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Amy Schumer has had a good year.
Fresh from hosting the MTV Movie Awards, the comedian is now celebrating the season premiere of her show Inside Amy Schumer, which airs Tuesdays on Comedy Central. And on Tuesday, April 21, the morning of the premiere, the network announced it has renewed the show for a fourth season.
If you haven't been keeping up with Schumer's meteoric rise and are curious as to how she got here, these five moments will help explain her genius:
1) Amy Schumer goes hard at the roast of Charlie Sheen
This roast changed Schumer's career and was the first time many people (aside from devoted fans of NBC's Last Comic Standing) had heard of her. Schumer was filthy, dressing down everyone from Kate Walsh to Mike Tyson. But it's what she said about Jackass cast members Steve-O and Ryan Dunn, the latter of whom died in a drunk driving accident, that became news.
"I truly am — no joke — sorry for the loss of your friend Ryan Dunn. I know you must have been thinking, 'It could've been me.' And I know we were all thinking, 'Why wasn't it?'" she told Steve-O.
2) Amy Schumer can't take a compliment
Because of her appearance at Charlie Sheen's roast, there was (and still is) a tendency to talk about Schumer in the same breath as Sarah Silverman, Chelsea Handler, and Whitney Cummings, the thought being: here are attractive women saying raunchy things.
That's not really fair to Schumer or to any of those comedians.
In Inside Amy Schumer, Schumer shows off her talent for writing great comedic sketches. She hones in on her subtle brand of feminism, one that tackles really big issues (such as the way women are taught to be self-effacing) by blowing them up in scale to hammer home their absurdity.
See above for a great example.
3) Amy Schumer plays a realistic military video game
Schumer released this skit during the national conversation about the increase of sexual assault in the military and lack of action to curb it. In the skit, Schumer creates a female character in a military-set video game. The character is immediately raped, forced to do endless amounts of paperwork, and is smeared at her hearing. It's much more on the nose than, say, Schumer's skit on women taking compliments, but it succeeds because Schumer knows exactly when boldness is needed to make a point.
4) Amy Schumer on Girls
This summer, Schumer will star in a romantic comedy she wrote called Trainwreck, directed by Judd Apatow. The movie debuted at South by Southwest, and the early reviews say it's pretty good. But Schumer's acting talent was evident from her guest spots on Girls as the best friend of Adam's short-lived girlfriend Natalia (Shiri Appleby). Schumer's appearances show off her razor-sharp timing.
5) Amy reminds us butts are where the poop comes from
2014 was the year of the butt. Everyone from the New York Times to Nicki Minaj and J. Lo told us this time and time again. Enter Amy Schumer, who skewers this cultural phenomenon and makes us feel all a little bit silly (okay, sillier) for liking butts.
