7. Amy Townsend (Trainwreck)
Amy Schumer is one of those comediennes who you love or love to hate. Something’s clearly working though, as Schumer’s star power blew up exponentially this summer with the release of Trainwreck, the latest romcom from Judd Apatow and the first feature she’s written herself.
On the outside, Trainwreck seems like a fairly conventional romantic comedy. Amy Townsend meets a man who seems initially unsuited for her before eventually… well, we can all guess how that one turns out. Along the way though, Schumer’s script takes joy in subverting the genre’s cutesy conventions and it quickly becomes apparent that Townsend is far from your typical female protagonist. That is, unless you can remember Meg Ryan refusing to sleep round a strangers house after pursuing them for sex or Julia Roberts making fun of her sister’s adopted child.
[zergpaid]Townsend is a complicated, messy character who makes huge mistakes, yet she’s also intelligent and speaks her mind. Do these negative traits detract from the positives? Of course not. Trainwreck is one of those rare comedies that stars an independent female protagonist who moves the narrative forward solely on her own terms. Townsend doesn’t exist for the objectification of men and her sole purpose in life isn’t to please a member of the opposite sex. A novel approach, indeed.
Perhaps Trainwreck will kick start a new wave of female characters who are entirely in charge of their own sexuality, even when a man flutters his eyelashes and flexes his biceps at them… or maybe Schumer’s creation will remain an anomaly in a world of mindless Katherine Heigl romcoms. Only time will tell.