Amy Schumer
On her award-winning sketch comedy show, Amy Schumer has used humor to call attention to feminist issues from ageism against women in Hollywood to the pervasiveness of rape culture. Schumer earned a theater degree from Towson University in Baltimore in 2003 before moving to New York to work as an actress and stand-up comedian. Her big break came in 2007, when she placed fourth on the reality show Last Comic Standing. After 2012 roles in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and Sleepwalk with Me, she debuted her own show, Inside Amy Schumer, in 2013. The wildly popular show, which combines sketches, clips of her standup routines, street interviews, and in-depth interviews, earned Schumer both a Peabody and an Emmy in 2015. After a fatal shooting at the theater premiering her 2015 movie Trainwreck, she collaborated with her cousin Senator Chuck Schumer to draft and promote gun control legislation.