As we discussed over the weekend, Amy Schumer is in final talks to play live-action Barbie in a feature film about Barbie dolls. Amy’s Barbie character will be thrown out of Barbie World for not fitting in or whatever, and Barbie learns a valuable lesson that homogeneous societies are for chumps, and we need to embrace our diversity, whether it be racial diversity, size diversity, what have you. I already know that I will not see this movie, so I didn’t have strong feelings one way or the other. But other people did have strong feelings. Feelings like “Amy Schumer shouldn’t play Barbie because she doesn’t have the Barbie physique.” I’m putting that mildly – Twitter people were calling Amy “too fat to play Barbie” all over the place. Well, Amy has responded to the criticism with an Instagram message:

Very very honored to be nominated for 2 Grammys and to be considered to play an important and evolving icon. Is it fat shaming if you know you’re not fat and have zero shame in your game? I don’t think so. I am strong and proud of how I live my life and say what I mean and fight for what I believe in and I have a blast doing it with the people I love. Where’s the shame? It’s not there. It’s an illusion.

When I look in the mirror I know who I am. Im 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 where I lay it all out there and I’m fearless like you can be. Thanks to everyone for the kind words and support and again my deepest sympathy goes out to the trolls who are in more pain than we will ever understand. I want to thank them for making it so evident that I am a great choice. It’s that kind of response that let’s you know something’s wrong with our culture and we all need to work together to change it.

Anyone who has ever been bullied or felt bad about yourself I am out there fighting for you, for us. And I want you to fight for yourself too! We need to laugh at the haters and sympathize with them. They can scream as loud as they want. We can’t hear them because we are getting sh-t done. I am proud to lead by example. “I say if I’m beautiful, I say if I’m strong. You will not determine my story. I will” #thegirlwiththelowerbacktattoo

[From Amy’s Instagram]

Part of me thinks that this message was fine. That’s the part of me that finds Amy Schumer exhausting, like I just want to say “sure, whatever you say, Amy” and be done with it. But there’s another part of me that is just so irritated by how Amy handles these kinds of conversations about body image. She freaked the f—k out when Glamour Magazine included her in their plus-sized special issue, claiming that she’s a size six (using Kirstie Alley sizing, I’m assuming). Now she says she knows she’s “not fat” and then shows all of those trolls that they did hit the nerve they were aiming for. And of course, there’s an added level of Lena Dunham-esque controversy-baiting going on here. The studio would not have hired Amy Schumer to play Barbie unless they wanted this exact conversation and “controversy.” So Amy gets to play the victim publicly and promote the movie and whatever. She’s exhausting.

Photos courtesy of WENN.