This Video Attempts To Prove Amy Schumer Stole Jokes From Patrice O'Neal And Some Female Comedians
Uproxx – Back in October, Amy Schumer was accused of ripping jokes from the late Patrice O’Neal when it was pointed out that a few jokes in her HBO special bore a remarkable similarity to a bit from the legendary comic. For her part, despite calling O’Neal a friend before he died, Schumer denied ever having even heard the bit.
Since then, an internet sleuth has done some digging and complied what is purportedly nearly six and a half minutes of evidence of Amy Schumer supposedly ripping off other comedians’ material. Included are both the Patrice O’Neal bits as well as some sketches that appeared on Schumer’s Comedy Central series, Inside Amy Schumer.
I’m on the fence with this one because I genuinely see both sides. I’m a big believer in parallel thought, namely the idea that most people’s thoughts or jokes aren’t necessarily the most unique and there’s a good chance someone else has thought, done, or said the same thing somewhere. But some of those things in the video, particularly the cadence in that first joke, are a little close to comfort even if they’re not necessarily cut and dry cases of plagiarism. I’m not huge on Amy Schumer by any stretch but I’m inclined to take her side here overall; if Patrice is her best friend and she was opening for these female comedians, there’s a decent chance some of this stuff just seeped into her brain like when a friend overuses a word and it works its way into your vocabulary. But it’s still not a great look overall given how much people have went off on joke theft before with the Fat Jew and others recently.
At the same time though, this type of thing does reek pretty hard of people suddenly trying to take her down now because she’s successful. But that seems too far gone. Even if she lifted these few jokes, would people/the media care enough about it to turn against this chick they’ve held up as some modern feminist entertainer and icon? It’s like she’s not even a comedian at this point, all you see is stuff about her yelling at someone on Twitter, or doing something goofy like posing naked and not being Photoshopped so fat girls like her more, or even winning awards for an acting performance in something that someone else wrote for her. If she stopped doing stand-up because she’s outed as a joke thief, it still won’t affect her. Jennifer Lawrence won’t stop being fake showbiz pals with her because of her stealing that joke about being paid for sex. Just seems kind of like futile sour grapes to me, the Amy Schumer train is too mainstream at this point.
