Amy Schumer’s body is, unfortunately, a topic of conversation.
Like any woman in Hollywood who doesn’t survive off of pressed juices and exercise endorphins, Schumer has been in turn praised, criticized, and downright disrespected for daring to wear a size 8. Back in 2015, Schumer gave a Lena Dunham-style middle finger to all the body-shamers, posing unapologetically undressed for Annie Leibovitz’s 2016 Pirelli Calendar. The 2016 edition of the calendar, which usually features supermodels in and out of their sample sizes, was a marked departure. Leibovitz shot “distinguished women,” with the goal of showing “the women exactly as they are, with no pretenses.”
Unlike a Kim Kardashian nude or a photoshopped magazine cover, Schumer’s instantly iconic picture looked like a real woman—humor, tummy, and all. Or as Schumer captioned her Instagram sharing the image, “Beautiful, gross, strong, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, sexy, disgusting, flawless, woman.”
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Today Schumer took another break from being one of the world’s funniest women to add a new snapshot to her folder of nudes-with-a-message.
In the wake of a never-ending national nightmare of gun violence, Schumer has joined the pantheon of celebrities producing #content under the #WearOrange campaign. Wear Orange got its start in the South Side of Chicago, where 15-year-old high schooler Hadiya Pendleton was shot and killed on January 29, 2013. In the wake of her senseless death, Pendleton’s classmates and friends banded together and decided to wear orange. The color, reminiscent of the anti-camouflage gear that hunters wear in the woods to avoid gunfire and warn others, is a symbol both of mourning and of increased awareness. Everytown for Gun Safety took up the Wear Orange campaign and turned it into a national movement, culminating in the second annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day on Thursday, June 2nd.
Schumer is just one of many celebrities lending a hand to the campaign. Stars ranging from Chelsea Handler, Julianne Moore, and Spike Lee, to name just a few, are sporting orange on Thursday, online and IRL. While Schumer isn’t the only famous face doing her part, she’s the only star who’s letting her naked body do most of the talking.
The comedian’s selfie shows her from the neck down, rocking a leopard print sports bra.
And nothing else.
And Schumer’s snap, which has serious break the Internet potential, is simply captioned: “Today please #WearOrange for gun safety @Everytown.”
Schumer is very public about about her beliefs when it comes to curbing gun violence and promoting crucial gun control laws.In 2015, a gunman fatally shot two women and wounded nine other people at a showing of her film, Trainwreck. In the wake of the tragedy, New York’s senior senator Chuck Schumer, who happens to be Amy Schumer’s second cousin, called on the comedian to lend a hand. Mr. Schumer recalled, “I said, ‘Hi Amy, this is Cousin Chuck’…She said, ‘I hope you’re going to ask me to do something with you on gun control.’” With the help of his famous family member, Schumer introduced new background check legislation, and called on Congress to fully fund the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services administration. At an accompanying press conference, Ms. Schumer spoke on the brink of tears, eulogizing the victims of the Trainwreck screening and refusing to read the name of the gunman. She emphatically endorsed her cousin’s reforms, before pledging that these remarks “will not be my last.”
And the star, who famously described herself at a Glamour awards speech as “160 pounds” and still able to “catch a dick…whenever I want” is clearly as passionate about body positivity and self-love as she is about lending her celebrity to a great cause. While awful trolls are never going to stop dismissing Schumer and dissing her weight, that’s not going to stop her from speaking out and doing her own thing—June 2nd, and every other day of the year.
