Amy Schumer’s Call of Duty: The Comedic Art of Straddling the Line Between Humor and Hurt
Erma Bombeck, the famous newspaper columnist, once said, “There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt” (Meyer). The world is currently experiencing a tremendous amount of pain and hurt; the pain impacts people affected by sexual assaults and abuse of women on college campuses, in corporations, in Olympic sports, and politics. Who better than American female comedian Amy Schumer to tackle these troubling issues? In her popular sketch “Very Realistic Military Game,” Schumer takes these horrible abuses head-on. “In Very Realistic Military Game” Schumer’s character is engaged in a war combat video game with her father in what appears to be a cute, father-daughter interaction. During the game, while her father briefly leaves the room, Amy’s female game character is raped by a fellow male soldier. The sketch — which parodies the obstacles and shame victims of real life sexual assaults encounter — shows Schumer’s father not believing her, Schumer’s character having to go through an enormous amount of impediments to assert her claim and seek justice while her father also claims that Schumer (through her character) must have done something wrong.
Throughout the sketch, Schumer and her video game character walk that thin line between humor and hurt, and she effectively shines a light on the plight of victims of sexual assault. While this sketch is enjoyable to watch as a simple, funny piece of comedy, it is also enormously effective in making the viewer think about the absurdity of how victims are treated in our society today. And at the end of the day, if comedy doesn’t make us think, it is probably not that funny or worth watching. In “Very Realistic Military Game,” Amy Schumer makes us laugh and think by using her unique form of dark humor in this absurd narrative, to entertain the audience while dealing and talking about rape.
To understand why Amy Schumer is the perfect comedian to take on sexual violence in society, it is important to know a little bit about her. Schumer proved herself as a leading force as a stand-up comedian, actress, writer, producer, and director always tackling thorny, woman-centric issues. She does it all — and importantly, no topic is taboo or off-limits to her. The sketches on Inside Amy Schumer are hilarious, but many of the sketches also deal with really serious topics. “Very Realistic Military Game” focuses on a very difficult topic to handle via humor: sexual assault. Amy Schumer is enormously popular with women because she is not afraid to touch upon real and often painful issues specific to women. We see her feminist skill set in other skits and forms of media where she tackles liberal sexuality (the recent movie Trainwreck,) unattainable and ridiculous beauty standards that make women feel insecure (her her 2007 stand-up show “Look At Me — Live at Gotham”), and a famous speech in 2015 at the Glamour Beauty Awards where she professed love for her ample-sized body (Blay).
In the skit, Schumer and her dad play a military combat video game together. Her dad claims it is just like the video game Call of Duty, but much more realistic. Schumer picks a woman character, which ironically is the skit’s only ‘feel good’ moment; Schumer is amazed that there is even a female character to select! A few minutes into the game, her father leaves the room to grab some beers. While her father is off-camera in search of beer, Schumer’s game character gets sexually assaulted by a fellow male soldier character. Schumer then takes us through what her character encounters post-assault: guilt, shame, procedural nightmares, assassination of her character and victim blaming.
Schumer, through her video game character, uses obvious metaphors for what real female victims of sexual assault are forced to endure. First, Schumer’s father, upon return, questioned weather the assault actually happened and is suspect about what happened and claims that such things have never happened in this game before. The second struggle Schumer’s character encounters is an attempt to guilt her into not reporting the violence. The video game asks Schumer if she wants to report the attacker and after pressing the “yes” button, the game proceeds to tell Schumer that the attacker “has a family” and if that in any way changes her decision to prosecute. Next, Schumer’s character is confronted with ridiculous procedural obstacles in her pursuit of justice, such as crazy amounts of paperwork. Then, Schumer’s character, after finishing the paperwork, has to endure the humiliation of a military tribunal. Finally, to add insult to injury, the soldier who raped Schumer’s virtual character is found guilty by the tribunal, but the attacker’s commanding officer overrides the military tribunal’s verdict and frees the suspect to return to duty! Schumer is outraged by the outcome (and obviously messaging about outrage in real life), and, to underscore the absurdity, Schumer’s father tells her she shouldn’t play anymore because she must have done something wrong. Schumer pulls no punches in articulating her disdain for society never ‘believing’ the victim.
Since the topic of rape is dangerous to use as fuel for comedy, Schumer must pick her words carefully and, in many circumstances, uses her technique of dark humor to bring the audience along. Dark humor is a form of humor whose subject matter is seen as offensive, depressing, upsetting and in many cases absurd. In “Very Realistic Military Game,” Schumer clearly regards the suffering of sexual assault victims and what they endure as absurd. Absurdly disgusting. Schumer also uses crude graphics when we are shown the screen to visually use black humor to help make the whole experience seem ridiculous. When most people think of a video game that is realistic, they think of the scenery, video quality, and the avatars as being visually authentic, but the game Schumer has us focus on is “realistic” in the message she is trying to deliver beyond the modern-day quality of the visuals. The fact that Schumer’s character went on trail in front of the military tribunal adds to the dark humor of this sketch. What adds to the dark humor is when Schumer’s character wins the case in front of the military tribunal, but that decision is overruled and discarded by the commanding officer. This, unfortunately, is a very realistic and offensive situation that happens in many sexual assault cases. It makes the viewer angry that this happened to Schumer’s character, which adds even more to the darkness of her humor in this sketch. Woman are always put on trial for how they may have contributed to the assault they endured, and, often times, people don’t believe the victims. Schumer is trying to drive home the point that this horrible tragedy happens every day in real life. Woman are often not believed, and in many cases, have no voice. In fact, the video game “Very Realistic Military Game” is designed to be very crude and not visually realistic, which adds to the dark examination by Schumer of real life horrors. The skit is obviously a social statement on how sexual assaults are handled in the real world.
Sexual assault is a huge issue in present day society, including in the military. It happens to college students, professional athletes, famous actors and actresses, family, friends and neighbors. Every ninety-eight seconds, someone in the United States is sexually assaulted, which means that every single day, more than 570 people experience sexual violence in this country (Vagianos). In 2016, sexual assault reports in the military hit a record high. The Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military tells us that 14,900 service members were assaulted in 2016 (Ali). And these are just the cases that were reported! There may be hundreds or even thousands of unreported cases. A civil legal aid attorney representing women who are survivors of military sexual assault said, “Another of my clients experienced severe and persistent sexual harassment during training. When she reported this, no actions were taken against her harasser. Instead, her life was made a living hell. She was eventually raped. By that time, she had learned that to report sexual misconduct was to suffer more harassment; to stay silent meant avoiding further pain” (Kubek). As we see in “Very Realistic Military Game” Schumer’s character stands up for herself, but goes through a lot of humiliation and loses her case in the end with her assaulter suffering no consequences.
Sexual assault is certainly no laughing matter. Amy Schumer, however, in “Very Realistic Military Game” perfectly straddles what Erma Bombeck called “that thin line between humor and hurt.” “Very Realistic Military Game” gives us an opportunity laugh, but Schumer uses her unique brand of dark humor to deliver a deeper, more powerful call to action to stop the hurt. The call to action is simply this: stop the violence against women and let’s certainly stop the follow-on madness of victimizing the victim. Amy Schumer reminds us what our true ‘call of duty’ should be as members of a decent society.
“Works Cited”
“Amy Schumer.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 Feb. 2018, www.biography.com/people/amy-schumer-090915.
comedycentral. “Inside Amy Schumer — A Very Realistic Military Game.” YouTube, YouTube, 26 Aug. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXGJGuH59qw.
Don Meyer, Ph.D. Think About It. “Think About It — The Wit and Wisdom of Erma Bombeck: Part II.” The Phoenix Reporter and Item, The Phoenix Reporter and Item, 9 Mar. 2016, www.phoenixvillenews.com/article/PV/20160309/NEWS/160309966.
Kubek, Samantha. “Over 70,000 Military Sexual Assaults Took Place Last Year — Congress Must Take Action.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 16 Nov. 2017, www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/11/16/over-70000-military-sexual-assaults-took-place-last-year-congress-must-take-action.html.
Vagianos, Alanna. “30 Alarming Statistics That Show The Reality Of Sexual Violence In America.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 6 Apr. 2017, www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/sexual-assault-statistics_us_58e24c14e4b0c777f788d24f.