C/D LENA DUNHAM (THE DEFINITIVE POLL)

she should introduce a neighbor character who is a black single mother of two working three jobs just to scrape by, they meet when she angrily asks lena to turn down the robyn, but later become friends when dunham helps her oldest son w/his english homework

i mean she gets it in that interview, which is the interview you referenced above

also great idea icey

when lena dunham is saying that shes going to introduce characters of color to show white characters how petty their problems are,

where does she say this??????

"We really tried to be aware and bring in characters whose job it was to go 'Hashtag white people problems, guys.'"

i assume she was talking about white characters????

why would white characters tell her characters that their problems are white people problems?????

anyway iirc that statement is in reference to her nonwhite gyno in the first episode

i would be really on board w/ s.2 if all donald glover did was come on screen rt before the credits and say "Hashtag white people problems, guys"

why would white characters tell her characters that their problems are white people problems?????

― max, Tuesday, October 9, 2012 11:31 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

perhaps they're based on ilx posters

Girls S2 Preview:

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/28063045.jpg

Can't wait for this poll to be over

She needs to watch The New Girl and learn how a group of girls can call their black friend "Black Jack Sparrow" and "Black George Michael" and call him Shaq and have him talk about black things because that's what black people do amirite.

I think in series two she should go to Privilege Awareness night school and get lessons from ilxors.

EP 2: "The Ronaldinho Bottle Opener"

it's funny how instead of saying "alright, this show is basically lena dunham staring in the mirror, let's shout for and support more inclusive shows than that," so many internet folk are just basically waiting to see whether season 2 of girls lives up to their demands.

basically, she travels in a mostly white milieu. That's The Way Things Are. People wrote throughout the '90s how Woody Allen's New York was too white, and what they ended up with was Woody asking a funny black prostitute dressed in pink vinyl (in his last really good film, actually) to hit him and tie him up.

i think the thing that grated most about this whole thing is that lena dunhams melieu ISNT as white as it mightve been 20, 30 years ago -- one of the better pieces about the whole issue was written by a black woman whod been in dunhams class at horace mann and wrote about how she knew that dunham had ppl of color in her social circles, etc. it just makes the absence even more baffling

She needs to watch The New Girl and learn how a group of girls can call their black friend "Black Jack Sparrow" and "Black George Michael" and call him Shaq and have him talk about black things because that's what black people do amirite.

― pretty even gender split (Eazy), Tuesday, October 9, 2012 12:17 PM (36 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idg what the point is here, theres room for many different shows to be awkward about race in many different ways

also this is probably for a different thread but i think youre really overstating the extent to which winston is a prop for race jokes

I'm sure that's true max, but that gap is probably reflected by where her mind is postcollegiate as opposed to collegiate, and having to write passably convincing characters for an HBO show.

It's possible she's even holding herself to too high a standard re I-can't-write-a-character-who'll-be "black enough."

yeah. i would just as soon not have lesley arfin write for a black character anyway

i do think if lena's going to employ a writers room she really doesn't have the excuse of "how can i speak for others"

really the magnifying glass she's under is half-complimentary. just as knocked up was a pretty ironic choice for The Manchild Movie To Hang-Wring About Roles For Actresses Over, it suggests the show isn't too conservative to watch, but too conservative for some people to watch without complaining about.

lol "hand-wring"

Curb made a few seasons from WASP/Jewish contrasts (Danson/David) before bringing in Leon.

i have non white friends but i think of them as white so when i cast my tv show ill prob just cast white people

Season two: Dunham brings in a female Leon, is taken aback my reaction. "Jeez, what's everyone complaining about now? I have a black friend and she's hilarious!"

how many nonwhite semi-regulars were on S&TC? I realize they're allegedly striving for something less fantasyland here, but maybe not as much as believed.

Ask an Elderly Black Woman as Depicted by a Sophomore Creative Writing Major

feel like if girls had a do over the best thing wouldve been to cast the brian williams daughter character as asian and have the wites make occasional comments abt them thinking of her as wite then she looks at the camera like jim from the office

also they ask her for help w/math and she looks at the camera like jim from the office but then she always solves their math problems because she is actually good at math and the violin

haha icey did you see the office this week?

uh oh no

http://www.hulu.com/watch/409168#i1,p0,d2

ha!

I am literally lmao'ing at that onion article

max + junot diaz

imo if you're not confident yet in your ability to write characters that are not just facets of yourself you shouldn't be confident enough to write an HBO show

er, max + junot diaz otm

I'd agree but I think the show is really good so I guess I don't.

i think the show is p good too

Lena Dunham could easily write the character of the one black friend from Oberlin.

Junot Diaz's startlingly wide range of protagonists aren't a variation of himself?

junot diaz doesn't write four characters in every book that are all shades of him, as lena said

not saying lena's protag can't be an extension, most of them are

i dont really love that diaz quote, i think male writers tend to overestimate how difficult it is to write from a female pov just as white people overestimate how hard it might be to write a black character

when it comes to dialogue, a writer mostly has to have a good ear, not empathize her way into another skin. When it comes to action, maybe a diff story, though ppl seem to give more leeway in dramatic wting and maybe esp TV.

why would white characters tell her characters that their problems are white people problems?????

I wasn't aware that white people didn't do this, I'm going to have to update ilx_race.xls pretty extensively now!

Also this is literally Ray's only job in the first episode!

like i said above that white people problems quote was in reference to her nonwhite gyno. & in any event the issue is not really WHO is saying the WHITE PEOPLE PROBLEMS thing its the whole concept of "white people problems" which is a stupid un-aware formulation of privilege anyway