'Is it fat shaming if you know you're not fat?'
Amy Schumer hits back against online critics
After announcing last week that she will be headlining a live-action Barbie movie currently in the works, Amy Schumer has been inundated with Internet backlash, suggesting she doesn’t have the “ideal” body type to play the toy icon.
In a lengthy Instagram post, including a paparazzi shot of her in a swimsuit, Schumer responded to the Twitter trolls, writing, “Very very honoured to be nominated for two Grammys and to be considered to play an important and evolving icon.
“Is it fat shaming if you know you’re not fat and have zero shame in your game? I don’t think so.
“I am strong and proud of how I live my life and say what I mean and fight for what I believe in and I have a blast doing it with the people I love.
“Where’s the shame? It’s not there. It’s an illusion. When I look in the mirror I know who I am. I’m a great friend, sister, daughter, and girlfriend. I’m a badass comic headlining arenas all over the world and making TV and movies and writing books where I lay it all out there and I’m fearless like you can be.”
Schumer’s Barbie movie, which is currently in search of a female director, is scheduled to hit theatres in 2018, and despite its casting, it will be relatively “family friendly,” reports Deadline.
It will follow the Mattel doll after she is cast out of Barbieland for no longer being “perfect enough.”
She is then left to find her way in the real world, all while embracing her newly discovered imperfections. It’s a topical subject for the comedian, who recently experienced similar backlash after posing for a nude portrait taken by Annie Leibovitz last year for Pirelli’s 2016 calendar.
Despite the negative commentary about her weight, Schumer said, “I felt I looked more beautiful than I’ve ever felt in my life, and I felt like it looked like me.”
The backlash comes the same week as Ashley Graham generating waves for being the first plus-size model to make the cover of Vogue — British Vogue, to be exact.
That has also generated plenty of negative attention, with the magazine having recently confirmed that countless designers “flatly refused” to lend or make clothes for Graham, who is a size 16 and was considered to be outside the “sample range."
For the record, size 16 is considered the average size of an American woman.
“I felt I looked more beautiful than I’ve ever felt in my life.” — Amy Schumer