Amy Schumer Blames Will Smith For Lingering Trauma
Academy Award host and comedian Amy Schumer has taken to social media to describe her trauma regarding the infamous incident.
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The discussion around the moment when actor Will Smith walked on stage at the 94th Academy Awards and struck comedian Chris Rock in the face for a perceived insult to Smith’s spouse, Jada Pinkett-Smith, will likely be a dominant subject in pop culture for some time. We now have another voice entering the chat: Amy Schumer. The comedian and once and future star of Inside Amy Schumer took to social media to address the topic, and to be fair, she was present at the slap heard around the world. As one might expect, Schumer’s thoughts on the incident took the form of a somewhat questionable joke (at least at first). Here’s Amy Schumer’s Instagram post, see for yourself.
Accompanied by a slightly odd, slightly out of focus picture of a smiling Amy Schumer lounging on a red chair in a dim room surrounded by red velvet curtains (and containing a hand cursor image, for some reason), the post’s caption initially begins by saying that the best way to process the incident was to watch her current Hulu show Life and Beth and see her on an upcoming tour. Okay, it does seem a little odd to use this particular moment in time for a quick plug, but it is followed with a “but seriously, folks” moment in which Amy Schumer describes herself as “still triggered and traumatized.” She commends Chris Rock for his poise in the moment, and comments on her evaluation of Will Smith’s emotional state, in her capacity as star of the 2015 Judd Apatow-directed film Trainwreck. She wraps up the statement by saying that she is still waiting for the “sickening feeling” after witnessing the incident at the Academy Awards to go away.
Everyone reacts to an intensely emotional incident in their own way, including Amy Schumer. It is perhaps somewhat questionable to make a self-consciously tasteless joke of plugging your own career in a statement apparently otherwise using the language of sincerity and overused psychological terms. It is perhaps even more so to do so when the ostensible reason for Will Smith physically striking Chris Rock on stage was another tasteless joke about the common autoimmune condition known as alopecia. All that said, Amy Schumer is a comedian and it is her joke to make comedy. Ideally, comedy can also be used as a form of social expression, discussion, and defusion. As we all can probably see from the fallout of the Academy Awards, comedy is not always successful at this.
In 2013, Inside Amy Schumer premiered on Comedy Central, quickly becoming a popular and critical hit. She later segued to film, starring in Trainwreck with Bill Hader, as well as the comedies Snatched and I Feel Pretty. Schumer was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her work in Steve Martin’s play Meteor Shower in 2018. A revival of Inside Amy Schumer is being planned for a series of specials on the streaming platform Paramount+. Until those are released, we will have to wait to see if she has any other statements on this particular subject.
