I've felt a bit disenchanted with this season of Inside Amy Schumer. But tonight's episode was great — a delightful mix of genius sketches and nail-on-the-head approaches to women's issues for which Schumer is most celebrated.
My favorite sketch tonight was likely the brainchild of a simple play on words. Remember Nick Jr. from your elementary school days? Well, have you ever seen The Knick Jr.? It's a brilliant premise in which children are the stars of The Knick. It sounds simple, but watching the children attempt surgery and get "high" on Pixy Sticks was a treat.
But let's talk more about two sketches that went a little deeper.
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Pussy Painting
Amber Rose, Amber Tamblyn, and Julia Stiles join Schumer at a pottery painting class. It seems like a fairly tame activity, but their small talk is anything but. They take turns one upping each other about whose pussy is drier from lack of sex. The juxtaposition of decorating clayware and dropping lines about how their vagina may or may not have been where they filmed Mad Max worked well. The conversation reflected a very real pattern in groups of female friends in which we somehow always end up talking about sex to some degree. Maybe not comparing our vaginas to movie sets, but you get the idea.
Madonna/Whore
Schumer's in bed with a guy and they decide to have sex. But the guy's giving her a lot of mixed messages about how he wants her to behave. "It's not like I thought you were a virgin," he says when she presents a condom from her nightstand drawer, only to follow it up with a suggestion that it might hurt if it's her first time. He even calls her a "sweet, innocent whore bag." Feeling confused, Schumer finally asks: "Do you want the Madonna or the whore?" To which he answers: "Yeah."
This is the truth nearly every female can tell you: Men want their women to be simultaneously the sexiest thing that walked the planet and the girl next door. You may have heard this idea more colloquially as "a lady in the streets, but a freak in the bed."
Schumer deftly addresses this complex, highlighting how ridiculous it is for men to behave this way. At one point he tells her he wants her to be a "sexual Good Will Hunting...Hermione from the third movie and Nicki Minaj." It is insane, but this mentality is everywhere. Major kudos to Schumer and her team on this one.
P.S. Shoutout to the sketch where Schumer takes her friend on a Sex and the City tour, which ends up being entirely about Steve. It has earned a special place in my heart.