美国国家公共电台 NPR Amy Schumer Bares Her Soul In 'The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo'

Amy Schumer Bares Her Soul In 'The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo¹'

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Amy Schumer is tired of answering a question journalists just keep asking her all the time. So I asked it as a joke. I mean, she is a comedian², right?

I really was curious. I mean, this seems like a good time for women in Hollywood.

AMY SCHUMER: (Laughter) You [expletive] (laughter).

GREENE: Is it?

SCHUMER: It is an amazing moment...

GREENE: (Laughter).

SCHUMER: ...For every woman. If you have ovaries, and you're in an 90210 ZIP code, it's an amazing time for you.

GREENE: Now, one reason Amy Schumer hates that question - she's a New Yorker. The other - she just thinks women generally have it tough all the time. Speaking up about sex, gender³ stereotypes⁴, crazy, unrealistic expectations for women and their appearance - it's all a signature of her comedy, like in this sketch⁵ from her Comedy Central series. She's walking into a clothing store that's called New Body.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "INSIDE AMY SCHUMER")

SCHUMER: (As character) Yeah, I just started working out this morning, so I need a little revamp on my wardrobe for the new body I'm about to have.

JESSI KLEIN: (As saleswoman) Oh, my God, fabulous⁶. What's your fitness plan?

SCHUMER: (As character) Well, I switched to Diet Snapple, and I bought a tiny house trampoline. So, you know, a change is going to come.

GREENE: Now, when we talked to Amy Schumer a few years ago, she was already a comedy star. And then, last year, the movie she wrote and starred in - somewhat inspired by her own life - called "Trainwreck," it was a hit, and she got really famous.

Now she's written a memoir⁷. It's called "The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo," and that is something she has. Like her comedy, the book is revealing. She shares excerpts⁸ from her personal diaries that go back to her pre-teen years. I asked her to read some of them, but Amy Schumer forgot her book. Luckily, her sister-in-law ran her a copy into the studio.

SCHUMER: (Clears throat).

GREENE: Read the footnotes too. Yeah, get yourself ready.

SCHUMER: OK, just the last paragraph?

GREENE: Yeah, I mean, unless you're dying to read more.

SCHUMER: Right, no.

GREENE: I don't want to...

SCHUMER: Yeah, I'm dying - I'm dying to read more, so much so that I didn't even know I had the book with me.

GREENE: (Laughter).

So in the book, she has actual diary entries from the past and then footnotes from present-day Amy.

SCHUMER: (Reading) I want everything right now - footnote - I did. I want to be living in New York City - footnote - I do.

GREENE: Young Amy Schumer dreamt of acting⁹ and bartending, both of which she's done.

SCHUMER: (Reading) I want to start a new page - footnote - I would like for you to believe that I was being poetic¹⁰ and metaphorical¹¹ here, but I literally¹² meant I wanted to start a new page of the journal entry. There was a whole line left, but I drew an arrow because I was sick of looking at that page.

GREENE: (Laughter) You know, as couple of colleagues and I were reading that - that last footnote...

SCHUMER: Yeah.

GREENE: ...Someone said, that is so Amy Schumer.

SCHUMER: (Laughter).

GREENE: Is that (laughter) - is that fair?

SCHUMER: That's fair, yeah (laughter).

GREENE: One thing that might surprise you about this brash comic is she considers herself an introvert¹³.

SCHUMER: I think standup is pretty good for an introvert because you are performing, but, I mean, it's on your own terms. It's like there's so many people in the room, but it's a one-sided conversation. And you actually don't have to interact unless you want to.

GREENE: You actually don't feel like you're interacting with your audience? I mean, I gather you're looking for laughs and want that reaction, but it feels like you're alone up there.

SCHUMER: Yeah, I don't - I don't want to pull the curtain back too far, but comedians¹⁴ do want laughs (laughter).

GREENE: (Laughter).

SCHUMER: That is the goal.

GREENE: OK.

SCHUMER: Being introverted, it doesn't mean necessarily being shy or being afraid of public speaking. It just means that it's hard for me to interact with people for too long.

GREENE: Did you know you were funny when you were growing up?

SCHUMER: Yes, I always knew I was funny.

GREENE: Yeah?

SCHUMER: I only remember loving making people laugh and making myself laugh.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMY SCHUMER: LIVE AT THE APOLLO")

SCHUMER: (As self) That's why I'm so annoyed I'm single again. That means I'm going to have to go out with a new dude. We'll go to the movies, and he'll be like, do you want to get a popcorn¹⁵? And I'll be like, oh, my God. I hadn't even thought about it.

(LAUGHTER)

SCHUMER: That's not the whole reason I wanted to come see this piece [expletive] movie.

GREENE: Comedy aside, Amy Schumer gets very serious in parts of this book. And I'm warning we're going to touch on some adult issues and use some adult language coming up.

She decided¹⁶ to write about the first time she had sex. She says she had fallen asleep and woke up to find her boyfriend having sex with her without her consent.

SCHUMER: Talking about this in the book, it's a lot and it's risky¹⁷. And then people say, well, you didn't write the word rape¹⁸.

GREENE: You've taken some heat for that? They wanted you to use that word?

SCHUMER: You know, people - a lot of it - they just want to pull a quote. They want clickbait. And so just talking about being sexually assaulted in any way, you know, for women, it's never like, oh, I'm really sorry that happened to you, which is really how it should be and how you would think it would be. But it's more - we look for problems we have with how that woman has spoken about her sexual assault.

GREENE: So is that one reason you decided to share so much because you feel like it doesn't have to be some story line? You can be in a situation like you were in with a boyfriend, and you can be assaulted.

SCHUMER: Right, exactly. I used to talk about it in standup, and I write about in the book, that it's - I call it grape because it's this gray area - not of whether or not it was rape, but it's not the way that we think of - like a "Law And Order" episode. And when it's not as black-and-white for everyone, it makes it harder for them to digest.

So it's like this very personal thing to me that I decided to share. And, yeah, I'm only looking for people to feel less alone reading it and maybe for a guy to read it and think, oh - maybe that'll stop somebody in their tracks. I don't know.

GREENE: One thing we talked about a few years ago was the difference in comedy for men and women - and you being out there doing comedy and trying to send a message that a woman can be empowered and say all these things, and it doesn't have to be that astonishing or surprising. It doesn't have to be a headline that there is a female comic. Has the world changed in the last few years?

SCHUMER: Not enough. Like, things are being talked about more than they used to be - things like the wage gap. It's like, you know, I do talk about sex because I do think that a lot of things translate from the bedroom into how you live your everyday life. Like, as a woman, I think a lot of women are in relationships where they're with someone who doesn't make sure that they orgasm, and the woman doesn't make it important. Just nobody has said to them, no, I need to [expletive] too, and it should be equal. And I think that translates to the office and everywhere else where you should demand to be spoken to and treated equally to men. So I feel like it won't be enough change until every woman has [expletive] the same amount as the guy they're with and until there is no wage gap and until someone says, you're my favorite comic, not my favorite female comic.

GREENE: And you still get favorite female comic now?

SCHUMER: Every day.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GREENE: Amy Schumer, her new book is called "The Girl With The Lower Back Tattoo."

1 tattoo   

n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于

参考例句：

• I've decided to get my tattoo removed.我已经决定去掉我身上的纹身。
• He had a tattoo on the back of his hand.他手背上刺有花纹。

2 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

3 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

4 stereotypes   

n.老套，模式化的见解，有老一套固定想法的人( stereotype的名词复数 )v.把…模式化，使成陈规( stereotype的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Such jokes tend to reinforce racial stereotypes. 这样的笑话容易渲染种族偏见。
• It makes me sick to read over such stereotypes devoid of content. 这种空洞无物的八股调，我看了就讨厌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 sketch   

n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述

参考例句：

• My sister often goes into the country to sketch. 我姐姐常到乡间去写生。
• I will send you a slight sketch of the house.我将给你寄去房屋的草图。

6 fabulous   

adj.极好的；极为巨大的；寓言中的，传说中的

参考例句：

• We had a fabulous time at the party.我们在晚会上玩得很痛快。
• This is a fabulous sum of money.这是一笔巨款。

7 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

8 excerpts   

n.摘录，摘要( excerpt的名词复数 )；节选（音乐，电影）片段

参考例句：

• Some excerpts from a Renaissance mass are spatchcocked into Gluck's pallid Don Juan music. 一些文艺复光时期的弥撒的选节被不适当地加入到了格鲁克平淡无味的唐璜音乐中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is editing together excerpts of some of his films. 他正在将自己制作的一些电影的片断进行剪辑合成。 来自辞典例句

9 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

10 poetic   

adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的

参考例句：

• His poetic idiom is stamped with expressions describing group feeling and thought.他的诗中的措辞往往带有描写群体感情和思想的印记。
• His poetic novels have gone through three different historical stages.他的诗情小说创作经历了三个不同的历史阶段。

11 metaphorical   

a.隐喻的，比喻的

参考例句：

• Here, then, we have a metaphorical substitution on a metonymic axis. 这样，我们在换喻（者翻译为转喻，一种以部分代替整体的修辞方法）上就有了一个隐喻的替代。
• So, in a metaphorical sense, entropy is arrow of time. 所以说，我们可以这样作个比喻：熵像是时间之矢。

12 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

13 introvert   

n.性格内向的人

参考例句：

• You are very much an introvert.你是一位地道的内向性格者。
• The same conversation that energizes the extravert also drains the introvert.同样的交谈能让外向者荣光焕发，却让内向者精神颓靡。

14 comedians   

n.喜剧演员，丑角( comedian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The voice was rich, lordly, Harvardish, like all the boring radio comedians'imitations. 声音浑厚、威严，俨然是哈佛出身的气派，就跟无线电里所有的滑稽演员叫人已经听腻的模仿完全一样。 来自辞典例句
• He distracted them by joking and imitating movie and radio comedians. 他用开玩笑的方法或者模仿电影及广播中的滑稽演员来对付他们。 来自辞典例句

15 popcorn   

n.爆米花

参考例句：

• I like to eat popcorn when I am watching TV play at home.当我在家观看电视剧时，喜欢吃爆米花。
• He still stood behind his cash register stuffing his mouth with popcorn.他仍站在收银机后，嘴里塞满了爆米花。

16 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

17 risky   

adj.有风险的，冒险的

参考例句：

• It may be risky but we will chance it anyhow.这可能有危险，但我们无论如何要冒一冒险。
• He is well aware how risky this investment is.他心里对这项投资的风险十分清楚。

18 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。