I have a really sensitive radar for insensitive jokes. If something on TV or something I read crosses — or even comes close to — the line, my stomach churns.

For a long time I thought that about all things; no one would ever be able to get away with a joke about rape. That’s why I was surprised last week when I watched the Season 3 premiere of “Inside Amy Schumer,” which featured a sketch about rape, and I laughed the whole time.

The sketch followed a football coach at a new school a la “Friday Night Lights” whose only new rule for the team was they aren’t allowed to rape. Chaos ensues. Schumer, who writes, produces and stars in the show plays his encouraging wife accompanied by a wine glass that grows with every scene.

By making something so horrifying like rape culture so funny, while still making a point, Schumer did what no other comedian has ever been able to do. She is the perfect arbiter for this cultural moment, and she is comedy’s best hope.

She is the perfect balance of silly and serious. At this year’s Ms. Foundation’s Gloria Awards and Gala, she lit up the room, and the blogosphere, with her inspirational words about sex horror stories, body-image issues and creating self-confidence. She said, “I want to throw my hands in the air after reading a mean Twitter comment, and say, ‘All right! You got it. You figured me out. I’m not pretty. I’m not thin. I do not deserve to use my voice. I’ll start wearing a burqa and start waiting tables at a pancake house…’ But then I think, ‘F*ck that. I am not laying [sic] in that freshman-year bed anymore, ever again.’”

She’s on Time’s list this year of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.” Tilda Swinton — of all people — wrote Schumer’s blurb for the magazine calling her an “honesty bomb.” At the event for the same list, Schumer dove on to the ground in front of fellow nominees Kanye West and Kim Kardashian and looked up at the cameras and panicked, acting like it was an accident.

She’s calling out the world. She’s pointing out how ridiculous it is that we as an audience lose our freaking minds when a celebrity falls, and she’s knocking down two pop culture icons a peg in the process. But she’s not the girl who calls you out when you mispronounce “Givenchy.” She’s the friend who calls you out when you’re too drunk at a party — and you’re being a bitch.

Schumer is playing the long game. It took her show two seasons to get its well-deserved applause. In a form of comedy that has a record of tearing funny women down, she is excelling.

At the Roast of Charlie Sheen two years ago, she made a joke about Steve-O, the jackass on “Jackass,” and his co-star Ryan Dunn’s death, lamenting over the fact that it wasn’t him. The joke, which arguably launched her fame, was innocent compared to others that night, but it prompted Steve-O to sh*t talk her on morning radio. It also sparked his fans to send her death threats over Twitter — where he did what any man in comedy does when a woman who is funnier than him: call her a slut. Laughspin asked her about it not long after and she said, “I did ask that his fans stop with the threats of ending my life… I’d like to continue being a comic and alive. But I absolutely, from the bottom of my heart, continue to not give a sh*t about this.”

Please, Amy, please give no sh*ts.

Eric King is a sophomore magazine journalism major. His column appears weekly. He can be reached at edking@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @erickingdavid.

Published on April 28, 2015 at 12:42 am