It’s fair to say woman-led comedy acts have been on the rise for the past twenty years. While still not truly accepted into the male-dominated world of comedy, just the presence of this horde of women giving their own punk rock flair to comedy is a sign of change.
Unfortunately, for every Robin Williams or George Carlin, there must always be that one Andrew Dice Clay.
In a comedy world blessed with Tina Fey and Sarah Silverman, we must also be infected with the virus that is Lena Dunham.
Recently, Dunham received backlash for complaining about the Met Gala this year in a video interview with Amy Schumer through “Lenny Letter.”
Dunham’s dilemma? She said she didn’t think New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. objectified her enough.
“It was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards,” she said in the conversation. “He was like, ‘That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.’”
The assumption that men prioritize other women based on their size and shape is obviously a stereotype Dunham should be educated enough not to perpetuate.
Also, truly complaining about a guy not trying actively to get into your pants at a professional event is one of the most embarrassing things I have ever heard from a self-proclaimed feminist.
It would be like a woman complaining because the car full of guys that passed her didn’t roll down their window and catcall her. I don’t know whether to laugh or feel awkward about this whole thing.
Through the years, Dunham has been called the voice of a generation by various publications and fans.
They aren’t wrong either. But is it our generation? Not even close.
Instead, Dunham speaks for our grandmothers’ generation, the bra-burning, radical misandrists who virtually ignored the rights of transgender women, queer women and women of color. She’s a second-wave feminist living in a third-wave feminist world.
Honestly, even to attempt to associate her with the feminist movement is nothing short of a blatant insult to more than 200 years of progress in women’s rights.
Dunham’s popular HBO series “Girls” is set in a world where women of color are scarce in New York City.
You know, because a city with more than 8.5 million people must be so whitewashed.
When asked on NPR about her lack of diversity, Dunham claimed it was because she didn’t understand the world of non-white people.
“I always want to avoid rendering an experience I can’t speak to accurately,” Dunham said.
Apparently hiring black Hollywood writers is difficult or something.
However, this isn’t even close to the most hypocritical and repulsive thing Dunham has done in her life. In her 2014 memoir “Not that Kind of Girl,” she admits to sexually assaulting her little sister, Grace Dunham.
“She didn’t resist,” she said in the memoir.
There’s something very disturbing about that choice of words. Dunham defended her assault in a tweet as simply being the actions of a weird seven-year-old, but she still tried to make light of what thousands of women go through every year.
Before this incident, Dunham said she would commonly try to get her little sister to kiss her by using “anything a sexual predator might do.”
What?
While she said she regrets using the sexual predator metaphor, Dunham refuses to apologize for what she did to her sister. She said she grew up in a sexually healthy environment where such an act is seen as normal.
It’s clear — based on her entire feminist platform — Dunham has no real conception of normalcy. If ignoring and promoting racism and making fun of sexual assault is not only normal but revered in your world, then I want no part of it.
afaulds@indiana.edu | @a_faulds9615
