Inside Amy Schumer S3 Ep5 - The SSL Review

Inside Amy Schumer Season1 Episode 4

This show makes me laugh, and here's the best part - Amy Schumer tends to bring it when it comes to realism and female sexuality. She brought it in her movie Trainwreck, in The Joe Rogan Podcast, and largely in the other episodes of this show I've SSL Reviewed so far. She has shown a strong willingness to give the clit the glory it deserves, speak some truths about lady sex experiences, rep for actual lady-gasms - all things largely absent in media and also incredibly important to Orgasm Equality. (She could use some schooling and humbling when it comes to speaking about race though).

The SSL Reviewable

There is plenty to SSL Review in this show. And for those that don't yet know, an SSL Review is a critique specifically of discussions or depictions of female orgasm, female masturbation, or the clit. I focus on that and really only that (unless I want to talk about something else). I'm looking mainly at realism and about how the depiction/discussion plays in the larger cultural conversation about female orgasm and women's sexuality. This particular SSL Review will be interesting. I'll just describe the scenes and we can go from there.

Please, my friends, do enjoy more SSL Reviews for MOVIES and TV SHOWS.

A Bakery in Maine!

So here's the scene: These upper-middle class women are in an upper-middle class kitchen talking as friends. They're talking about how awesome their lives are, but then they each 'tell their truth' and then describe a fantasy they have that always ends in them opening a bakery in Maine. It quickly goes off the rails. Below are the 2 SSL pertinent fantasies.

The 1st.

Amy: Even though it's been like 10 years, I just fall like a little more in love with Jeff every day. Just, like, a little more. (They all have ahhh faces and sigh.)

Amy: But you know what? When Jeff is, like, violently refusing to go down on me, you know? (hey all look around, like, yeah, uh huh, that's normal, and we get it.)

Amy: I kinda fantasize about just like snap chatting a picture of my tits to the UPS guy and just opening a bakery in Maine!

The 2nd

Greta Lee: You guys, I'm so blissfully happy. I gave up my career to home college Tim's adult son. It is so rewarding, but sometimes when I'm sharpening his crayons, I have this fantasy bout giving a homeless guy one of those giant jackpot checks and then masturbating furiously in my Rav4 as the bank teller explains that it's fake. Then zipping up I-95 and opening up the cutest bakery in Maine!

Face Sitting is Better

Amy Goes Deep is a segment where Amy sits down and kind of interviews some person - anyone from a comic friend to her waxer, This time it is with Sharleen Joynt from "The Bachelor."

Amy: Do people sneak into his room and, like, blow him?

Sharleen: I think it can be done.

Amy: I'm so lazy. I'd sneak into his room and sit on his face.

My SSL Take 

So, these are largely just jokes that, I assume were pushed to be a bit more shocking by adding the more raunchy stuff in, so there's nothing incredibly deep here, but I would like to mention a couple things about this that I find poignant about the mentions of orgasm, masturbation, etc. here.

• When Amy talks about her husband 'violently refusing to go down on her' and all the women nod as if it's something they deal with too, I think a statement is being made here, people. That's some social commentary on how common it is for women to deal with men refusing to or simply not really ever giving oral sex (although they feel fine expecting to receive it). This is something women deal with and it hits home, but it in and of itself is too real to be the joke. The joke is how easily the friends accept it, how ridiculously okay with that terrible fate these ladies are, and how aggressive she made out the refusal to be. My point here is that I like that Amy as a comedian sort of had that insight about how that joke could play on the line between too real and  over-the-top to become a solidly funny line that also hit home a bit. I think that's the kind of thing we need more women in comedy for. Ladies can have insight that opens up a treasure trove of too-real sex comedy largely that has yet been untapped by the over-represented men that have been hogging the spotlight of the comic world.

• Greta lee talking about rubbing off to a mean joke she played on a homeless man is just pure raunch, for joke sake, but I LOVE that masturbation was used for a woman's raunch jokery at all. It's common for men to throw in masturbation related things in comedy to ramp up the shock factor, but it's still often strangely too uncomfortable when women use it. I love women talking about their masturbation in any context because the more we hear that stuff coming out of women's mouths the more normalized masturbation becomes and the better off the fight for orgasm equality.

• Amy switching a conversation about giving a dude orgasmic pleasure around to her getting orgasmic pleasure instead as a better option, is something that she does often, and something that I couldn't be happier about. That is what we need more of - ladies being unabashed about how they want dudes to manipulate their clits into orgasm and how that is frankly more fun than giving dudes orgasms...because yeah giving is sexy and nice and all that, but getting ate out is still better. 

The Vulva Rating

I think overall this was a really good on the SSL front. There was random mentions of lady-bation to raunch up a joke. There was some subtle social commentary about how dudes not going down enough on their women is a desperately terrible and sad reality. Plus, there was also a situation in which a famous woman specifically reminded everyone that instead of blowing a guy....a better option might be to just sit on his face. This isn't a perfect SSL Review because it wasn't SUPER progressive, but it was fab. I give it 4 1/2 vulvas.

(!)(!)(!)(!)(!