Having run out of well-recommended Netflix products to consume, I poured myself a thick bubble bath and a glass of rosé. I lay down in the warm water to watch comedian Amy Schumer’s new stand-up special, Growing.

Many had written off Schumer. Since she came out the gate so strong in the early aughts, feminists had decided that she was racist, or at least overly entitled. I always considered her shtick to be a running gag about clueless white people who don’t seem to notice their own casual racism. However, I kinda ditched her too after I paid good money to see her perform, only to discover I’d already heard half of her jokes on TV. That seemed extra tacky at the time, given the holy dictum handed down by George Carlin, Louis CK, and other dicks decreeing that jokes were to be written, told just a few times, documented in a comedy special, and then discarded forever. Forever!

I also disliked her first Netflix original, The Leather Special, a collection of forced-seeming sex and toilet humor that aimed to pay homage to Eddie Murphy’s popular standup specials, right down to her all-leather outfit. Maybe I’m not the right audience, since I always thought Eddie Murphy was a shitty comedian too except when performing his Bill Cosby cover-band material about family. I love comedy with bad intentions, but Schumer’s attempt to one-up her PC haters by leaning into her own crassness suffered from just basic poor writing. CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST OF THIS REVIEW…