Overnight at the New Yorker Festival, actress and writer Lena Dunham said quite a number of words with her mouth. Because we are big Lena Dunham fans around these parts, we have decided to collect the most interesting of these words into a blog post (… this very blog post!) for your enjoyment and edification.
Are you ready? Great, then let’s get cracking!
When the topic of onscreen nudity came up, as it tends to around Dunham, she had quite a bit to say. According to Bustle, her philosophy is that: “When people undress literally, they undress figuratively … Sex is where our issues go to roost. Sex is really the great battleground.”
She has copped a lot of flack for her decision to get naked on Girls, and said that the negativity sometimes takes its toll. “I was intellectually prepared for what shitbags would say,” she said of her more vulnerable moments, “but I was not emotionally prepared.” Nonetheless, she refuses to give in to detractors, likening it to “a sort of don’t let the terrorists win situation.”
Addressing the frank depictions of nudity and sex in Girls, Dunham said that one of her biggest pet peeves in film and TV is “women who wake up from a torrid sexual encounter in a negligee.” She prefers the warts and all approach, saying that the other way promotes unfair and unrealistic expectations of women.
One of the biggest criticisms leveled at Dunham’s Girls character Hannah Horvath is that she frequently comes off as a something of a terrible person. While that’s kind of the point, Dunham nonetheless faces a lot of questions about the similarities between herself and her creation, especially after the events of last season.
Speaking about this, Dunham pointed out the differences between herself and the self-absorbed character, saying “Hannah doesn’t actually write that much. She’s very invested in the idea of being a writer. But I had a relationship with my writing. It was my escape … Hannah is obsessed with being successful and being seen as the girl about town.”
According to Complex, Dunham also spoke at length about Amanda Bynes, who yesterday checked into rehab, praising her skills as a writer and comparing her with Hannah.
“I don’t know if I’m the only one who’s been closely following Amanda Bynes’ tweets today,” she told the audience. “She’s clearly off her medication, the whole situation is really bad, [but] she did say something kind of similar to Hannah, which was, ‘I’m not crazy, I’m actually the one who knows everything that’s happening.’”
After reading Bynes’ Tweets, Dunham was sufficiently moved to text her Girls producer Jenni Konner. “I texted her and said, ‘Maybe I’m nuts, but I think Amanda Bynes is actually kind of a great writer. Do you know what I mean?’ She was like, ‘I don’t know what you mean!’” It’s good to get some perspective.
Dunham’s new book Not That Kind Of Girl is out now.
Photo: Thos Robinson via Getty Images
