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Why Amy Schumer is suddenly everywhere you look.

She’s here. She’s everywhere. Why is everyone obsessed with Amy Schumer?

Amy Schumer has become the funny friend we all wish we had. She farts, she burps, she trips in front of Kim and Kanye, she talks about dick all the time and to top it off, she’s damn clever too. Fighting sexism has always remained one of Amy’s favourite topics, and she mastered the art of smart comedy in such a way that you’ll be fist pumping the air and will only realise why some time after the show finishes.

Amy Schumer, my new best friend. Right, Amy? ….Amy?

As with the sudden rise of a pop-culture doyenne, a moment of reflection comes when we get start to wonder – why her? What is it about Amy Schumer that make us want to fall at HER feet? Well, after some head scratching and a few hours of a gratuitous Amy Schumer Youtube binge out, I reckon I have it figured out.

Here’s my complete list of Why We Love Amy Schumer.

She’s normal. SO. NORMAL.

With the ferocity of a Mack truck, Amy confronts all of the ‘normal’ things women spend so much of their time hiding. Amy contracts an STD. Amy has a one night stand. Amy struggles with her weight, and moderating her consumption of wine, and making guys wear a condom. She deals with men telling her she’s too fat, or not pretty enough; and trying to keep up with her friends that are moving into wedding/baby/mortgage land and she’s not. Amy is our hero for shouting out these very normal situations from the rooftops….and making all of us feel that little bit more normal for doing so.

She uses humour for good, not evil.

Comedians are known for using controversial topics to their advantage; inciting laughter mostly because their audience is nervous to be next on the chopping block. Amy Schumer, on the other hand, rises about the usual offensive fodder and uses her time in the spotlight to draw attention to the issues that really matter. Sexism. Unfair treatment of women in the media. Sexual assault. Slut shaming. The nervous laughter in the audience should now just be the jerks who inspired her jokes. Go girl!

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Amy Schumer, reinventing the modern starlet.

She’s fought off the Hollywood airbrush syndrome.

Amy is not a member of the cookie-cutter Hollywood set, who seem to be getting browner, thinner, and showing less facial movement by the day. In Amy’s words,

“I don’t fit in here (in LA). Just straight-up body type. Like in L.A., my arms register as legs and it’s like, ‘Why is that octopus out on Sunset?’ It’s not for me out here … I just sit in my room bawling.”

Amy, we feel you. Thank you for not changing.

She demands to be equal, and won’t take any shit.

Of all of her most-loved topics for comedy fodder, gender equality has to be Schumer’s #1. She isn’t afraid to call out the vast network of sexist media webs that have worked, during the course of her career, to reduce her down into the female comedian they want.

I wrote an article for Men’s Health and was so proud,” she noted recently, “until I saw instead of using my photo, they used one of a 16-year-old model wearing a clown nose, to show that she’s hilarious.

But those are my words. What about who I am, and what I have to say? I can be reduced to that lost college freshman so quickly sometimes, I want to quit. Not performing, but being a woman altogether.

I want to throw my hands in the air after reading a mean Twitter comment and say, ‘All right! You got it. You figured me out. I’m not pretty. I’m not thin. I do not deserve to use my voice … All my self-worth is based on what you can see.’ But then I think, f— that.”

Amy Schumer is all of us.

Nothing is sacred.

In the best possible way, nothing is safe from the Schumer treatment. Whether it’s the overt sexualisation of women in the music industry (‘Milk Milk Lemonade’ video clip), rape culture (Friday Night Lights skit), or even modern-day dating (‘Trainwreck’); Schumer tackles all things taboo, stripping away the layers of secrecy that have previously prevented them from entering our everyday dialogue.

So there you go. The (not so) mysterious case of Amy Schumer’s success unpacked for you to peruse with love hearts in your eyes and fan letters at your fingertips. Am-Schu (that’s not going to catch on, is it?) is the newest member of the fierce female posse currently taking Hollywood by storm, and instilling positive messages and confidence in whole generations of women.

Joined by chicks like Lena Dunham, Schumer is paving the way for a new model of unapologetic, confident, and happy females who are totally OK with admitting their faults as much as they are celebrating their own success.

The funny girl is now so much more than the girl you wish you were friends with in high school: she’s leading the way to the New Normal, and we’re happy to be there.

Are you on the Amy Schumer train? 

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