Be an Anna, not an Amy

Amy Schumer and Jennifer Lawrence are problematic. We all know this.

Lately, I think more people are realizing that their brands of “quirky” are actually tasteless, discriminatory and self-centered. They both try way too hard and end up crossing every line trying to be “unfiltered.” Jennifer Lawrence is annoying, but she doesn’t actually bother me as much as Amy Schumer. Lawrence did recently joke about rubbing her butt on sacred rocks while filming a movie, which is a whole other issue. If you want to read more about that and why it’s really not okay, The Mary Sue has a great piece on it.

But a few days ago, Amy Schumer did yet another thing that reminded me why she’s not only not funny, she’s offensive. She went on “Ellen” and talked about the time she worked at a lesbian bar. Yeah, a straight woman told a story about her failed stint at a lesbian bar on “Ellen.” Let that sink in for a second.

She told Ellen about being hired as a bartender for a lesbian bar and started her story by dumping on women and stereotyping how they order drinks, like many male comedians have done. Her whiny “imitation” was annoying, but probably the least cringe-worthy part of her story. She then flipped her hair and said, “And then I really thought, ‘Oh my god, they’re all going to hit on me, how do I break it to them that I’m straight? And then no one ever hit on me, even once.’”

I wouldn’t hit on Amy Schumer either, ladies. Props to anyone who encountered her at that bar and tolerated her. Also, the myth that lesbians/queer women hit on any woman that moves? SUPER homophobic and the exact kind of rhetoric that promotes negative assumptions made about queer people. It kind of disappoints me that Ellen even laughed at that statement.

Also in the “Ellen” interview, she talked about vacationing with Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson. Because all three women are famous, paparazzi photos were taken. Amy, of course, immediately started making jokes about her weight and how she looked in her swimsuit. She started off slow, like she usually does — “Oh, I’m like the friend, who they’re like, ‘Oh, Amy will take the pictures.’ ‘Oh, is Amy the one with kids?’” — but then got all the way up to “Oh, that’s me on the boat. That’s not like, a random dude.”

She doesn’t have a Kate Hudson body, but we can’t all have what Kate Hudson has. Schumer isn’t overweight — if she was, it wouldn’t matter and she would still be beautiful — but she makes all these fat jokes about herself that probably make anyone whose body looks more like hers than Hudson’s feel crappy about themselves. Schumer represents a much more realistic body image for women, but by constantly acting like she’s fat and gross, she alienates a lot of people she could be championing. This happened when Glamour called her “plus size” as well. Schumer got all uppity about being called plus size and then backtracked and was like, “It’s because I’m a size 6/8 and plus size is 12.”

So why are we stuck with Schumer and Lawrence as the poster girls for goofy, lovable weirdos? There are better alternatives, like my favorite scrappy little nobody, Anna Kendrick.

Nobody is perfect, but Anna Kendrick is a much better example for young women than either Lawrence or Schumer. She is funny and relatable without making other people feel bad about themselves. She doesn’t put other women down to try and make herself seem more genuine. Her Twitter account is filled with witty statements about wanting to be left alone, television, feminism and food. Her self-deprecation is less centered around her looks and more about her personality, but in a gentle way.

When she makes fun of beauty standards, she says things like “So over this “thigh gap” thing. Not to brag, but I’m knock knee’d so I have “ankle gap,” not “Hahah I’m the fat friend. It’s funny, get it?”

Anna Kendrick is the sweet theatre nerd just trying to make people smile and take themselves less seriously, while Amy Schumer is the girl who puts herself down as a way to fish for compliments and says offensive things under the guise of being “unfiltered.” Kendrick is relatively unfiltered too, she just has taste and a sense of humor not based on making fun of people.