Amy Schumer has been criticized online after she shared a joke about Alec Baldwin that she says she was banned from making at the 94th Academy Awards last month.
The Emmy-winning stand-up comic co-hosted the 2022 Oscars along with actress Regina Hall and fellow comedian Wanda Sykes. And according to Schumer, her provocative humor had to be reined in quite a bit.
According to Vanity Fair, the comic, 40, said on Saturday during her set as part of the Aces of Comedy series: "I don’t even know what to say about the Oscars. I was kind of feeling myself… and then all of a sudden, Ali was making his way up. And it was just a f***ing bummer. All I can say is that it was really sad, and I think it says so much about toxic masculinity.
"It was really upsetting, but I think the best way to comfort ourselves would be for me to say the Oscar jokes that I wasn’t allowed to say on TV."
('Ali' being a reference to Will Smith playing Muhammad Ali in the 2001 biopic.)
The outlet reports that the I Feel Pretty star went on to share some of the jokes that she was not allowed to make at the ceremony, with controversial figures such as Joe Rogan and James Franco being the butt of said jokes. She also explained that her lawyer had warned her against some of the gags.
Schumer then shared a joke about Alec Baldwin, 64, which was cut from the Oscars telecast. The quip was in reference to the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust in November, which happened when a prop gun the 30 Rock star had been holding accidentally went off.
She said, according to Vanity Fair: "Don’t Look Up is the name of a movie? More like don’t look down the barrel of Alec Baldwin’s shotgun. I wasn’t allowed to say any of that [at the Oscars], but you can just come up and [slap] someone."
Considering the joke was in reference to a tragedy, which saw the untimely death of a wife and mother, a lot of people were furious at the gag.
One person complained: "Wait, sorry… Amy Schumer wanted to joke about someone’s actual death (?!?!?!?!) but was talking about how triggered and traumatized she was by a slap?! How do you think hearing this makes Halyna Hutchins’ grieving family feel?!"
Another wrote: "Amy Schumer was traumatized by the slap but wouldn’t have been traumatized by joking about a gun accident that took the life of a cinematographer; Halyna Hutchins. She… volunteered this information? Why. Are. People."
A third said: "Great joke premise for an audience of people who may have directly known the victims injured/killed and are quite likely still furious that little was done to prevent similar things from happening in the future."
