy’s self-admitted struggle with body image and confidence. By harnessing her sexual energy, she felt attractive. Now, we know that this is unhealthy and that it’s not okay to hurt others to gain self-confidence. Amy has shared how she saw herself through the male gaze, which is very clear in her 2018 film I Feel Pretty. By doing so, she has also unintentionally fat-shamed women who may have looked up to her.

“Hate” is a strong word, and it’s more likely that plenty of people dislike Amy Schumer’s comedy but know little about the comedian herself. Some people think she talks too much about her vagina, and many men often say she’s just not funny — not because she’s a woman, but just because she only talks about sex (which isn’t actually true).

Even still, allegations of joke stealing have run rampant alongside Amy’s controversial career. This is what first led many women to also dislike Amy. Several of those allegations, however, are about Amy’s sketch show, which has a team of writers. In addition, many jokes come from similar premises, so there are often similarities between the jokes and concepts in comedy, which makes joke theft challenging to prove.

Amy has shared multiple messages on social media amid the Israel-Hamas war, condemning the atrocities committed against Israelis by the terrorist group Hamas.

"Skipping quickly past sympathy for the Israeli victims and moving right along to discussing the plight of the Palestinians is exactly the kind of response Hamas is aiming for," read one message by Jack Dishel, which Amy shared on her Instagram page on Oct. 11, 2023. "They want their butchering of Jews to be rationalized, justified and sanitized."

"If your response is 'Yes BUT...', you need to take a moment to ask yourself why the indiscriminate killing of civilians is defensible to you in this one and only case," another part of the message read.

Amy wrote her own messages as well in other Instagram posts, including one from Oct. 15, 2023, in which she said: "My heart breaks for Israel. It breaks for the innocent people of Gaza too. I love my Palestinian brothers and sisters. Palestinians are not Hamas, who wants only to exterminate the 16 million of us left."

Because the internet is the internet, many users on sites like Twitter tore into Amy with gross messages, with some labeling her a "dumb slut" or "trash" for sharing her opinions.