Whenever I think of the title “I Feel Pretty,” I get Natalie Wood’s “West Side Story” song stuck in my head. Which feels appropriate, because this romantic comedy might have been edgy back in that movie’s debut year: 1961. Hey, did you hear? Everyone has self-esteem issues, even models! But all it takes is a little pluck and confidence, and even a plain Jane can be a star.

That’s not the real trouble here, however. With seemingly no understanding of how tone-deaf it might be to cast a straight, white, able-bodied blonde like Schumer as victimized by society’s judgment, the lazily written “I Feel Pretty” takes a talented comic and casts her in the worst possible light (and I don’t mean that literally — she looks fine).

Renee (Schumer) is definitely sold to us as a plain Jane. She’s sad, clumsy and meek, a forlorn soul who works in a basement office and creeps around apologizing for herself. To some extent, I get it: Renee lives in downtown Manhattan, where there are herds of glamazon women roaming the streets, making the rest of womankind wonder why maxiskirts and crop tops don’t look like that on us.

After a nasty bump on the head at a SoulCycle class, Renee wakes with a whole new perspective: She thinks she’s hotness personified. To its credit, the film doesn’t do that thing where she looks in the mirror and sees one of those glamazons staring back at her. She just finds her own face and body suddenly thrillingly terrific. In itself, this is a heartening switch (and an interesting 180 from Schumer’s stand-up, much of which revolves, half-jokingly, around self-loathing). It’s everything around Renee that’s galling.

Debut directors and co-writers Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein (who also wrote the bummer “How to Be Single” and “He’s Just Not That Into You” screenplays) take every opportunity to play up the hilarity of Renee’s new lease on life. Her confident strut turns heads — because everyone’s just so confused. She thinks a guy is hitting on her when all he wants to pick up is his laundry. Her bid for a more highly visible position as a receptionist at the makeup company she works for is met with disbelieving stares from frosty executives (including, in a cameo, Naomi Campbell, the frost queen herself). “Yes, modeling is an option for me,” Renee tells them. This is meant as high comedy, except, why is it? This is an actress who’s graced the covers of Vanity Fair, Glamour, Marie Claire and more in cleavage-baring couture. (Also, having your heroine learn lessons about inner beauty at a makeup company is so backward, it must have been intentional, although I still can’t quite work out how.)

Michelle Williams shows up as another blonde with confidence problems: The granddaughter of the company’s founder, she’s got an unfortunately squeaky voice. Aidy Bryant and an oddly tan Busy Philipps play Schumer’s best friends, apparently a couple of 5s at best; we know this because they favor cardigans and pants. Model Emily Ratajkowski plays . . . a beautiful woman. Only Rory Scovel, as Renee’s adoring and Zumba-loving new boyfriend Ethan, comes off as a real, quirky person instead of a retro caricature. Kudos to him, but for a movie that’s purportedly about female empowerment, it’s not a great look.