Amy Schumer is used to strangers being invested in her appearance and personality. She has used this as fuel to depict harsh realities of womanhood on her wildly successful Comedy Central show. Everyone, including Schumer, knows that a certain amount of privacy and dignity is denied to celebrities because of their position as public figures.
So when Schumer reacted to a male fan’s aggressive attitude toward her on the street by tweeting that she wouldn’t be taking more fan photos, she isn’t coming from a place of misunderstanding about what her role is. She is coming from a place of abused power by the public.
Schumer released a post on Instagram on Saturday explaining that she was scared after a male fan ran up to her on the street in Greenville, South Carolina, and starting taking pictures of her. Schumer said he scared her and she said “No” and “Stop,” to which he replied, “No, it’s America and we paid for you,” according to her post.
This type of behavior goes beyond the typical fan interaction. It is one thing to approach a public figure and ask for a photograph. It’s another to claim ownership over another person, let alone a complete stranger. Schumer isn’t exempt from the conditioned reaction all women have, to be afraid of a strange man running up to them, just because she is on TV.
Because of the nature of celebrity, it’s easy for people to feel like they know, or have some part of, the person they see on their screens every night. But just because Schumer chooses to share some details of her life with the world doesn’t mean she owes us anymore than that. Schumer produces a product, and her fans purchase that product. That doesn’t mean they “paid” for her. I can’t imagine someone feeling entitled to physically intimidate and harass Mark Zuckerberg on the street just because they use Facebook.
Perhaps that is because anonymous fans don’t feel the need to physically intimidate famous men. There is undeniably a misogynistic entitlement directed at female celebrities. Male fans feel they have the right to comment on or are deserving of attention from female celebrities, and it just isn’t true.
Carrie Fisher from the “Star Wars” saga has spoken out multiple times about comments on her aging and online harassment.
In 2011, she said, “You know, I swear when I was shooting those (‘Star Wars’) films I never realized I was signing an invisible contract to stay looking the exact same way for the rest of my existence.”
When she was on the press tour for the “Force Awakens,” she again spoke out against online comments about her looks, answering trolls on her Twitter page with “Please stop debating whether or not I aged well,” and “Blow us.”
It is this entitlement that some fans feel for female celebrities and their bodies that creates unsafe spaces for them — like the anonymous sexist cesspool that Twitter easily devolves into, and, for Schumer, Greenville, South Carolina. We don’t own them, and they don’t owe us. And don’t ever run at a strange woman on the street.
jordrile@indiana.edu
@RiledUpIDS
