I sometimes feel a bit sorry for Amy Schumer. Apparently she doesn’t have the right figure to play Barbie. Here’s Schumer’s response to the pervasive pressure to be thin: “No, I’m not going to apologize for who I am, and I’m going to actually love the skin that I’m in. With Schumer as a role model, our daughters will have other things to laugh at, besides that ludicrous assertion. The criticism of Schumer’s body is not coming from little girls, though.
– Amy Schumer has been hit with backlash since the announcement that she'll be playing Barbie in an upcoming movie about the iconic toy, and on Tuesday, she hit back at the haters on Instagram. Next to a picture of herself in a bathing suit, she wrote that it shouldn't really be called "fat shaming" because she knows she's not fat and has "zero shame." "When I look in the mirror I know who I am," she continues. "[I'm] a great friend, sister, daughter and girlfriend. I'm a badass comic headlining arenas all over the world and making tv and movies and writing books." She ends by thanking the trolls, because they actually made it "so evident that I am a great choice" for the role of Barbie: "It's that kind of response that [lets] you know something's wrong with our culture and we all need to work together to change it." There's quite a bit of support for her out there: As the Guardian points out, were the producers to attempt to cast someone with the Barbie toy's actual dimensions, that person "would be unable to lift her head or stand." And, as the Washington Post pointed out before Schumer's Instagram post, the comedian is self-confident, hilarious, smart, successful, and self-made—"who better to recalibrate the image and message of Barbie?"