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• 1 2017-05-01T20:41:08-07:00 Inside Amy Schumer 10 Rape & Sexual Assault plain 2017-06-11T19:46:22-07:00
  Ahh, everyone's favorite topic: Rape. A massive problem in this country and one that makes everyone squirm to the point that they would rather 'just not talk about it'. Except: 54% of rapes are not reported (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2015), a "Woman's chance of being raped in the US: 1 in 5"(CDC) and "Percentage of rapists who are never incarcerated: 97%"(Bureau of Justice Statistics 2015 ).
  
  Schumer tackles one of the most public cases surrounding sexual assault and rape, The Bill Cosby case in her show, “Inside Amy Schumer” on Comedy Central. Humor acts as a vehicle to critically think and discuss the backward dimensions that our society views rape and victims of sexual assault. In her sketch, “The Court of Public Opinion: The Trial of Bill Cosby” Schumer looks at the world surrounding the case of Bill Cosby: after having more than sixty women accuse Cosby of various sexual charges of child sexual abuse, drugging them that facilitated sexual assault, rape, and sexual misconduct. All in all, the dates of all these incidents span from “1965 to 2008 across 10 U.S. states and one Canadian providence” (Seal 2016). Regardless of all these women’s testimonies, due to the date of when they say Cosby sexually assaulted them, most of their cases are out of ‘statute of limitations’, “They all say they were sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby.. by the time they decided to come forward, many years after they say they were attacked, their ability to press for criminal charges was precluded by a statute of limitations”(Ember & Bowley 2016).

  
  The obvious is staring the public in the face—Dr.Huxtable, from the beloved Cosby show, is guilty….when over 60 women come forward accusing him of different variations of sexual assault and rape. Cosby’s lawyer’s use his age and the amount of time that has passed from when these actual events took place as a way to ‘water-down’ these allegations, “Lawyers for Mr. Cosby, who is 79, argue that the delay in bringing charges and the effort to introduce the other women’s accounts are unfair. His memory and eyesight have declined, they say, preventing him from aiding his defense and his ability to produce witnesses that might support his view of events has been damaged by the passage of time. In addition, they challenge to what extent the women’s own recollections have deteriorated over time”(Ember & Bowley 2016).

  Schumer’s sketch comments on the larger picture of how the country treats rape by using the Cosby case as an example. Rape, being a topic that makes the public uncomfortable, and as Schumer states,"wince a little". Schumer flips this ridiculous perspective of the public’s level of comfort and poses the reality of the situation: who cares if you feel uncomfortable, you are not the one who was raped.
  
  Schumer's sketch demonstrates the absurdity of a common mindset by playing Bill Cosby's lawyer, forcing the audience to think critically about the women who were sexually assulted— realizing the public’s feelings of concern for nostalgia when it comes to the Cosby Show, are completely irrelevant. Through this, it brings questions surrounding the values of a country like America, supposedly standing for justice with a court system that protects its citizens, including women who are being sexually assaulted. She also flips the coin on the public; the people who should be supporting these women coming forward after a traumatic experience. Schumer’s sketch draws attention to this case, but also the backward way the general public and the United States court system treats sexual assault and rape, using humor as a vehicle to make a point.

  In the sketch, Schumer deconstructs the absurdity and challenges the public to think about their positioning and perspective, using a twisted type of humor, and in turn, calls them out. The sketch isn’t supposed to be laugh out loud funny—that’s not Schumer’s intention, her comedy revolves around moral messaging. As the writer of the New Yorker writer, Emily Nussbaum, states, “Comedy with a message can easily turn didactic or smug, but Schumer’s show feels built to withstand this pressure”(Nussbaum 2016) .
  
  The sketch opens with Schumer playing and dancing to the Cosby show theme song in the courtroom… the jury smiles and laughs—clearly enjoying this moment. She then hits on the uncomfortably of the public in looking at rape,"All these women...Same story, same facts. Repetitive. And how'd that feel to listen to? Blah--Right? Now how do you feel when I play this..?"(00:50-1:05).
  
  She then goes on to play, a clip from The Cosby show, she laughs, everyone laughs, and she quickly makes a strong powerful turn, asking, “Did anyone feel raped by that? How about drugged?”(1:09) Schumer acts as Cosby’s defense lawyer, talking straight to the jury reminding them of the stakes, “Let's remind ourselves what is at stake here: If convicted, the next time you put on a rerun of The Cosby Show you may wince a little. Might feel a little pang. And none of us deserve that. We don’t deserve to feel that pang(2:50-3:06)”. The script of her sketch challenges viewers, making their un-comfortability an active type of discomfort where she’s asking them to really question the definition of rape, “We deserve to dance like no one’s watching and watch like no one’s raping”(3:07).
  
  
  
  As Megan Garber states in her incredible article, “How Comedians Became Public Intellectuals”, Schumer’s sketch also forces viewers to question what “we” really means, a “..word that can be awkward in comedy and democracy alike: “we.” She’s [Schumer] making a point about inclusion and exclusion, about the individuality of experience, about the often flawed way we think about ourselves as a collective”. (Garber 2015)
  
  

  The Cosby sketch is not the only place Schumer tackles, rape, among other issues her show writes about; she delves into deconstructing sexual violence in sports-obsessed small towns, and as Jessica Goldstein of 'Think Progress' states, "This is the Schumer and her team in their wheelhouse: filing familiar environments with third rail topics, honing in on the absurdity in everyday life"(Goldstein 2015).

  " Inside Amy Schumer writer Christine Nangle got the idea for the sketch years ago when she was reading about the Steubenville rape case. It wasn’t just the brutality of the rape itself — a teenage girl was assaulted by multiple football players while she was too drunk to consent — but the aftershocks of that earthquake that intensified Nangle’s horror: how the picture of the victim’s unconscious body circulated among classmates and neighbors; later, how the high school football coach, Reno Saccoccia, allowed convicted rapist Ma’lik Richmond to rejoin the team. “I just remember getting so sickened by it that, and by the fact that it wasn’t a bigger story,” Nangle said by phone. “I just remember sitting there thinking: there’s got to be a way into this, sketch-wise” (Goldstein 2015).​​