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Amy Schumer has been a rising star in the world of comedy the last few years. Her name may soon have more recognition. She has a big Judd Apatow movie in the works. And right now, she stars in the second season of her Comedy Central show "Inside Amy Schumer." NPR TV critic Eric Deggans says she uses her own sex appeal to challenge double standards about women. And a quick warning: Some of what we're about to hear may not be suitable for younger listeners.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: No one can send up sexism with a punch line quite like Amy Schumer.
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DEGGANS: Schumer turns those sharp jokes into a larger swipe at casual sexism. Here, she tries to navigate a shoot-them-up videogame as a female character.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SERIES, "INSIDE AMY SCHUMER")
DEGGANS: It's a poke at the boys' club of gamer culture and the military's terrible response to sexual assaults. In another sketch, she's a beautiful but awful tennis star. But the TV announcers aren't really interested in her athletic ability.
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DEGGANS: Schumer sells all this cutting-edge comedy with a knowing attitude. She's a smart alec who talks about sex with explicit glee, like this bit about her encounter with a reporter from TMZ.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SERIES, "INSIDE AMY SCHUMER")
DEGGANS: Wait a minute. Maybe I shouldn't play the rest of that. The calculation at Comedy Central seems obvious: Use sex jokes to get the young, mostly male audience to pay attention and then school them with some eye-opening comedy about sexism and stereotypes. It almost makes me feel guilty. It grabs my attention. I laugh. And then I feel a little ashamed for how well the sex talk reeled me in.
But there are times when Schumer misses the mark. In this sketch, she finds out an old sex partner has herpes. She pleads for help from God and he arrives in the form of superstar character actor Paul Giamatti.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SERIES, "INSIDE AMY SCHUMER")
DEGGANS: It's wry and very weird. But Schumer's also working a stereotype - the ditzy slut. And that comes dangerously close to the biggest risk in modern comedy: A comic tries satirizing a stereotype but just encourages it. Schumer walks that line brilliantly but there are others who haven't, like "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane, who discovered just how difficult that kind of humor is during the Academy Awards last year.
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DEGGANS: You waited for MacFarlane to at least nod towards a larger point about the movies' double standard for topless actresses but he never did. Schumer is too smart to make that mistake. Instead, there's a delicious tension between her attention-getting sex jokes and the social commentary she drops once we're paying attention. I can't wait to see how guilty she makes me feel next time.
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