Amy Schumer is being called out again for allegedly lifting a joke.
The accuser is (once again) the internet, and the alleged source of the joke is Zach Galifianakis. The offense? Saying the phrase “well-read” wrong.
As a new video illustrates, Galifianakis told the joke in 2013, and Schumer used the same phrasing in her new Leather Special. The video includes an AV Club interview from 2012, in which she admits liking one of his jokes, as apparent supporting evidence. The video also puts question marks over material from Dave Attell and Ali Wong, though the Leather footage from the Attell segment appears to be edited.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7UvGjFDOqY
When The Leather Special debuted on Netflix in early March, it was darted with one-star and negative reviews. As Splitsider pointed out, many of them likely came from subreddits like r/The_Donald, which made it a group effort to target Schumer’s special. (As of today, it does have one star.)
Tanking a Netflix special obviously isn’t going to hurt Schumer’s career: The trailer for her new movie Snatched came out today. But this effort to downvote women in pop culture is familiar. It happened with Rogue One, Ghostbusters, and Mad Max: Fury Road. It will probably happen with Snatched. In a recent Instagram post, Schumer said this isn’t the first time it’s happened.
Neither Schumer nor Galifianakis have responded to this latest charge from the internet, though saying “well reed” when you mean “well read” is hardly something Galifianakis did first. Apparently it’s even something someone has said before 2006.
Update 9:48am CT, April 3: Video creator Brandon Farley tells the Daily Dot that the “overwhelming amount of evidence speaks for itself.” He had no further comment.