Inside Amy Schumer has been pumping out material that manages to make you laugh and make you think at the same time. The newest skit is no exception. If TLC’s Toddlers and Tiaras has taught us anything, it’s that the world of child beauty pageants is not as pretty as the kids competing in it are made to be. Amy Schumer parodies the show with her own edition: Babies and Bustiers.
Schumer stars as Amy Mayweather Sherman, a not so little (thanks to Fetal Red Bull Syndrome) girl who’s determined to win the title of Little Miss Hot as Balls. Because she grows five times faster than other girls her age, she’s way more developed. She tries to dance like those she’s competing against, but her boobs make that a little difficult. Yes, it may be fiction, but it says a lot about how sexualized these pageants are. These girls are told to be sexy before they even know what it means.
Although the skit is ridiculously hilarious, it’s also ridiculously sad because of just how true it is. Schumer’s character, like the children who actually compete in pageants, is forced to appear perfect. When Amy’s mother Cleopatra Sherman (played by Jennifer Coolidge) asks her how she should how her body for the audience, she yells “Tall and thin!” At age six, impossible standards of beauty are already a part of her life. “She always yells at me for eating food,” Amy says, “I’m sorry I’m a human being mama.”
Again, Schumer uses comedy to remind us to reconsider disturbing thoughts and practices that have become so normalized in our culture. Watch new episodes of Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central, Tuesdays at 10:30/9:30c.
Image via Comedy Central
