Amy Schumer Sketch Pokes Fun At One Direction

Just when I thought comedy couldn't get any more real than Cecily Strong at the White House Correspondents' dinner, Amy Schumer's "Girl You Dont Need Makeup?" sketch arrived and proved me totally wrong. According to the Washington Post, Schumer's "Girl You Don't Need Makeup?" pokes fun at One Direction's hit song "What Makes You Beautiful" and the accompanying video. In Schumer's sketch, she dances around as a fictional boy band sings that that she doesn't need makeup to be beautiful, but, after removing her makeup, changes their minds and asks her to put a little — okay, a lot — back on.

The video starts by preaching Beyoncé's #WokeUpLikeThis gospel with the lines "Girl, you don't need makeup/You're perfect when you wake up." But after a giddy Schumer re-appears on camera sans product, the guys quickly change their tune when they quickly realize that "au naturale" isn't what they thought it was. The band tells Schumer that she could "be the hottest in the nation with just a touch of foundation." They go from "just wipe it off" to "just put it on" before the song even hits the two minute mark.

With the idea of looking natural being spotlighted left and right in pop culture, the struggle to fit that mold is more present than ever. Towing the line between "natural" and "unnatural" can be something as simple as the wrong shade of eyeshadow, and the struggle to get the balance just right is something that women feel whenever they get ready to leave the house. If I had a dollar for every time my roommate asked "Is my eye makeup too dark?" I could probably buy enough makeup to last a lifetime.

Lyrics like Drake's "sweatpants, hair tied, chilling with no makeup on" and Beyoncé's aforementioned song "Flawless," along with the prevalence of "no makeup selfies" have helped perpetuate the idea of all-natural makeup as an ideal. But some lyrics caught more slack than others, like the One Direction song that Schumer seems to be mocking. The boys talk about the no-makeup trend like it's something great for women, but I can't help wondering if Schumer's parody is actually the more realistic song.

Whether you're putting makeup on to make yourself feel good or trying to impress someone else, your makeup doesn't define you. By the end of Schumer's video, it is clear that someone's idea of "perfect" might not work for someone else and no one should feel pressured to look a certain way. But with the boy band's advice to "wear [makeup] when you sleep and swim" the realities of the struggles of looking and feeling beautiful become all too real.

Schumer points out the hypocrisy of the "no makeup makeup" trend and shows us that we shouldn't allow others to define how we feel about ourselves. Keep rocking your look no matter where it lands on the "natural-unnatural" spectrum!

My only advice to you is to try and avoid looking like this:

Photos: Comedy Central screenshots(3)