Women are becoming increasingly offended by Amy Schumer’s newest body positive film “I Feel Pretty,”. The film feature’s Renee Barrett (Schumer) a single woman, living and working in New York. She is caught in a constant routine of doing all of the “expected” things to better her body, and hating it all the same. She’s at a spin class when she falls off of the bike and hits her head. When she returns to consciousnesses she looks in the mirror and with pure shock and delight points to herself in the mirror and says “that’s me?”. The movie follows her journey as the exact same woman on the outside, but a completely confident and self assured woman on the inside.

The movie is receiving various poor reviews as well as backlash from prominent females for a multitude of reasons. Cosmopolitan writes that Schumer’s new movie is “problematic” because it shames women who society deems too fat or too skinny, because she is an “able-bodied, white, cisgender, attractive woman,” and because suffering from a head injury should not be the only way to emulate self-love. They also state that loving ones body should not be “laughable”. Other publications as well as the general public have also deemed the movie offensive.

Sofie Hagen, a Danish comedian has been cited in many opinion pieces for a string of tweets criticizing Schumer’s movie and it’s premise.

“I Feel Pretty” – Curated tweets by TheRubiconSPA

Contrary to Hagen’s points, Schumer is far from what Hollywood and the media define as beautiful.  Schumer being “not fat enough” to take on this role only further reinforces the ideas that a woman’s appearance should dictate her roles in society. Hagen’s comment about Schumer being “a half an inch from being conventionally Hollywood Attractive” is exactly what the movie is trying to combat. How close or far someone is from Hollywood ideals of an attractive woman should not dictate their ability to feel confident. Self confidence struggles are highly individualized from person to person, and this movie is here to show that regardless of the way you look and your struggles, it is important to love yourself.

Hagen, being an advocate for body positivity should not attack Schumer for taking on this role, but should celebrate her and any other women who feel that they can love themselves regardless of their appearance in this highly critical world. As a society we’re in a constant cycle of asking women to feel confident with themselves and critiquing it when they finally do. Hagen is an example of this, advocating for self-love, but claiming Schumer is too skinny and beautiful to struggle with loving herself.

What many criticizers of the film are not recognizing is that Schumer is not making an attempt to shift what Hollywood perceives as beautiful, she is trying to shift the idea that Hollywood should define what beautiful is at all. Self-love for females is very difficult to emulate. This movie encourages women to learn to love their bodies for what they are and aren’t. Most significantly the movie proves that confident is the most beautiful thing a woman can be.

The movie in itself is a critique of our society. It turns the criticisms of women into a comedy, where women can feel comfortable in their own skin even if they don’t have model looks. The reality is that her level of confidence in the movie is laughable, because according to societal expectations, this character can not be deemed attractive. Its increasingly problematic that women cannot feel confidence with ease, this is true both in the movie and in society. In addition, the premise of a head injury makes it amusing and light-hearted that Schumer is suddenly flooded with self confidence in her appearance. The head injury also makes it so that she does not have to undergo some immense transformation or makeover to love the way she looks, which is a success in terms of the society’s perception of self-love. The New York Post illustrates this trend in movies that originated with “Cinderella”, in which an average woman undergoes a make over to win the approval of those around her and a love interest. Schumer making no physical changes to feel confident makes the movie a triumph.