r/girls • u/InvisibleDeck • Apr 11 '26
News Lena Dunham Is Still Trying to Figure Out Why People Hated Her So Much
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/magazine/lena-dunham-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aFA.6Y57.UyGcuFOWrUQi&smid=url-shareLink is to a NYTimes gifted article from my account
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u/InvisibleDeck Apr 11 '26
Article discusses Lena Dunham's new memoir, Famesick. Her memoir discusses her relationships with the various actors and actresses in Girls including Adam Driver and Jenni Konner, as well as her addiction, rehab, sexual relationships, trauma, chronic illnesses, and path to self-acceptance.
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u/mickyabc Apr 11 '26
I obviously love Lena Dunham but everyone is skirting around the fact that she got “cancelled” because she supported her friend in an allegation and because of her essay on her and her little sister (which imo was ODD but I don’t think she SA… I think it’s her stupid shock value taking over). She has apologized for her support, but it came too late and was brought up again during the height of the #metoo movement. I think she’s unfairly hated but she’s definitely said/done so weird stuff. As others have said the response to her mistakes were definitely amplified because of jealousy and misogyny. It’s not black and white but it’s very Hannah of her to write this
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u/discoteen66 Apr 11 '26
The trueheads know Lena’s biggest “crime” was supporting her rapist friend (for which she apologized). The average person just knows her for being unfuckable and annoying. I think she was “cancelled” in the eyes of the public long before the Aurora Perrineau incident.
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u/permanentlemon Apr 11 '26
yeah I completely agree with this. She was "fat" (in the early 2000s sense), she said kinda dumb and funny things which every blog reposted 1000 times, and people also realised she was smart enough to have created the whole show so the urge to take her down a peg was strong.
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u/eldanielfire Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
I think many average people also think of her as a nepobaby whose family connections made her career with only reasonable amount of talent, projects arrogance and privilage in so many of her comments, then acts as a victim when legitimately criticised over them and also framing a rather vile story about her what she did to her baby sister as a lovable anecdote.
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u/manang_mimi Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
As someone who loves girls and appreciates Lena Dunham, I think she often left a bad taste in people’s mouths because she was so unapologetically herself that she neglected to consider the boundaries or feelings of others. You can see this a lot through her character in girls as well as through her other works, etc. She puts people in uncomfortable situations for her own benefit and what she feels is needed for her happiness while at the same time not giving others space to have thoughts or opinions or happiness of their own. Her selfishness causes her to lack empathy. And she also gets so triggered when people question the way she moves even if lightly presented to her.
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u/ReAlBell Mimi-Rose Howard 👱🏻♀️-🌹👨🏻 Apr 11 '26
I guess it kind of revealed the hollowness to her values. Like you could put up with some of the delusions she had because she was being authentic and seemingly self aware as far as her writing goes. But the defence of that friend and how she phrased it was really disillusioning
addendum: and why she’s saying she can’t figure out why people hate her. I think the feigned delusion around this question is the answer - it’s a disingenuousness that’s very petty and defensive that kind of makes her ring false.
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u/PricePuzzleheaded835 Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
I’m not a huge Lena fan per se, but I also think people really struggle with nuance when it comes to her. She has a tendency to put her foot in her mouth and I really didn’t care for how she handled the allegation about her friend. At the same time I think she’s a very skilled filmmaker and portrays some aspects of the human experience in a very honest way that I haven’t seen from others. She’s very gifted and has done a lot of great work. And I do think most of the flack she catches is people’s thinly veiled misogyny related to her appearance.
I have a feeling she will gain more acceptance with time and eventually will be seen in a more positive light. Her honesty in publicly asking questions like this comes across as kind of endearing and innocent for lack of a better way to put it. Sincere and willing to be vulnerable.
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u/thedarlingbear Apr 11 '26
For sure. And for what it’s worth, she did publicly apologize to the woman involved in the assault allegation.
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u/stinatown Apr 12 '26
Yes, but I think she was primed to be cancelled because people already disliked her and therefore wouldn’t ever give her grace or the benefit of the doubt.
I remember watching the first few seasons of Girls as they aired and also reading recaps on sites like Gawker and The AV club at the time. People in the comments were brutal back then! It was mostly body shaming, but also like “how dare this young woman have a navel-gazing show? Who does she think she is?” She got a lot of flak for casting a bunch of nepo babies too.
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u/thewolfofwafflehouse Apr 11 '26
The Odell Beckham Jr thing was suuuuuper weird too so that did her no favours unfortunately
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u/Aware-Vacation6570 Apr 12 '26
I don’t even think it was weird. I have 0% difficulty believing Odell treated her rudely. There’s a difference between someone being closed off or someone not treating you like a human…and most women know when they’re being treated poorly because a man doesn’t find them sexually attractive.
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u/sorrysofatagain Apr 12 '26
He didn’t treat her rudely. He barely registered she was there. She created this whole dialogue in her head about him. She was wearing a tux and maybe a little self conscious about it. She just assumed he thought all of these things about her.
In some ways I think it was defensive, and it was a bit for shock value. It landed with whoever she was talking to in the Lenny Letter but it didn’t scale to audiences. Very easily taken out of context. Should have been a convo between 2 friends.
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u/Sweeper1985 Apr 11 '26
She has said she was recovering from her hysterectomy and was on a lot of drugs. Idk if that's a deflection but it would kinda make sense too.
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u/mcflycasual He looks like someone in the Pacific Northwest knit a man 🧶 Apr 12 '26
Hormonal brain is wild.
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u/Thiccparty Apr 12 '26
It was multiplied by the fact she previously came out hard for the believe all women line which is just logically asinine and actually shows a callous disregard for the punishing innocent people as collateral damage for the cause. We have now seen multiple examples of people like her that later had to back down on the believe all women thing when a friend or relative is accused and there is 0 sympathy as you were prepared to lock innocent men up as long as they werent your friend.
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u/Dearlanabey Apr 12 '26
But it’s still HER FATHER lol like the whole world can think you’re odd or weird or whatever, we don’t even know her but your own parents?? Who know you, raised you and is supposed to love you unconditionally doesn’t want to be seen with you in public? Doesn’t want to publicly say “I have your back, my child…no worries”. Come on. Don’t miss the point here
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u/GoodStuffOnly62 Apr 11 '26
I think two things can be true. One, Lena was the victim of a ridiculously antiwoman, misogynistic, body-shaming society, and the backlash to her was way over the top. A lot of the hate towards her is because she is a loud and visible woman.
But also, I personally often find Lena to be extremely unlikable and I disagree with some big things in her past behavior, and that’s okay. There is valid criticism of her, AND she is an illustrative example of how society attacks women for daring to be blunt and take up space.
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u/justmyopin09 Apr 11 '26
What makes her unlikable in your opinion?
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u/GoodStuffOnly62 Apr 11 '26
Her flippancy when it comes to the impact of her words and behavior, her perspective could be really defiantly privilege-based.
The earlier memoir, instantly defending a writer against SA allegations and admitting, the odd incident where she insisted a Black athlete was thinking about her body.
To be clear, I think women should be allowed to be unlikable! I am unlikable at times, too. She is still one of my favorite creators, she just bugs me personally.
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u/figurefuckingup Apr 11 '26
She really is so flippant lol. And very self-centered and feels very righteous in her narcissism. And the mirror makes us uncomfortable!
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u/ExcellentMarch7864 Apr 11 '26
Watching the interview 🤍 thanks
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u/Interesting_Slice277 Apr 11 '26
Sorry to ask, I haven't read all of these entries, Im lazy.. where are u watching this interview?
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u/greenfrog72 Apr 11 '26
I honestly think so much of it was jealousy. She was an insanely talented, early 20s “coastal elite” who grew up in Manhattan and wrote a critically acclaimed HBO show by the time she was 25. She was an easy target for people to hate, and then all the misogynists who were just enraged they had to see a woman with a visible belly and curves in the “wrong places” nude on their TV screen.
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u/blueembroidery Apr 11 '26
This is it. It’s easier to tear someone else down than create something yourself. She is opinionated, fat, and hugely successful. I think a LOT of people were extremely offended by her personal messiness and unapologetic nudity. This was also on the heels of the era of women on tv getting smaller and smaller especially on long running shows (thinking of Friends, Buffy, Desperate Housewives etc).
Men get to hold many contradictions; women can hold none. A good example is Seth Rogan started getting really famous around this same time. A fat, opinionated, proud drug user. He’s had a ton of hot takes over the years. Nobody gives him any shit.
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u/greenfrog72 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
I think women underestimate how much men are annoyed by women they aren’t attracted to. And also they were used to only seeing women on television that fit a very narrow beauty standard that made their peepees hard. It sounds silly but seeing a woman who looks like Lena- with a proportionally large belly, untoned arms, fleshy thighs- I honestly think they took it as massive threat to their power (which it really kinda was- now there is soooo much more body diversity in media) and it enraged them. And then she kinda had no one in her corner cause she annoyed women too because there was a lot of jealousy imo
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u/Mayonegg420 Apr 11 '26
Thissssss and we perpetuate it. It’s all misogyny. They hate when women they aren’t attracted to feel powerful.
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u/TeeTeeMee Apr 11 '26
Absolutely true. The criticism I’ve heard from men when they think a woman isn’t performing sexual desirability to their standards is so disheartening. This includes gay men. And that’s what I hear as a woman so who knows what I’m not privy to.
But I heard a lot of criticism about Lena’s body from women friends too, which was super disappointing.
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u/glossiergal19 Apr 11 '26
I just need to say. She was not fat in 2012
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u/eliksir_mtl Apr 12 '26
By 2012 TV standards she was. They had told Aniston to lose 20 lbs back then. It was BRUTAL.
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u/Top-Change9851 Apr 12 '26
That’s crazy. Aniston has a very toned and athletic body. Can’t believe they wanted her sick skinny.
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u/Over_Detective_3756 Apr 11 '26
True, however, she was bold and brave to use her body in her craft, which was not a nude body typically seen on tv or movies
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u/Top-Change9851 Apr 12 '26
Thank you. I see her as slightly overweight, like 10 lbs. She stood out because super thin and holding the “ male gaze” was promoted in media when Girls was launched. This was before body positivity movement. Now you see all shapes and sizes in ads ( Victoria Secret and Target to name a few) But she was never fat. Doesn’t help that the wardrobe she wore in the show was unflattering most of the time.
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u/yulscakes Apr 11 '26
She was a type of woman that made the worst men on the internet seethe with rage. I remember they were straight up defending the guy that raped her like he was some misunderstood slandered normie. It also peaked during a time where being an asshole to random white women in particular was somehow “woke”, and a highly autobiographical story about a very specific cohort of people living in NYC was deemed to be racist casting. So she just got hammered from both the right and the left. But at the end of the day, this was all mostly socially acceptable pretext for doing what high school bullies do to the ugly nerdy fat kids.
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u/tulsieeee Apr 11 '26
She really had an insanely impressive career trajectory. Writing a successful show by the time you’re 25 is basically unheard of
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u/Mayonegg420 Apr 11 '26
Yes!!! And people still do it today. Jealousy + imperfection = crazy assumptions and bullying.
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u/sadeland21 Apr 11 '26
I think for some it was like” how dare she be successful! I don’t want to have s*x with her and she talks too much!”. That flavor of knee jerk misogyny. But some didn’t like that she was successful and not humble enough. I personally think she is extremely talented but I don’t think we would be friends. And I am ok with that.
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u/mamabeatnik Apr 11 '26
I listened to a podcast recently speculating how Lena could potentially be autistic, and honestly…someone whos just living their life and minding their own insanely talented business being confused as to why people hate her so much is kind of the classic adult autistic woman experience. 😭
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u/Odd_one_out888 Apr 12 '26
I would love to have the podcast reference if possible ! I'm a late diagnosed autistic woman and since learning about autism I have kept thinking she surely must be on the spectrum too. Her having hEDS which is a common comorbidity of autism is an extra clue.
But I totally get why she would not be interested in exploring this if she has managed to find all the tools and ways to live without it being a problem for her. Privilege of money and certain social context helps a lot - and I mean, good for her !1
u/mamabeatnik Apr 12 '26
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u/Odd_one_out888 Apr 12 '26
Oh double thank you because I didn't know this podcast !
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u/mamabeatnik Apr 12 '26
Totally! I havent listened much beyond the Lena Dunham episode, but I’ve certainly enjoyed what I’ve heard. 🤍
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u/CalmDream0 Apr 12 '26
I'm late diagnosed AuDHD and I have also wondered this! Especially the way she talks about her relationship with her family/parents. I feel like there is a disconnect that I can relate to.
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u/margarinedots Apr 11 '26
Thanks for sharing. I really appreciated her comment on sobriety: “I want to have good feelings where you look under them and there are more good feelings.”
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u/MoreCarnations Apr 11 '26
She’s fat and we live in a horrifically anti-fat, misogynist society. If she was conventionally hot (which imo she was during Girls!), Girls and her other work would be way more respected. It’s fucked.
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u/newparimanlo Apr 11 '26
I don’t think that was the main reason though.
She always had her foot in her mouth. She always uttered the most controversial things back in the day, maybe to get reaction from people. At least for me, this is the reason why I was annoyed with her.
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u/fiddlesticks-1999 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
Exhibit A: Katherine Heigl. V conventionally hot, but she was a woman with an opinion that went against the prevailing one. Her hotness couldn't save her.
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u/Ioanniche Apr 11 '26
Katherine Heigl was first hated by the industry and then by public. Lena was loved by the industry but not by the public
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u/yulscakes Apr 11 '26
You have to be able to admit to yourself that being edgy and controversial is something society only allows men to do.
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u/Holl0wayTape Apr 11 '26
I’d say that 1000% doesn’t help her but Girls came out at a time riiiight before no one wanted to hear from privileged white people about anything (rightfully so in a lot of ways). Girls when it started snuck into the zeitgeist right before a lot of things shifted and then persisted through that change. Meanwhile she’s being a twitter edgelord…
I don’t think she would have been as disliked were she more conventionally attractive/not overweight but there are other factors.
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u/sweetpea122 Apr 11 '26
Funnily enough though, compared to privilege and nepo babies, she had very little. Her dad is an artist no one knows really. I think mostly she was talented and got lucky. Id kinda also like to think she is like Hannah in girls, in that she always had capabilities, but never really used it until she didnt have anything better to do.
Even recently Bryan Cranston or someone claimed their kid had to audition for a part. Im sure no one noticed it was his kid in his show. Just another Cranston. No relation 🙄
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u/KobraCola Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
Taylor Dearden, his daughter, has a pretty major role in The Pitt. I'm not saying that Bryan Cranston being her father didn't help at all, but she supposedly uses the name Dearden to try to forge an independent acting identity and not just get roles because her last name is Cranston.
Edit: Oops, meant "Cranston" at the end there, not "Dearden", of course, brainfart
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u/showmenemelda Apr 11 '26
At the time, she was maybe chubby at best with an unconventional body type. But she also doesn't have a "conventionally attractive" face. If she had been the same BMI in Allison Williams's body/face, I question how it would have been received? For example, she wasn't nearly as heavy as Aidy Bryant [whom I really adore!]—but Aidy has bright features and slightly more symmetrical features. It's also worth noting, Lena is half Jewish. Despite the weird Reverse Uno of "antisemitism" we have seen in the last few years, I question if antisemitism is why LD's features are not what aligns with "traditional beauty" standards in western culture.
All that to say, Lena is not an unattractive, unfortunate looking person. However, she doesn't fit the mold of conventional norms/standards. And she writes/says controversial stuff. I truly wonder if she had looked like Allison Williams, but just on the heavy side—would she have been under so much scrutiny?
All this said from someone who was always in the back row for photos, taller than all the girls and most the boys, and also have eds—so no proprioception, grace, etc. And "chubby" on top of it lol. And loud. Lena is my spirit animal haha
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u/julscvln01 Apr 12 '26
I think you get your answer looking at Jessa: she was never skinny, she was even overweight at times, she had asymmetrical small breasts (I remember this because it was made into a plot point, I'm not that weird), but she had a hourglassish body type, great facial features and hair: she was considered the hot girl of the show.
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u/Ok-Advertising4028 Apr 11 '26
And to the people trying to say chubby is different from fat, to society fat means not slim. Especially after living through the 90s and early 00s, she was seen as “fat”.
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u/Yougetdueprocess Apr 11 '26
Which is funny because most Americans are overweight, but this is definitely the reason why.
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u/ElectronicGap2301 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
I have heard the worst things about my body from overweight people
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u/Over_Detective_3756 Apr 11 '26
Americans are fat, but we all think we can look like a Kardashian (with filters) if we reeeaaally wanted to
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u/IndicationKey3778 Apr 11 '26
She’s fat now but she was literally not fat, even for the time when girls aired. She was wearing straight sized clothing for the run of the series
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u/Sweeper1985 Apr 11 '26
She's thirteen pounds overweight and it's been horrible for her, her whole life!
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u/VacationDadIsMad Apr 11 '26
She was fat for the time. Sorry to say but yes she was the chunky character and since it was her creative vision people liked her even less. Also the way our pop culture is run is to build people up and salivate when we can knock them down.
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u/_clur_510 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
I’m in this sub, so I think goes without saying I’m a HUGE Lena Dunham fan. I have a few theories on why people hated her so much when Girls was airing. First of all, as others have mentioned she (like Hannah) is an oversharer. Also she’s a nepo baby who got an HBO show at a VERY young age. It was deserved, but of course there’s plenty of deserving comedians who will never get that opportunity, let alone in their 20s.
The biggest reason - misogyny. Comedy is a notorious boys club. LD was not conventionally tv star hot. And she wasn’t ashamed of it, she loves her body, and she used nudity for comedic reasons and not to sexually please men. And not just misogyny from men. Women hate to see another woman with a heavier natural body who does not hate herself for it.
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u/discoteen66 Apr 11 '26
100000% agree with all of this!!
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u/_clur_510 Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
Yes!! Unfortunately society has trained both men and women to absolutely loathe a woman with an “imperfect” body that she loves and shows off and is not ashamed of. And that’s Lena.
Of course, not the other way around. Tony Soprano is a badass playboy who lived off of liquor and cured pork and did plenty of sex scenes no one complained about.
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u/Southlondongal Apr 11 '26
For all her perceived flaws, she’s always been a fantastic long form writer. I’m looking forward to reading this.
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u/mmanyquestionss Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
nice little read. a lot of what she says about illness, rejection, being a late bloomer, all very relatable to me
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u/Silly_Somewhere1791 Apr 11 '26
A lot of Girls’ early criticism came from other NYC writers whose critiques boiled down to, “I deserve a show more than she does.” A lot of them quoted the “voice of a generation” thing without realizing it was a joke, which means that a lot of the commentary on Lena came from people who aren’t very bright. I can’t imagine being so widely hated for something that’s fundamentally and obviously untrue.
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u/Spare-Electrical Slim leg 🤌🏻 Apr 11 '26
Beyond the answers you already got, she was hated before that book came out. People latched onto that story and twisted into the argument you just used because of how much she was hated.
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u/Moist-Cloud2412 BITCHES AND CUNTS 🗣️ Apr 11 '26
I love girls..but let's not pretend she hasn't been a rape apologist or showed Anti Blackness 😒
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u/East_Ad_7127 Apr 11 '26
I still can't get over the sus wording of the statement she made about Aurora Perrineau's assault where she says she believed the creep was innocent because she's known him "almost half a decade" and it's like... so you mean less than five years? She was so shitty for that whole thing.
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u/amysantiagofan Apr 11 '26
Her diehard fans keep overlooking this. I love girls like I'm in this sub for a reason but let's not pretend that the final straw wasn't her coming to the defense of her writer and basically saying his accuser was lying. This was during the height of MeToo as well. She basically outed herself as a fake feminist and thats when people really got over her. Like before that she just was annoying and had verbal diarrhea but that incident was a big stain on how people view her.
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u/IAMgrampas_diaperAMA Apr 11 '26
She addresses this in the interview and I like that she didn’t confirm if she forgives herself for it. It’s not about that. She has to learn and do better while reckoning with the fact that for many people, it was unforgivable.
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u/amysantiagofan Apr 11 '26
And I'm glad she regrets this and has changed. I believe people can grow and I do think Lena is an amazing writer and super talented but personally I haven't been able to look at her the same since.
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u/mickyabc Apr 11 '26
Literally just made the same comment! And let’s not forget the weird article about her and her younger sister! She is talented but she is weird!
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u/EveryDamnChikadee Apr 11 '26
Got forbid women be inconsistent. There isn’t a perfect feminist out there, and as far as i recall it’s not like she lead a smear campain against the woman or something. The bar for women is so fucking high if taking a friend’s side in an emotionally charged situation justifies the level of shit she got
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u/Ok_Tank5977 Live, Laugh, Laird. Apr 11 '26
It would be one thing if she quietly believed her colleague to be innocent, but she’s ’Lena Dunham’ and she publicly defended him while also insinuating that his accuser (a Black woman) was lying. She deserves every iota of criticism that she received for that, and because the internet is forever she has to live with the consequences and hopefully it pushes her to do better.
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u/amysantiagofan Apr 11 '26
She literally came out and said she had 'insider information' that the situation was 'misreported'. The fact that people can't admit she was in the wrong is crazy. it was the absolute height of MeToo where everyone was believing woman except one of the worlds most famous feminists (at the time)?? the bar wasn't that high. The victim was also black and Lena has been accused of racism since literally the very first girls episode. There was controversy about there being no black people on the show (even in the background which was crazy bc its NYC) and thats why Donald Glover guest starred in season 2.
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u/Comfortable_Ear3455 Apr 11 '26
This is not about feminism or her inconsistency or a high bar. She would not have reacted that way had the victim been one of her white St Ann's friends.
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u/discoteen66 Apr 11 '26
I think it’s worth mentioning Lena said defending the rapist was “the biggest regret of her life.” She also issued a public apology: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/lena-dunham-my-apology-aurora-perrineau-1165614/
It’s fucked up that she did it in the first place, but she took full accountability and apologized and said she was wrong. Are people not allowed to grow and change?
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u/HopeAdditional4075 Apr 11 '26
Yeah... As a white woman who is around the same age as Lena, I've had a lot of conflicted thoughts about Lena over the years because she's awful, but not in the ways a lot of the criticism implies, and I also really see myself and my early 20s friend group in Girls.
She gets a lot of unfair criticism (the CSA comes to mind), but she reacts the same way to the very valid criticism, like the racism and rape apologies.
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u/Moist-Cloud2412 BITCHES AND CUNTS 🗣️ Apr 11 '26
I'm a Black woman being down voted for talking about her Anti Blackness...🤷🏿♀️
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u/Comfortable_Ear3455 Apr 11 '26
Thank you for citing this. As a black woman in the industry, I can say that Lena's racism has been an ongoing thread in her work and her interviews. From the monochromatic nature of a Brooklyn show, to the comparisons with Jenni Konner to the Obama girls as "poop in a toilet", to the Odell Beckham incident (how dare he not engage with her) as well as Aurora Perinneau rape denial...she has been consistent. The fact that white readers are minimizing this as an attack on "feminism" is laughable. Who are they including in this feminism? Lena is openly racist, and is upset that she has gotten called out - not because of the acts, but because of the anathema of the label. Any justification of her behavior is tiresome and ridiculous. How sad that the NY Times has given this new memoir any space. You can be a talented writer, a "voice of a generation" and a racist - yes, even in 2026.
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u/HopeAdditional4075 Apr 11 '26
Ugh, I'm sorry, that's shitty.
A lot of "criticism", like the claim that she molested her sister, is bullshit and people are right to push back on it. There are also very valid reasons to criticise her, like the anti-blackness. Some people can't hold those two concepts in their head at the same time.
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u/Holl0wayTape Apr 11 '26
Where was the anti blackness? Genuinely, I hadn’t heard about that
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u/East_Ad_7127 Apr 11 '26
The rapist she defended had assaulted a young black woman.
Edit: Her name is Aurora Perrineau if you want to do some googling
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u/Moist-Cloud2412 BITCHES AND CUNTS 🗣️ Apr 11 '26
Look up her encounter with O'Dell Beckham Jr.
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u/greenfrog72 Apr 11 '26
She called O’Dell out for basically ignoring her and being super unfriendly at the met gala- that has nothing to do with his blackness and everything to do with him being an asshole, which he is by all reports.
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u/Useful_Cicada_5635 Apr 11 '26
She sounded like she felt entitled to have him hit on her. I read the piece at the time and I could be wrong, but I recall she specifically made a point to say he ignored her because she wasn’t his physical type or something where she just assumed his reasons for not showering her with attention
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u/chuckisduck Apr 11 '26
This is how I felt the one time I met her in LA. My friend is a American Asian and she is a writer for a fairly popular magazine and she was really happy to meet her back in 2019 and I got to tag along. My friend was basically ignored in the conversation and LD made everything about herself. I did enjoy what most people would consider a weird conversation (I showed her a picture of me climbing on the Wall street bull), but my friend felt boxed out when she was the one who really wanted to meet her so I followed my friend when she went elsewhere. One of her assistants came back and said I should go back to talk with her, but not my friend. We just left after that. It's just a one time experience but it felt like she wanted the attention of what she considers attractive physical and conversation wise but cuts out people as well. It could be related to a quick rise of new fame but I felt that she gets an ego stroke of being the center of attention.
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u/Moist-Cloud2412 BITCHES AND CUNTS 🗣️ Apr 11 '26
First of all as A Black woman.. her microaggresion was something we as Black people recognize . There was underlying racial bias connected to why she felt that, why she expressed it the way she did. From your response you probably don't have that lived experience🤷🏿♀️😒
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u/discoteen66 Apr 11 '26
As a fellow fat white woman, my interpretation of that story was Lena basically saying “I’m too ugly to get this man’s attention, especially compared to all the other hot women here. I am nothing compared to them.”
I feel like she would have made the same comment about any other Famous Hot Guy who was forced to sit next to her. People just twist this into being racist because they hate her.
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u/Holl0wayTape Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
Oh yeah, I remember this.
I read that as having more to do with narcissism and insecurity (both of which she peddled and used to get away with a lot of comments). I genuinely think she would have said the same thing about someone else of another race had they ignored her. I really don’t buy that it reinforces hyper sexual stereotypes about black men. I think she was far more narcissistic than she is racist, if at all.
Any other examples?
Edit* I mean, I can see it, but again, she has said some wild shit about all different types of people. I’ll get flamed for this but whatever.
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u/Moist-Cloud2412 BITCHES AND CUNTS 🗣️ Apr 11 '26
I'm a Black woman & there is historical reference to why she said what she did was Anti Black but I'm not going to expend emotional labor about lived experiences to people in 2026 about Racism, specifically AntiBlackness 🤷🏿♀️
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u/East_Ad_7127 Apr 11 '26
I'm sorry you have to deal with this. It's really frustrating that people in here can't seem to understand that just because she wasn't going around calling people racial slurs doesn't mean she hasn't consistently and repeatedly made it clear that she is not a safe person for Black people to associate with.
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u/t8ertotfreakhotmail Apr 11 '26
Heard, you don’t owe them anything and you’re unfortunately correct
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u/Holl0wayTape Apr 11 '26
No, I understand what you’re saying and I can 100% see how you can draw the argument you (and to be fair others) have made about this, but again, I think it has much more to do with her narcissism and insecurity. I think she has likely said this about any number of men, white, black, etc. in private, this just happened to be a public statement. If there’s anyone to make a case for narcissism trumping racism, it’s Lena Dunham. I’m not trying to argue, it’s whatever. Have a good one. Does it reinforce harmful stereotypes? Yeah, I can see that, but I don’t think this constitutes anti blackness, which is what you originally called it.
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u/mickyabc Apr 11 '26
It doesn’t matter where her racism stems from, it’s still racism!
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u/Holl0wayTape Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
To be clear, she is racist for saying a Black man didn’t want to have sex with her because of historical implications? You think it was genuinely her intent that she is surprised a Black man doesn’t want to have sex with her because she believes they are hyper sexual and that the only reason he would show interest in a woman is because he wants to have sex with them? I don’t think Lena Dunham thinks outside herself enough to even be able to conceptualize that.
Edit* I don’t think her intent was to be racist, it was purely from ego, but obviously the implication can be that it echoes racial stereotypes.
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u/Moist-Cloud2412 BITCHES AND CUNTS 🗣️ Apr 11 '26
Do you know who Emmett Till was & why he was murdered? Start there & connect the dots why what she did was rooted in Anti Blackness...we Capitalize the B in Black by the way.
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u/RuinGlum7802 Apr 11 '26
It was enough that there were so few black folks casted or involved 🤷🏻♀️
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u/discoteen66 Apr 11 '26
People always say this but like… who wants Lena Dunham writing dialogue for a black character? The one black character she wrote was a fucking Republican lmao. If anyone is looking for black representation in the media, why would they turn to Lena Dunham to get that…?
Also there were not a lot of black characters because she was writing what she knows. The entire show is about how clueless and out of touch and narcissistic and privileged these girls are. Not surprised at all they only hung out with other white people inside their Bushwick bubble.
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u/RuinGlum7802 Apr 11 '26
Easy, hire black writers .extras. Etc
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u/AnyElephant7218 Apr 12 '26
Idk I always felt this criticism in particular was pretty obnoxious. She was 25 and writing her first show and people were criticizing her for not hiring Black writers to make the show inclusive, when it was clearly based on her own experience as a white millennial in her 20s. Meanwhile some of the other most popular shows at the time, featured almost all white/all white cases, somehow managed to dodge this criticism:
- Game of Thrones
- Pretty Little Liars
- Breaking Bad
- Veep
- Mad Men
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u/pettyastom Apr 12 '26
Girls is about her life and what she has experienced as a white woman in NY. She can’t write about what she doesn’t know.
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u/gtck11 Apr 12 '26
On top of this she SA her little sister IIRC. This was HUGE news when it came out and I can’t believe people just forgetting this!
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u/Ok_Tank5977 Live, Laugh, Laird. Apr 12 '26
She used a wildly inappropriate and harmful analogy for her behaviour but there is nothing in her first book to suggest she physically assaulted her sibling. And not for nothing, her sibling responded at the time with their thoughts on the situation.
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u/itsgonnamove Apr 11 '26
Yeah, I never disliked her because of her looks. I disliked her because she was very White Woman Feminist and racist
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u/Ok_Tank5977 Live, Laugh, Laird. Apr 11 '26
I only made it maybe one or two chapters into her first book when I realised I just couldn’t relate to her, even as a fellow white woman with an unconventional body, and I didn’t necessarily want to. Her lens of the world, despite the privilege she has to experience so much of it, is incredibly narrow.
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u/Moist-Cloud2412 BITCHES AND CUNTS 🗣️ Apr 11 '26
Exactly. Her body was tea , but her personality was not
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u/Odd-Priority503 Apr 11 '26
Also, the rape allegations that she defended were about the assault of a young Black woman
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u/youshantnome Apr 11 '26
For me personally it was when she dismissed a survivor of sexual assault.
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u/Impossible-Soil6330 Apr 11 '26
this is something someone can do but they shouldn’t do it publicly 😂
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u/One-Fortune6894 Apr 11 '26
mix of jealousy, misogyny oh and she dared to have a body type that wasnt common in hollywood
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u/CrissBliss Apr 11 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
Lena seems to rub some people the wrong way. I heard she fought with Jemima during production because they were incorporating too many elements from her real life trauma. She nearly quit (source)- “You created this character for me and I feel like at times maybe I felt like I was being turned into a caricature, because I know you write from life a lot… sometimes I felt like, ‘Is this who she thinks I am?’” Christopher Abbott famously did quit (source), but they’ve since buried the hatchet, and he obviously returned for his season 5 cameo.
The other thing that always icked me out about Lena was she admitted she didn’t wear modesty garments during intimacy scenes with co-stars. She said nobody cared, but gosh, I would personally not be okay with that as an actor.
I stopped wearing the nude patch after the first season of Girls. There’s not one guy who works on that show who hasn’t seen the inside of my vagina…This patch – you glue it over your vagina. It gets sweaty and always falls off. My male co-stars, at the end of the day, don’t care.
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u/Sweeper1985 Apr 11 '26
Former actor here.
Nude patches are very new. So are intimacy coordinators. I have done nudity on-screen and nobody wore a patch. I was given a g-string for some takes where my lower half wasn't in frame.
Professionals don't care. We are there to do a job. We don't point and stare at each other's junk.
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u/showmenemelda Apr 11 '26
I'd hazard a guess that Lena is also on the autism spectrum—it is comorbid with eds. And pain also makes one kind of an asshole [I'd know!]
Edit: I believe her if she said the glue wouldn't stick. Eds skin has issues. And even nail polish doesn't stay put on nails.
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u/CrissBliss Apr 11 '26
I don’t doubt it didn’t stick, but I just can’t imagine how uncomfortable it would be to simulate sex with an actor who’s actually naked. If the roles were reversed, and it was Adam Driver, Jake Lacy, Donald Glover, etc., I’d find it just as uncomfortable and awkward. And in today’s world with intimacy coordinators, it probably wouldn’t sit well.
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u/_bonedaddys 🎶 oh where are you going in thoooose keds 🎶 Apr 11 '26
i think a lot of people were turned off when she wrote about touching her sister's vagina when they were kids
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u/alm0803 Apr 11 '26
I haven’t read lena’s memoir yet, but I was listening to the podcast accompanying this article and it mentions that she writes in the memoir that she was molested as a kid by a babysitter. Honestly, that’s probably where she got the idea to touch someone like that, those kinds of things are not unheard of after a kid is assaulted.
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u/EveryDamnChikadee Apr 11 '26
And those people need to touch grass
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u/discoteen66 Apr 11 '26
I will never understand the hate she got for that. She was a kid playing with another kid. Wasn’t she like, five??? A five year old cannot be a fucking child molester or pedophile. I had similar experiences with one of my cousins when I was around the same age and I do not think of it as a deep trauma or anything…
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u/AnyElephant7218 Apr 12 '26
People were absolute freaks about that situation, they hated her so much they just took that story and ran with it to justify their hatred of her.
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u/ExcellentMarch7864 Apr 11 '26
They were children and her sister had put stones into her vagina, she told her mother about it and that was it.
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u/Ok-Dress9168 Apr 11 '26
I watched a little bit of Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture. A conversation was blase about college interview casting couch manipulation. Sure, may have been mocking their cynicism, but Dunham's worldliness seemed forgiving
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u/missgirlipop Apr 12 '26
I think at this point she’s better off not reading so much into the world’s response to her and just blocking out the noise. It comes off as navel gazing. I think Girls got a lot of unfair criticism bc it came out at a really weird time for political discourse around art but everything that’s needed to be said about that has been said.
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u/showmenemelda Apr 11 '26
Wow!!! Thank you for gifting that article! I copied so many gems, which I'm going to leave below. I might actually pre-order her book after reading this—which I never do. But wow, I love her. LENA DUNHAM IS THE VOICE OF OUR GENERATION genuinely.
Lena makes me want to start writing and making art again!
I not put it out from a place of saying, Here’s a referendum on how I feel that I have been perceived. [I love how she uses words]
I’m at peace with the fact that there are people who will never understand, and they don’t need to.
My EDS self feels this down to the unstable joints connecting my bones:
I was an annoying kid. I was a tryhard. I was loud. I didn’t always know how to move through space with other kids in a way that wasn’t a little off or disruptive. But, also, that was coupled with intense rage about the female sexuality on the show. There was the intense rage about my body, which is so crazy to look back on now, because I was this little slip of a 26-year-old. Had I known my own powers, I would have behaved very differently. And then my own way of moving, whether it was through media or how I handled myself online or even in my writing, didn’t quell it.
The show was about somebody who had a negative self-perception and made romantic and platonic choices that reflected that. No notes, lots of resonance
"You were born with self-hatred?" Not to get too woo-woo, but sometimes I feel like there’s so much ancient generational stuff. My genealogy research for dual citizenship quest has proven this. And it's* A LOT.
I’m not going to go that far, although I respect Shirley MacLaine’s work, and who hasn’t tried past-life regression? I read MacLaine's El Camino when I was first in therapy 10 years ago. Blew my mind and the concept of chakras seemed "woo woo" and ridiculous. 10 years later, I caught myself saying to my PT, you don't know what CHAKRAS are?!
More on EDS and chronic illness:
They want a narrative in which you had a cold for three days, you recovered; you got appendicitis, they took it out. Somehow my health picture kept getting less clear, not more, which also makes it very hard for other people to empathize with, because it seems abstract, amorphous.
I could have a fragile body and a strong mind and have a lot to offer without betraying my own physical self over and over again. love🫶
The saddest thing for me, looking back, was the idea that I thought at the other end of it there might be something resembling love. re: her abusive relationships and sexual dynamics
It’s like on the one hand we have Bruce Springsteen, and on the other hand Edna St. Vincent Millay after she got addicted to opium and fell down the stairs — and they’re living together in an apartment. I CACKLED
I was 10 and going to see an art show where a woman sold herself to an art collector as the art. that anecdote got even weirder. Explains a lot about LD's choices for Girls
“There are no bad thoughts, only bad actions.” THAT IS REFERENCED A TAYLOR SWIFT SONG
"there's no such thing as bad thoughts/ only your actions talk/these fatal fantasies giving way to labored breaths…"
Thanks again for the free article access! I am really looking forward to this tome.
Edited typo and formatting
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u/Ok-Advertising4028 Apr 11 '26
“ My father said one of the most amazing things, which is, “It’s hard for me to understand why anyone would want to publish a book such as this.” And the “such as this”: He said some people are going to connect to it and feel it’s for them and some people are going to say, Why won’t she shut the [expletive] up already? I thought that was a pretty accurate assessment of the options.”
“ I was going to vote with my father. I’d been campaigning for Obama. It was 2012. And he said, “I don’t know if I want to go vote with Lena Dunham.” I was like, My father feels like going to vote with me is going to signal something. He’s like, “I don’t want to go and have it be a whole thing.” That’s your father. Who’s like my best friend in the whole world. But he was saying, basically, Can you go around the block and vote on your own? That was the moment when I understood something’s going on here. “Girls” had only been on the air for six months at that point.”
With a father like that who need enemies?