Comedy Superstar Amy Schumer Under Dark Cloud Of Dirty Joke Stealing Scandal
An Exhaustive Primer on the Amy Schumer Scandal (Yes, She's Probably Guilty of Plagiarism)
"The Verdict
Before we get too deep into the Amy Schumer plagiarism scandal—and it is a full-fledged scandal at this point, by comedy standards—I want to make my perspective clear. First, I’m an Amy Schumer fan. Second, after considering the evidence outlined below, along with Schumer’s response, I had one immediate reaction and one secondary reaction to the question of whether or not she’s a plagiarist.
The immediate reaction: Absolutely.
The secondary reaction: Probably.
The first reaction is easy to explain, and came about after simply watching the bits she allegedly stole. There’s no escaping the crystal-clear truth here—they original material and Schumer’s copy are almost exactly the same. The only reasonable conclusion is that she’s guilty. Period. Denials and obfuscation are useless against the very plain evidence of outright joke theft, and anyone who disputes it is being intellectually dishonest.
So why did that “absolutely” change to “probably”? Because there’s a concept called subconscious plagiarism that, in Schumer’s case, would entail hearing another comedian’s joke, forgetting it over time, and then writing it later as though she had conceived it on her own. All in all, this version of stealing is more innocent and forgivable than standard plagiarism."
"The Patrice O’Neal bits are particularly damning here, coming as they do from the same act—it shows Schumer consciously building her own stand-up routine from the material of others, and just changing a few identifying details (“the gorilla mask” is now called “the Abraham Lincoln”) to protect herself. Not that the material she clearly took from Kathleen Madiagn or Wendy Liebman or Tammy Pescatelli is any better; it’s just much harder to form a convincing argument that the O’Neal bits were all a crazy coincidence."
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The video evidence is definitely R rated, or X rated, I'm not sure how these things are rated.
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I can't say I give a rat's ass about this, I don't even care for her comedy, but she is apparently one of the biggest stars in show business right now, so it is a big entertainment story.
Yikes! My opinion, this could have been avoided had she simply dedicated the joke to him before or after she told it. I don't buy the subconscious plagiarism argument.
I think it was George Burns that used to tell a joke, get the laugh, and then say "I stole that one from Jack Benny". Amy Schumer should mention the other comic with a word or too if she riffs off someone else's stuff. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that though.
It's like she's using other peoples' bits as a setup for her unique reactions to them, which is where a lot of the laughs are coming from. It's not very respectful of the original author, IMO - but I'm not sure it rises to the level of full on plagiarism.
Four or five people are accusing her. She seems guilty of stealing the two "jokes" from Patrice O'Neal, I haven't heard the other ones yet.
I guess it comes down to, does anyone really care ?
Probably not.
She's got money now, so there are going to be some litigious people who pretend to care.