If you saw “Lena Dunham” trending on Twitter this morning, it’s not because she did something new which was terribly offensive. It’s more complicated than that. Lena agreed to a long-read profile for New York Magazine, about all of the drama that surrounds her and all of the drama she creates – you can read the full piece here. I managed to get through a big chunk of it before I gave up. It’s a thorough read of a terrible person. How can someone so self-aware and self-obsessed be so utterly clueless? I don’t know. I saw a good summary of this piece, which was basically like “this is maybe the best profile of Lena Dunham, and no one should write about her again for years.” Everything is on the table, from how often her pets die, to Lena’s controversial comments about a rape victim, to everything you never wanted to know about her hysterectomy. Some brief highlights:
She doesn’t neglect or kill off her pets: “You can say a lot of sh-t about me, but I am a very committed pet owner,” Dunham says. “Ask anybody who works with me on a pet level. Also,” she continues, addressing the Lamby controversy, “what animal-shelter guy is like, ‘I’m an electronic DJ, and I’m also looking to talk to Yahoo! Celebrity’? But dragging him through the court of public opinion like that doesn’t get me anywhere. It’s better just to kick back and be like, ‘Okay, sir, you can extend your career by telling people what a bad dog owner I was.’ ” She throws up her hands. “That was one where I was truly like, Welp! Ain’t life rich.”
Racism & apologies: Race is a chronic blind spot for her because she didn’t grow up with a lot of diversity in her New York City private school, she explains. An incomplete list of things Dunham has been asked to apologize for: the nondiverse casting on Girls; casting Donald Glover as a black Republican boyfriend the season after she got in trouble for having an all-white cast; saying in an interview, “No one would be calling me a racist if they knew how badly I wanted to fuck Drake”; declaring herself “thin for, like, Detroit”; writing a New Yorker essay called “Dog or Jewish Boyfriend? A Quiz”; constantly being naked; tweeting a photo of herself wearing a scarf around her head like a hijab; accusing a Spanish magazine of airbrushing her photos (it did not); comparing Bill Cosby to the Holocaust; giving Horvath a brown baby at the end of Girls (and casting a baby that was Puerto Rican and Haitian, not half-Pakistani, as the script dictated); comparing the reading of negative Jezebel coverage to getting beaten in the face by an abusive husband; accusing NFL player Odell Beckham Jr. of not wanting to sleep with her; saying she disliked India because of the visible poverty; apologizing but never learning.
She didn’t donate to Hillary Clinton’s campaign: “My job was to, like, make noise, because frankly Bernie was such a thing that I just felt like my voice as, like, a young hyperliberal person was helpful.”
On her terrible statement about Aurora Perrineau, who said she was raped by a ‘Girls’ executive producer: “I remember thinking, Well, people know that I’m an advocate for these issues, so if I say this, they’ll know I’m not coming from X or Y place.” She was “high as a f–king kite” from the surgery, but “I think I was just like, F–k everyone else. This is my tribe. Let’s keep it safe…. Some people reached out and were quietly like, ‘It’s great that you defend him,’ ” Dunham says, but mostly people in her life came to her in disbelief. Apatow warned her, “I don’t think this is what you meant to do. That’s not how, in this day and age especially — this isn’t how we talk about women.”
Lena tells NY Mag that she did call Perrineau to apologize, and Perrineau’s mom confirmed that the apology went better than expected, even though it happened months after Lena’s initial statement. What strikes me at that point in the piece is that… Lena doesn’t actually care. Lena doesn’t care about her controversies or her apologies. It’s all the same to her – saying something offensive is the same to her as apologizing for saying something offensive, because it’s all attention, and that’s what it’s all about for her. Anyway, I read most of this mess so you wouldn’t have to. I need Lena to stop being a thing for several years.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.
She just needs to grow up. I wish her peace.
Sadly not everyone gets wiser as they get older.
Yeah, I think she’s fully formed at this point. Too much privilege, too much special snowflake upbringing.
Sh’s not a thing anymore but she hasn’t recognized that fact yet.
She is 32.
32.
I read about .i dont have issue. I still understand want she saying
Not sure why anyone even gives her attention? She’s an admitted perv. Wake up people.
Exactly. As someone who outed themselves as a pedo, she’s BEEN cancelled.
@joy ITA
Reread last night what she said in her book regarding her little sister. Which was both disturbing and appalling
It really seems like she still doesn’t get it. She has to have her mistkes pointed out to her, and yet, she never learns from them. What a sad way to go through life.
She is the reason people hate millennials
Unfortunately I think you’re right. I hate how people would always claim “Girls” was the show for our generation. It painted millennial women as vapid, entitled, self-absorbed a-holes. It kills me that people might think we’re actually all like those horrible characters on that awful show.
….I’d say the show is a pretty accurate portrayal of a fairly large segment of white millennial women. After having lived with them…the show is pretty effing spot on. I’d never lived with such vapid, entitled people who obsessed over their sex lives in my life. Truly never. There’s this wave that thinks that sex positivity makes you a good feminist….and that’s just not the case. Using the n word, consisently sh-tting on women, going on and on about how much better they were than other women when a guy they liked would reject them. Yeah sorry they were vapid and pretty freaking racist but labeled themselves progressive feminists. Side note: If you say transphobic things…you’re not a progressive feminist you’re just an a-hole. The veneration of all the terrible white millennial men both off and on the show. Also spot on. And now since ya’ll will probably lose your damn minds, I’ve also met white women that are the best feminists I’ve ever met, but they were activists and teachers who took a great deal of time to learn and unfortunately are far outnumbered by the number of white millennial (and older) women that don’t gaf.
Anecdotal experience, but I’d say pretty backed well supported by history, poll numbers, and probably even academic research.
She’s the reason people like to use the term millennials
I remember watching the first season of Girls and one of her lines was she believes she is the voice of her generation. Bitch, you ain’t the voice of anything other than your own delusions.
Aren’t these things meant to paint the person in a better light? All this piece did was reaffirm that Lena is an awful person who refuses to learn. I don’t expect celebs to be saints or to never make mistakes but this woman is always messing up, “apologizing” and then doing the same stuff over and over again. There’s no growth from her. She needs to just go away and read the room.
She’s still trying to absolve herself from the consequences of making that public statement about a rape victim, saying she was high, I think i remember it being a stament she made with someone else and released via publicist, very different from getting high and like tweeting something stupid let’s say. What she did was intentional and she just didn’t like how anyone outside her friend cricle were rightly offended by it.
Nvm, the emotional pain she (and the letter’s co-signer) ‘caused that girl. It sounds like she feels she was the only one who suffered because of that statement.
It seem that from her POV, every consequence of her actions only affect her and cause her “pain.” and I think that’s why it’s easy for her to apologize and not learn anything from it. ‘cause she keeps thinking the only person actually suffering is herself. She only apologizes cause she has to, not cause she means it.
I find all the Lena hate, especially from other women, problematic. We all said and did dumb shit when we were young (and not so young). She’s not polished with – hopefully not – a PR team behind her every quote and tweet, and I appreciate that. I loved Girls, found it complicated like its creator, but soulful and like nothing else that had been on TV. Camping is less successful but I still enjoy it.
Sorry but no. Other women especially WOC are not afforded the same opportunities to continually stick their foot in their mouths or do stupid stuff. It’s not that she has done one or two problematic things, it’s that she does it over and over again, apologizes, doesn’t learn and then keeps doing it.
It’s clear from the article she only finds value in men of colour as sexual objects and nothing else. She dismisses everything else about them and insist she has no prejudices. She’s 32 and has been afforded time to learn this lesson, and she still hasn’t, and she thinks that’s okay.
Agreed. And that her lies and deeply problematic statements are very harmful others and still, she doesn’t care. I just wish we could stop giving her air time. In fact, I’m not sure why I’m even commenting…
Yes, we all said atupid things but some time we have to learn. She still didn’t. Besides that, she is famous. Her words have nore effect than ours, because of her fame and number of followers. She has said too many stupid things about too many topics that show her privilege and how she still refuses to learn.
She’s 32 years old!
She was 25 when she became famous, not some teenager. And ever since she became famous, she’s been making the same mistakes again and again, never learning a thing. If anything she’s actually regressing as she gets older.
THIS!!! When Girls started airing she was already mid-way through her 20’s and she’s now in her early 30’s! She’s almost middle-aged! I hate when people excuse grown-a** women for their actions by bestowing on them some kind of bizarre mantle of “girlhood” like they were a sophomore in high school so it’s OK that they said and did those 72 racist things.
I find all the Lena love, especially from other women, problematic.
Its really not like she screwed up once when she was young. I dont know any other self acclaimed feminist and liberal that says the stuff she does and as often as she does.
I would like to compare Lena Dunham to Mindy Kaling. Mindy was hired as the only woman on the (US) Office’s writing team of 8, at age 24. She worked her ass off, from 2004-2013, making many people (including me) laugh a lot. In 2012, a full eight years after she started writing for the US Office, she pitched and sold a pilot called The Mindy Project to Fox. It was a great show.
Mindy is hilarious, a WoC, completely unapologetic about who she is, and a single mom who has never talked about her personal life. I find Lena Dunham insufferable. I have a lot of time for Mindy Kaling.
Interesting comparison to another female writer/show creator in same industry! I am a white woman 2 years older than Lena who grew up middle class in a rural area, nothing like rich Manhattan. I am married to a non white guy and we are pretty wealthy. I consider myself very much a feminist and generally liberal. To me, Lena is…exhausting. She is one of those people who lived most of her life in a privileged bubble. I do think she is representative of her specific peer group but not millennials generally, in most respects, or even millennial white women outside of the narrow group she grew up in. Girls had some good moments (the sex assault episode with Matthew Rhys was a standout) but suffered from the general unlikeability of most of it’s characters. I didn’t see most of the final season.
Perfectly put.
No. Just no. She’s not a child. She’s in her thirties and has been surrounded for years by older mentors. If she doesn’t get it by now, she never will. And I’m sick and tired of the excuse that she doesn’t have PR that spiffs up her comments. Fuck that noise.
She trounced upon an alleged rape victim, did some super creepy shit to her sister (and then thought it would be cute to tell us all about it), is wildly racist, and this old feminist right here gives her no passes. She’s not part of my movement. I disavow any ties to her.
Don’t wag your finger at us that see right through her excuses. She knows exactly what she’s doing. Just another privileged narcissist and I hope CB never writes about her again. She’s is canceled.
I cant stand her because she’s an insufferable and extremely vocal asshole. If she weren’t those things. I wouldn’t feel any type of way about her. I’m not giving her a pass because she’s a woman. I dont like assholes, and I especially dont like the really loud, attention-seeking kind, gender be damned. I dont care if my unwillingness to throw in with her is problematic. I think its problematic that assholes like her and countless others have been allowed to flourish with impunity.
I NEED HER TO GO AWAY AND DON’T COME BACK. I never like Lena Dunham or her disgusting TV show “Girls”. I think she is out of touch and she is just disgusting altogether. I don’t want to see her ever again unless she grows up. I find her highly offensive about racism and her sexual molestation of her sister (UGH YUCK). However, what I find that makes me sick to my stomach that she would side with a producer who raped one of her castmates and then issues a “sorry not sorry” attitude. Then the icing on the cake would be she wants sympathy for her hysterectomy because she has endometritis.
I DON’T CARE ABOUT LENA DUNHAM. I DON’T LIKE HER AND I DON’T CARE ABOUT HER AT THIS POINT.
Sometimes I just can’t get over the people and behaviors that our culture rewards so handsomely. I think of all the good people out there working their asses off providing valuable services and goods, yet struggling to make ends meet. At least she’s not president.
I smiled faintly while reviewing her long list of offenses. She made another blunder when she made reference to her “tribe”.
she’s pretty Jewish, so she gets a pass on the “tribe” comment from this MOT, lol
She’s actually not Jewish. Why do you assume that?
I’m thin for Detroit was funny
The “I was high” excuse would already be eye roll worth if she said it the next day but it took her MONTHS to apologize. Ridiculous.
Go away Lena and dont come back.
A very Roseanne explanation.
@QueenB
And just to add, she already knew about the rape allegation a month before she had her surgery and it became public, it wasn’t a high thought she accidentally let out, she definitely had time to think it through and plan a statement. She’s just full of excuses.
Anytime an article comes up about her, Jean Ralphio from Parks and Rec pops into my head saying “she’s the wOOOOOOOrst”
Cannot stand her. Don’t understand why she’s a thing. She lives in one of the most diverse cities in the world, people come from all over just to see New York City. Stop blaming going to private school for your racism when you haven’t been in it since you were 18.
Legitimate question.. what is her family like? Are they all this obnoxious and self absorbed?
She sounds lonely, cosseted and deluded.
Again why is she a thing? Just because she created and was on a tv show? That I never watched?
I enjoyed Girls in the beginning, found it liberating and a wacky portrayal of a generation that, even with means, struggles quite a lot. I really liked the nudity and seeing a woman with an unconcentionally beautiful body being so at ease with herself. Same goes for Jemima Kirke who is not thin as a rail (as women who get naked in films usually are).
However, after a few seasons, one could really see the writing going down, reacting poorly to backlash and fair critique,
There is a scene where one of the characters (the one who has a cafe) makes a problematic joke about a gender fluid person in the “hipster cafe” right across the street, as if the Girls crew was not the epitome of hipsterism (hipsteria?). That’s where it struck me: Lena Dunham is a reactionary, spoiled brat.
Also, I don’t like the way people attack her on her looks because 1) it’s nasty 2) she feeds off it. There is not good reason to do it.
So true. That old time food blogger Chez Pim commented once that Lena was ugly baiting (really ugly yellow dress at some award show). You’re so right she’s reactionary; everything she does is a reaction in anticipation of some sort of attention in reaction to her reactionary ideas / presentation of herself, because she’s not really authentic but always anti this or anti that. Why was she ever a thing?
Lena Dunham does not bother me. She used to annoy me but I now I’m just indifferent. I like Girls and Tiny Furniture.
So help me god, she was in my dream last night after reading the NYMag piece. I thought the article a very good read about an awful person. However, I became straight up angry when she was complaining about her infertility and the pain of seeing mothers nursing on instagram. Bitch, you had eggs! You could have froze them before proceeding with your elective, and not recommended by doctors, hysterectomy. Some of us never had a chance at eggs and she fucking tosses hers out and is now bemoaning the loss?!? Such an awful awful person.
Lord what about the black dog named “Rosa” comment.
wtf?
As a fellow upper middle class mostly white private school educated millennial woman- f*ck her. I knew better than this when I was 25, which is the age was when she became a thing. Let’s all move on! Bye Lena, next!
Same
She’s just a gross person and so far up her own butt that she can’t hear us.
Lena is booooooorrrrrrinnnnng.
You know she has a 2 year HBO contract, writing a story about Syrian refugees for Spielberg 🤮
What the hell does she know about refugees? Yes can this idiotic white woman please speak for the refugees? COME ON HOLLYWOOD
Also, she got an essay published in The New Yorker? The nepotism is strong with this one.
Why in the world is she wearing an SDSU sweatshirt? Stay away from my alma mater, it has a bad rep as it is!
She needs so.much.attention. Even her poor mother sounds fatigued in the article.
I actually had an argument with a girl who used to work in the salon I go to, about how horrible Lena really is. I finally gave up after she was all like..#Lena #IloveLena #puke
Sure call out. But really, all this vitriol is better directed at Trump, the alt right, the NRA, the racists in this country that are getting a pass by the current admin. I could go on. These people are doing REAL damage.
Lena is a casual racist, defended a known pedophile, and admitted herself she molested her sister. She deserves all the heat and then some.
I think some of the vitriol toward her is based on intolerance-outrage of overweight sloppily dressed women and that is just wrong…. e.g. how dare she be noteworthy if she isn’t pretty?
But then again she is just wrong on so many levels so I am kind of torn.
Edited this to say that I just read the article. I am no longer torn. I hate her.
Is this narcissist personality disorder? What you said about her just not caring makes me think it could be… Not giving her a pass *at all*, just trying to understand what kind of sociopathy means that both a problematic statement and an apology are the same to her since it’s all just about attention not about actually giving a shit…
I have endometriosis and fibromyalgia. Lena Dunham has both also and I read she wants to be the face of both. Both illnesses come with a lot of discrimination and sexism because endometriosis, of course, is an illness that only affects women and 80 percent of the people who have Fibromyalgia are women. Further, no one is 100 percent sure yet what causes either disease. (By the way Multiple Sclerosis is 3 times as common in women as men and before the invention of the MRI they used to put women who had MS in what were called “mental institutions” years ago because they believed it was a psychosis that only women experienced because women were hysterical and overly sensitive. They did something similar with Parkinson’s disease which effects twice as much women as men. I’m not saying MS, Parkinson’s Disease and Fibromyalgia are the same. I am saying that there is a long history of gender discrimination when it is unknown what causes an illness and it primarily effects women.)
My point is FMS and endometriosis already have a bad Rep and people with both often get unfairly treated and criticized. The last person we need as a spokesperson is Lena Dunham.
I think the main thing is she’s not very witty, in addition to the really awful stuff like casual racism and molesting her own sister. She tries to be a provocateur but I don’t find her funny. And using her body to constantly bait to the extent of deliberately looking unhygenic. It’s not political – someone like Serena Williams just being natural in her own strong, unconventionally attractive body and being proud without defensive self-consciousness – or brave or insightful about women’s bodies. I think she’s just narcissistic and nowhere as witty, insightful, or intelligent as she wants to be or her supporters want her to be.
I love the excuse that somehow being ”sheltered” by a private school in NYC means that you have no understanding of other New Yorker’s experiences.
That’s absolute garbage & an excuse for being a racist tool who uses their faux intellect to create this white Utopia in the middle of Brooklyn that’s thrown out it’s balck residents in exchange for wealthy midwestern kids with dreams of being artists.
I find Lena Dunham to be refreshing and deliberate. Her outspoken nature may rub you the wrong way, but she speaks her truth. Judging her by her age or upbringing is still judging. I truly wish Ms Dunham would not feel the need to continually defend herself. I would consider her an interesting dinner guest in my home as her candor and creative expression are much admired.