Sorry, but Amy Schumer isn't backing down from defending her tone-deaf "Formation" video — not so long as she has the Bey card, anyway.
In a column for Medium, the Trainwreck star claims that Beyoncé and Jay Z gave the video — which sees her and Goldie Hawn imitating Bey's moves without really touching on the racial politics that inspired them — the go-ahead.
"Of course I had Beyoncé and Jay Z’s approval," Schumer wrote. "They released it on Tidal exclusively for the first 24 hours."
So you're telling us that Bey and Jay are personally policing all of the content on Tidal? Do they use "accept" and "reject" stamps, or is there a Bond-villain-style trap door that swallows a performer whole when their video doesn't pass muster?
Basically, Schumer's defence is that she and her friends really like Lemonade. Her stunt double even got a tattoo! They learned the dance moves! They're celebrating women! They didn't realise they could do that by shaking their hips to "Independent Women" without co-opting the experience of Black women, which is what "Formation" draws attention to.
"It was NEVER a parody," she continued. "It was just us women celebrating each other. The video Beyoncé made was so moving and I wouldn’t ever make fun of that. There is absolutely no way to. I make fun of myself a few times in the video as I do in everything I am a part of. I loved every second of working with those women to make this thing that lifted us up."
We'd love for Bey to weigh in on this. In the meantime, this Twitter user raises some good points.
Amy Schumer wrote an essay to explain why she did a "Formation" parody but she's under the impression that "Formation" was about all women.
— Morgan Jerkins (@MorganJerkins) October 28, 2016
"Formation" and "Lemonade" were about black women. It doesn't take much to see that this was a message to a specific group.
— Morgan Jerkins (@MorganJerkins) October 28, 2016
It really points to entitlement and narcissism to try to insert yourself in a piece that was never yours to begin with.
— Morgan Jerkins (@MorganJerkins) October 28, 2016
Every time BW are the center, we cannot just be without someone having the desire to take from us and corrupt what we're doing.
— Morgan Jerkins (@MorganJerkins) October 28, 2016
There is never a hands off with our bodies or our work. But I haven't had breakfast yet so that's it.
— Morgan Jerkins (@MorganJerkins) October 28, 2016
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