C/D LENA DUNHAM (THE DEFINITIVE POLL)

Look at all those racists

"That woman is a grownup, and you are a child."

We should do this poll every five years until she is a grande dame of screen and belles lettres.

And this is part of what they're paying her all that money for, folks.

http://thisrecording.com/today/2011/3/19/in-which-we-regularly-play-ping-pong-with-the-princess-masak.html

And this is part of what they're paying her all that money for, folks

They're paying her for a book of new material. And I don't think a year and a half old blogpost is the best Lena Dunham writing sample out there. This is a little embarrassing. She's done much better stuff, like those pieces for the New Yorker.

Also, she's 26. Based on her show and the handful of more recent essays out there, her writing has matured/is maturing pretty quickly.

Also, she's 26. Based on her show and the handful of more recent essays out there, her writing has matured/is maturing pretty quickly.

― America's Mobile, Monday, October 15, 2012 11:57 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, fuck this shit. "Hey she's pretty good for her age $1.5 million" does not compute.

ilx is really a crepey douche about LD IMHO

^^^^

that new yorker piece is a couple years old. also not really very good imo. shes a much better director/screenwriter i think

otm

Xp

ilx is really a crepey douche about LD IMHO

― His avid reading taught him things before he had not found (stevie), Monday, October 15, 2012 4:05 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LD is a crepey douche about japanese people and muslims tbh

there are legitimate aesthetic/artistic/political reasons to dislike dunham's work!

the other half of ILX is very capn save-a-dunham though

LD is a crepey douche about japanese people and muslims tbh

― lex pretend, Monday, October 15, 2012 12:18 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

hehe

there are legitimate aesthetic/artistic/political reasons to dislike dunham's work!

― Mordy, Monday, October 15, 2012 4:19 PM (11 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

absolutely!

i don't see what's really all that douchey or creepy about ILX's response to lena dunham. she's a highly visible public figure with a show on HBO and a book deal worth millions of dollars. any/all criticism comes with the territory and i don't think it's rooted in sexism here.

That "Lost-er in Translation" article is the worst and nobody should read it

tiny hands like paper cranes

hands like paper cranes

who gives a fucking shit how much she's getting paid

If book advances were prizes, then James Patterson would be the toast of the town in Stockholm.

i guess i think its weird when people fixate on how much money she's getting, based on a (dumb!) blog post and her TV show. yeah it's a shitload of money, sure. but she put a book proposal together, shopped it, and is now cleaning up! why pick on her for that? you may not think she's worth it, but there a bunch of people in the publishing world who disagree with you.

she's a highly visible public figure with a show on HBO and a book deal worth millions of dollars. any/all criticism comes with the territory and i don't think it's rooted in sexism here.

what you do, see, is contrast the person being discussed with others in similar situations, and then consider what other elements are creating differences in the degree of dissection. sexism obviously isn't the only issue at play here, as there are other reasons Lena Dunham isn't Jonathan Ames isn't Louis CK isn't Chelsea Handler isn't Larry David. But it's also stupid to think sexism doesn't play some part in why Girls gets more shit than Entourage and Bored To Death, and you can acknowledge it without pretending there's some false binary where either you're a fan or you're sexist.

ime no show has ever gotten more shit than entourage

Entourage just wasn't talked about.

girls is a critically acclaimed show. entourage is a punchline.

Entourage just wasn't talked about.

That's the thing. it's not necessarily that people think more of the men who do similar bullshit, it's that they're not stared at and discussed. imo there's always an extra degree of IS THIS A JOKE, I CAN'T BELIEVE WE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS in discussion of women in culture who are guilty of shit men do as well (i.e. Sarah Palin and George W Bush) and you can admit that without having to encourage the Palins of the world.

entourage - douchbags. girls - trustfund twits. bored to death had ted danson, so i think that's why it got a pass.

That's the thing. it's not necessarily that people think more of the men who do similar bullshit, it's that they're not stared at and discussed. imo there's always an extra degree of IS THIS A JOKE, I CAN'T BELIEVE WE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS in discussion of women in culture who are guilty of shit men do as well (i.e. Sarah Palin and George W Bush) and you can admit that without having to encourage the Palins of the world.

― da croupier, Monday, October 15, 2012 12:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wait what? How was the reaction to George W. Bush not "I can't believe we have to put up with this"?

i just don't think that's true, tho. no one talks about 2 broke girls really (or whitney), even tho it's clearly more despised than girls. i think the quantity of discussion is due to the provocative nature of the material and that ppl have such different reactions to the material. if everyone hated girls i doubt anyone would discuss it. but it's simultaneously praised and reviled which produces the attention given to it. also, GWB was and is hated hated hated maybe more than almost any other human being alive, male or female. xxp

you don't think palin was treated as a more absurd notion than bush?

i think no one has ever accused palin of colluding to attack the united states and kill innocent american civilians

That's the thing. it's not necessarily that people think more of the men who do similar bullshit, it's that they're not stared at and discussed.

this is totally true tbh - from what i've seen of LD i dislike her immensely but as a non-TV watcher the fact that the conversation around her has been of such volume etc that i've noticed her at all is testament to this. whereas i don't know wtf entourage is

Everyone I knew considered W to be a gigantic joke until he won the election

lex, do u know who kat dennings or what 2 broke girls is?

again, every snowflake is different, and anyone can point out the myriad of distinctions between a specific man and specific woman that suggests why one could be bothered more by one than the other without bringing up sex. but using that to deny sexism doesn't play a part in who america obsesses over is pretty sad.

sorry, i mean to deny sexism does play a part in who america obsesses over

I won't entirely write off the idea that sexism plays a part in the LD discussion, but the sheer volume of discussion probably comes in large part from her stans. From the beginning, this relatively low-viewership show has been presented as Important Zeitgeisty Thing You Need To Know About, which was certainly not true of Entourage.

i think it may play a part, but i think bringing sexism into a conversation about lena dunham is best utilized when something sexist has been said. i think vaguely dismissing all critiques as being sexist is non-productive. deal w/ the argument being made, not the one you think is covert. xp

No wunderkind goes unchallenged.

What better artifact of the mid-2000s Zeitgeist will we have than Entourage (other than Hostel Part II, maybe)?

palin was definitely treated with a lot more contempt and hostility pre-election than bush was pre-election.

I agree with croupier on all this, though I also think that Girls is as if Mark Wahlberg wrote, directed, and starred in Entourage, rather than just producing and basing the premise on his bio.

(Or if Adrian Grenier wrote/directed/starred.)

Yeah, and that's the other thing I was going to say, is that I think a lot of the ire has to be attributed to the *privileged prodigy* thing. Moreso because I think she presents her character as kind of lazy, as though she just rolled out of bed and got show and book deals in her pjs. Which I'm sure is partly artifice. I think I said upthread that part of where I think her talent lies is in doing that thing where you make it seem like there's no artifice in your art, like you're just kind of transcribing what happened, which is actually very artful.

mordy, i'm scrolling around trying to figure out where you got on this "don't dismiss me a sexist, it's not productive" self-pity tip

i just think that if you want to talk about sexism re dunham you should have specific examples of things people have said + done that you consider sexist. i think you're being very vague and i don't know to what end. it seems like maybe a cheap way out of dealing w/ specific criticisms people have of dunham's material.

i think you're paranoid

it's almost like sexism can't be unconscious or structural