Lena Dunham

[Brianruns10]

So I wanted to weigh in on all the Dunham/"Girls" backlash, speaking as one of those guilty offenders trying to make amends. I've tried to search deep and figure out why I think there is this irrational reaction to the film and to Dunham.

First, I don't think it is sexist, in most cases. I think it is a reflection of envy and anxiety in a generation(s) who have largely had to struggle in this economy to make ends meet, who feel their full potential stifled because of circumstances outside of their control, and react with anger when someone else achieves success so quickly.

It is what I have felt, ashamed though I am to admit it. I am a filmmaker. Like 99.9 percent of those in my field, I struggle at it. Struggle to get my film made, struggle to find an audience. Struggle to get the NEXT one made. We all do it for different reasons. Some for fame or money. Hopefully all for love of the craft. I adore the cinema, and making movies, and I love the thrill of an audience that is enjoying what I've worked so hard for. It is a rare feeling because most of the time the film never finds an audience. I have dreams of making a movie that people will really love, so that even if my name never gets remembered, people remember the FILM with fondness. To get one's film in the Criterion Collection...well that is the Everest. It would be a career capping achievement for most.

And so when Dunham's debut gets into the major fests, and gets into the Criterion Collection (along with all her youtube shorts), it fills this struggling filmmaker, and I think a lot of people, with so much anxiety and envy. The performances, the cinematography, the writing, are all competent, but not outstanding. I've seen many films that are as good on those levels. Some better, in my opinion. Yet their creators toil in anonymity. No one gives a damn about their work. And so LD's success doesn't make sense...the scale doesn't seem balanced to us seeking a reason for why she had such a breakout hit, so quickly, and reaped so many rewards on her first try, that we all spend a lifetime pursuing, and fail to achieve.

So when stories of her privileged upbringing comes out, we all cry foul, because it feels like someone cut in line, and won that $50,000 for being the millionth customer...a prize that right belonged to *us.* We wonder, if she DIDN'T have her connections, would Tiny Furniture have even gotten INTO the major fests, or the collection? Would she still be toiling in the youtube wastes? I don't know. And it isn't fair of I or anyone to hammer Dunham for it, if indeed she used her connections to advance her career. She did what she had to do to get her work out there. I'd do the same in her place.

I think Dunham gets grief because she is the most public example of a great anxiety that plagues people of all ages, who are struggling to make ends meet, to get a toehold in the world, and make good on the promise they feel they have. I know I feel I have something really special to give back to the world, but I feel hindered for lack of money, resources, interest from backers. And Dunham finds success and praise and all the alluring trappings of fame seemingly so quickly and effortlessly. it triggers an existential crisis. For example, I'm 28, with five features and twice as many shorts, yet none have mattered a goddamn. Dunham gets a CC release by her mid twenties on her first film. And so we feel fear! It triggers something in me, in many of us. We feel envy and feel that it is unfair that someone so young finds so much success and it "seems" undeserved or inherited as opposed to earned. I think we all want to believe in a meritocracy, that success come to those who work hard and have talent, not who have the luck of being "born on third base" as the now infamous parody poster alleges.

It stirs up fears we all have: What if we're not talented? What if our hard work won't matter? worse still, what if we ARE talented, but that still doesn't matter? What if we NEVER achieve our potential, our life's purpose, because the game is stacked against us?

But it is not a fair world. And I try to remember I am blessed despite so far being a failure as a filmmaker. I have good health, a roof over my head, and food in the fridge.

So I try to be happy for her, and hope she'll use the advantages she has to really push her art and talents.

What I really want for her is to do good stuff. To use the opportunity she's gained to push the envelope and and take risks with her craft. I don't want her to start churning out crap for paychecks, to believe the hype that she's the next Woody Allen, and start making the same pretentious shit about glorious New York. Then that really will be an insult to those who struggle. I want her to take the opportunity we all crave, and run with it. I think she is with "Girls," which says she has real character. She seems to recognize she has been given something special, and ought not to waste the chance.

As for the rest of use, all we can do is to plug away. If we don't like what she's doing, we can use it as inspiration to make our own works in response.

I'll just keep plugging away, and hope maybe the next film might get the kind of reception that "Tiny Furniture" got. Or the one after, or the one after. I will make a great, beautiful film, or die trying.

And if I die poor, anonymous, my films thrown in the rubbish heap unwanted, unmissed, unloved...well...it breaks my heart to think my life will have been a waste, but I'll know I tried. That's all anyone can do. Dunham has found her place, and hopefully we ALL can as well.

So that's what I think. I really hope "Girls" is a success for Dunham, and she'll be able to continue to develop her craft and her message.

[zeroman987]

To me it is kind of weird how the most interesting/funny/abrasive female characters also seems to be the most despised by the audience. Whether its Brenda or Claire in Six Feet Under, Jackie in The Sopranos, Kate Winslet in Mildred Pearce, Hannah in Girls or the chicks from Sex and the City, people seem to be very eager to hate the characters (and for that matter the writers and actors) in a way that doesn’t seem to be directed towards the Tony Soprano’s and Don Draper’s of the world.

(edited for spelling)

I loved Kate Winslet as Mildred Pierce. That performance was absolutely amazing. Her character was well developed and I felt like I understood all of her motivations - and if I didn't, at least I felt like I could relate. Even when she made "questionable" decisions, I always felt that she felt like she was doing what was best. So, in that respect, it is easy to get behind her. Then again, it was a really good drama, so that helps.

I also love Sweet Dee on Its Always Sunny. She is definition of abrasive. It is because Caitlin Olsen is a good actress and is genuinely funny. I think my dislike of the character (Hannah) has to do with what she represents: A person who has a sense of entitlement to a degree which is incredibly unbelievable to me yet not over the top enough to be funny. The character is played by an actress who isn't a comedian, doesn't have good comedic timing and is too close to the source material for it to be scathing (and as a result more interesting).

I admit that part of my disgust is the overwhelmingly positive reception she is getting for bringing a unique "voice" as if her demographic is underrepresented. I agree that women as a whole are underrepresented, but rich people, even rich women, are not underrepresented in art. I think I would have less of a problem with it if people were more honest about why they like it (they like it for the same reasons as they like the Jersey Shore - they like watching screwed up people doing screwed up things, not because it is high art) rather than pretending that it is this ground breaking thing. Even you admit that you enjoy the scenes where she does things that are humiliating.

Thoughts?


Regardless, thank you for sharing.

Also, Woody Allen put out a lot of stinkers - Bananas? Sleeper? (Really? Are you serious?)

[Gregory]

I'm more used to reading that kind of screed on the IMDB message boards, not here. And you're basing all this insight into the show, its characters, writers, and people's real reasons for liking it -- on your viewing of one episode of a series?

EDIT: I left out a word

[gcgiles1dollarbin]

I'd say that access to the means of production of big scale studio filmmaking is actually rather meritocratic. You have to prove yourself every step of the way. How is it different from any business? Success gets rewarded. Smart ambitious hungry people tend to succeed. I've made films and had friends get their work into festivals like Sundance and Cannes. I've screened submitted films for selection at Sundance. And I can tell you what getting a feature-length work into a festival requires: that it's good, that it doesn't suck like 99.9% of the stuff out there, that it has some vision and spark of life. None of that has anything to do with socio-economic privilege, but it has all to do with artistic talent and achievement. Which also a part of what makes any YouTube video a hit. And filmmakers like Ben Wheatley are already coming up who've started there. So it's a goofy argument, even if you don't really agree with it.

I agree only insofar as we are both finding fault with Thom Andersen's statement. Otherwise, I think there are a lot of institutionally embedded forms of racism, for example, that complicate your merit=success equation. Andersen discusses Native American, Latino, and African-American experiences of Los Angeles, so I naturally drift toward race in this discussion. For all I know, you are black, but at the very least, whatever your ethnicity, and whatever mine, we have to agree that success in the film industry is hardly a Horatio Alger story in which poverty, racism, and sexism are only mettle-building hurdles for the plucky auteur to surmount. Andersen's contempt is a bit of a reductio ad absurdum, and if it wasn't apparent already, I've been trying to extend the implications of his contempt, which, in my mind (and yours, too, it sounds), only manages to damn the very practice of filmmaking. So in some ways, we’re in harmony. In my own experience, I find that the stigma of “privilege” is most often deployed as grudge ammunition by the less fortunate—“less fortunate” meaning, not those with fewer opportunities, but those who have been disappointed in their efforts, regardless of socio-economic background. But still, your vision of success as something that always falls to the deserving is, I think, way too sanguine.

[matrixschmatrix]

I think using the advantages of privilege as a rhetorical club with which to beat those who do find success is a tactic of limited merit, but it's certainly worth remember that things that become successful- and the authors of such successful works- tend to fit into certain shapes and patterns, and as much of the movie industry is defined by the movement of enormous sums of money, those shapes and patterns tend to reflect the dominant ideology of capital, moreso perhaps than other forms which do not require so much initial investment, nor so much distribution capital.

In Dunham's case, there are some patterns she fits- she's white, she's well connected, and her work is about the world of the white and well connected- and others she does not, as she is a young female and young female-oriented filmmaker, and one who is not conventionally attractive. I think insofar as a lot of the praise and attention she gets seems to revolve around the patterns she doesn't fit, it's worth bringing up the ones that she does- but that doesn't seem like it should be taken as the beginning and the end of who she is and what she does.

[warren oates]

I'd say that access to the means of production of big scale studio filmmaking is actually rather meritocratic. You have to prove yourself every step of the way. How is it different from any business? Success gets rewarded. Smart ambitious hungry people tend to succeed. I've made films and had friends get their work into festivals like Sundance and Cannes. I've screened submitted films for selection at Sundance. And I can tell you what getting a feature-length work into a festival requires: that it's good, that it doesn't suck like 99.9% of the stuff out there, that it has some vision and spark of life. None of that has anything to do with socio-economic privilege, but it has all to do with artistic talent and achievement. Which also a part of what makes any YouTube video a hit. And filmmakers like Ben Wheatley are already coming up who've started there. So it's a goofy argument, even if you don't really agree with it.

I agree only insofar as we are both finding fault with Thom Andersen's statement. Otherwise, I think there are a lot of institutionally embedded forms of racism, for example, that complicate your merit=success equation. Andersen discusses Native American, Latino, and African-American experiences of Los Angeles, so I naturally drift toward race in this discussion. For all I know, you are black, but at the very least, whatever your ethnicity, and whatever mine, we have to agree that success in the film industry is hardly a Horatio Alger story in which poverty, racism, and sexism are only mettle-building hurdles for the plucky auteur to surmount. Andersen's contempt is a bit of a reductio ad absurdum, and if it wasn't apparent already, I've been trying to extend the implications of his contempt, which, in my mind (and yours, too, it sounds), only manages to damn the very practice of filmmaking. So in some ways, we’re in harmony. In my own experience, I find that the stigma of “privilege” is most often deployed as grudge ammunition by the less fortunate—“less fortunate” meaning, not those with fewer opportunities, but those who have been disappointed in their efforts, regardless of socio-economic background. But still, your vision of success as something that always falls to the deserving is, I think, way too sanguine.

I don't think success never fails to reward the deserving, just that most production systems' filtering mechanisms tend to work remarkably well most of the time. And anyone who falls between the cracks and gives up too easily was kind of meant to give up. That a part of the crucial skill set one needs to make any film at any scale is the chutzpah and willpower to do it and that the practical challenge of making a film is the only reliable test of this quality of one's character. That there's really not a vast undiscovered pool of filmmaking talent wasting away somewhere out of neglect or just because some of those filmmakers happened to be from an underprivileged or underrepresented minority. That when Coppola's prophesied fat little girl in a suburban garage somewhere becomes the Mozart of cinema, we'll hear about it. Just like I believe there aren't a trove of unpublished masterpieces of the American novel being ignored in favor of 50 Shades of Grey. I've seen enough of the way the American studio and Independent filmmaking worlds seek out, spot and develop talent to know this. To see how excited everyone gets when there's even the slightest modicum of true originality and real ability in someone's work.

[matrixschmatrix]

So, the reason that filmmakers are overwhelmingly white men is because by and large only white men have the 'chutzpah and willpower' to make movies, and not any kind of structural discrimination or any such thing?

[warren oates]

So, the reason that filmmakers are overwhelmingly white men is because by and large only white men have the 'chutzpah and willpower' to make movies, and not any kind of structural discrimination or any such thing?

Except that's not at all what I'm saying, especially not the part about white men, which is an assumption that I'm not sure is correct unless you get much more specific about what kinds of films and what country you're talking about. And even then it's probably changing.

But you also seem to be conflating two different lines of my argument. The first is that, though it's never easy to make a film, nowadays for someone who really wants to do it, isn't mentally deficient, literally starving to death or a war refugee, then yeah it's ridiculously possible to make a film -- a strong short or even a feature -- and to get it seen if it's really good and interesting. The second is that there are not vast hordes of undiscovered filmmaking geniuses wasting away in the U.S. or any country worldwide. If anything, structural discrimination in the Indie and academic worlds in this country has swung slightly in the other direction. I've seen it myself. Yet where are the new legions of female, queer and ethnic minority directors? There are a few more. Because it's easier now than it has been historically to start out and break in -- more meritocratic. But not a huge wave. Because it's simply very difficult to repeatedly make good and interesting films that still appeal to the mainstream and have all the personal qualities that make one attractive to the studio system. Yet, like I'm arguing, Hollywood mostly doesn't care what your skin color is, what's in your pants or who you sleep with if they think you can help them tell stories that will make them money.

Unless you're talking about discrimination against the form and content of works with radical political or perceptual agendas. But when has Hollywood ever wooed a Stan Brakhage type? When has any large swath of the public of any country rushed out to see even narrative art films like Bergman's? If anything I'd say that a demographically underrepresented filmmaker with more mainstream taste and skill set like, say, Lisa Cholodenko has an easier go at it than a more formally daring colleague like Todd Haynes. But both of them have made careers for themselves. It would help to get specific about whose visions you feel are being kept from us? I'm honestly curious, because I never have enough to see even though I always have too much. Could I get my hands on some suppressed marginalized genius torrents, like "the footage" in that Gibson novel? Or is it all just hypothetical?

What I'm saying ought to be uncontroversial. I'm arguing that even if it wasn't true in the past, now more than ever for most people aspiring to filmmaking in most places around the world, if they keep at it "talent will out." And some of you seem to be saying "no it won't."

[Alan Smithee]

So, the reason that filmmakers are overwhelmingly white men is because by and large only white men have the 'chutzpah and willpower' to make movies, and not any kind of structural discrimination or any such thing?

This.

Filmmaking isn't like dancing or singing where you can just be born with a gift to refine over time, it takes a lot of analytic skill and understanding of many different disciplines, digital doesn't change the artistic fundamentals. If your education has failed you, you would have a lot of catching up to do, not just learning these fundamentals but perhaps even learning to learn. So many schools fail to teach kids how to teach themselves.

This Ayn Randian notion that the underprivileged who can't do it, just aren't determined enough is absurd. The fact is there are countless people who could take advantage of the new directions of filmmaking but they don't even consider it because it's just not part of their world view. It would be like going to the moon.

I would love to see inner city films or films by minorities the way that Hip-Hop took off out of bedrooms/streets and changed music but even with cheaper equipment it's still a much more complicated medium. Without a lot of legs up in this world (education, role models, self worth, community) it's nearly impossible to pull off. Those here who are saying they are filmmakers probably all share a similar background.

[warren oates]

So, the reason that filmmakers are overwhelmingly white men is because by and large only white men have the 'chutzpah and willpower' to make movies, and not any kind of structural discrimination or any such thing?

This.

Filmmaking isn't like dancing or singing where you can just be born with a gift to refine over time, it takes a lot of analytic skill and understanding of many different disciplines, digital doesn't change the artistic fundamentals. If your education has failed you, you would have a lot of catching up to do, not just learning these fundamentals but perhaps even learning to learn. So many schools fail to teach kids how to teach themselves.

This Ayn Randian notion that the underprivileged who can't do it, just aren't determined enough is absurd. The fact is there are countless people who could take advantage of the new directions of filmmaking but they don't even consider it because it's just not part of their world view. It would be like going to the moon.

I would love to see inner city films or films by minorities the way that Hip-Hop took off out of bedrooms/streets and changed music but even with cheaper equipment it's still a much more complicated medium. Without a lot of legs up in this world (education, role models, self worth, community) it's nearly impossible to pull off. Those here who are saying they are filmmakers probably all share a similar background.

Easy to agree. This is the kind of point I was waiting for someone to raise. In effect you're saying that growing up without even the imaginative possibility of filmmaking is a huge hindrance. Not to mention that some inner city childhoods could be as traumatic as war zones.

I'm actually hoping that as each new generation becomes more digitally native, your idea about singing/dancing will prove wrong and we'll start to see the kind of bottoms-up innovations you are talking about from kids who were born thinking through stories in images. Self-taught kids from underrepresented backgrounds crafting new visions for themselves and their communities that also turn out to have broader appeal in the way hip-hop does.

But the most crucial skill for making most films is a gift for narrative. And that's something that nobody needs technology or specialized training to practice and refine.

I definitely don't consider myself an objectivist. I just think it's somewhat unproductive to argue about hypothetical lost opportunities of which filmmaking would be just one. And where the intractable problem isn't only lack of education or poverty or drugs but also a kind of puzzling collective malaise. I know people who came to this country with nothing, hardly able to speak English, and put their kids through college by working shitty jobs. But of the ones who started in similar circumstances, even they tell me that they are unfortunately the exceptions.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yet where are the new legions of female, queer and ethnic minority directors? There are a few more. Because it's easier now than it has been historically to start out and break in -- more meritocratic. But not a huge wave. Because it's simply very difficult to repeatedly make good and interesting films that still appeal to the mainstream and have all the personal qualities that make one attractive to the studio system. Yet, like I'm arguing, Hollywood mostly doesn't care what your skin color is, what's in your pants or who you sleep with if they think you can help them tell stories that will make them money.

Do you not understand that you're contradicting yourself here? I don't think the problem is conscious discrimination, and I don't think that has ever been the primary problem. The issue is that filmmaking- Hollywood filmmaking in particular, but filmmaking in general where any kind of distribution or sizable expense is required- means both access to money and perceived appeal to a market. That means that only filmmakers of a certain shape and outlook, who will make movies that appeal to the mainstream. That means a heavy weight towards those already in power- which, in the US, means white men in particular, who are both the gatekeepers and the target audience (and there's a general perception in Hollywood that movies about black people play even worse overseas than they do here.)

So no, the issue isn't necessarily that everyone in Hollywood's a racist, but what difference does that make? If you're a Hmong transperson who could make incredible $150 million movies about the Hmong trans experience, it doesn't matter, because you will never ever have the opportunity. Talent only outs when it also happens to be the kind of talent that's going to earn money. That's capitalism.

[warren oates]

Yet where are the new legions of female, queer and ethnic minority directors? There are a few more. Because it's easier now than it has been historically to start out and break in -- more meritocratic. But not a huge wave. Because it's simply very difficult to repeatedly make good and interesting films that still appeal to the mainstream and have all the personal qualities that make one attractive to the studio system. Yet, like I'm arguing, Hollywood mostly doesn't care what your skin color is, what's in your pants or who you sleep with if they think you can help them tell stories that will make them money.

Do you not understand that you're contradicting yourself here? I don't think the problem is conscious discrimination, and I don't think that has ever been the primary problem. The issue is that filmmaking- Hollywood filmmaking in particular, but filmmaking in general where any kind of distribution or sizable expense is required- means both access to money and perceived appeal to a market. That means that only filmmakers of a certain shape and outlook, who will make movies that appeal to the mainstream. That means a heavy weight towards those already in power- which, in the US, means white men in particular, who are both the gatekeepers and the target audience (and there's a general perception in Hollywood that movies about black people play even worse overseas than they do here.)

So no, the issue isn't necessarily that everyone in Hollywood's a racist, but what difference does that make? If you're a Hmong transperson who could make incredible $150 million movies about the Hmong trans experience, it doesn't matter, because you will never ever have the opportunity. Talent only outs when it also happens to be the kind of talent that's going to earn money. That's capitalism.

So it is mostly hypothetical for you then? As if the powers that be are keeping filmmakers like Apichatpong Weerasethakul from making the queer superhero epics he's dreaming of by awarding him booby prizes like the Palme d'Or? If there's a Hmong tranny with the talent of a Fassbinder or a Weersethakul, I seriously doubt we wouldn't have heard of him/her. Though, okay, you're right, Hollywood won't be first in line with a jillion dollar budget for their next endeavor. But that's a really refined combination of hypothetical repressed minority talent and ultra large scale production aspirations.

Still, I wonder if you think it would be easy for somebody like Judd Apatow to get things made in a different system, like some of the ones in Europe that tend to favor more politically and artistically adventurous fare? Imagine if he were always brushing up against, say, Bela Tarr at pitch meetings? Doesn't each system have its blind spots?

[Peacock]

Not necessarily Matrix, the Hmong transperson may be able to borrow a camera or buy a cheap one and make a great film with no budget, submit it to a film festival and away we go. Many director's are doing this, look at the Philippines.

A rich white guy, unless he has GREAT connections, isn't going to get to make a $150 million dollar picture about his experience either as his debut picture.

EDIT: Oh beaten!

[matrixschmatrix]

So it is mostly hypothetical for you then? As if the powers that be are keeping filmmakers like Apichatpong Weerasethakul from making the queer superhero epics he's dreaming of by awarding him booby prizes like the Palme d'Or? If there's a Hmong tranny with the talent of a Fassbinder or a Weersethakul, I seriously doubt we wouldn't have heard of him/her. Though, okay, you're right, Hollywood won't be first in line with a jillion dollar budget for their next endeavor. But that's a really refined combination of hypothetical repressed minority talent and ultra large scale production aspirations.

Still, I wonder if you think it would be easy for somebody like Judd Apatow to get things made in a different system, like some of the ones in Europe that tend to favor more politically and artistically adventurous fare? Imagine if he were always brushing up against, say, Bela Tarr at pitch meetings? Doesn't each system have its blind spots?

Of course it's hypothetical, I'm speaking about the movies that don't get made.

As our old friend Nothing would have been happy to tell you, Weerasethakul represents enormous privilege within his background- which does not mean his is not talented and does not mean his movies are not remarkable, but it does belie the idea that anyone can get movies made and seen. My point here is not to attack the privileged, which as I said coming in is not useful, but to point out that being the kind of person who can get movies made still represents a privileged position, and thus outs people of some backgrounds, outlooks, class positions, or whatever else. Getting a movie distributed is expensive regardless of how cheap the movie is to make, and being a person who has the time and money to buy a $1500 camera and make a feature is itself a somewhat limiting factor.

Not everyone can get a movie made, as is demonstrated by the commonalities between the people who do get movies made. That is my point.

[warren oates]

So it is mostly hypothetical for you then? As if the powers that be are keeping filmmakers like Apichatpong Weerasethakul from making the queer superhero epics he's dreaming of by awarding him booby prizes like the Palme d'Or? If there's a Hmong tranny with the talent of a Fassbinder or a Weersethakul, I seriously doubt we wouldn't have heard of him/her. Though, okay, you're right, Hollywood won't be first in line with a jillion dollar budget for their next endeavor. But that's a really refined combination of hypothetical repressed minority talent and ultra large scale production aspirations.

Still, I wonder if you think it would be easy for somebody like Judd Apatow to get things made in a different system, like some of the ones in Europe that tend to favor more politically and artistically adventurous fare? Imagine if he were always brushing up against, say, Bela Tarr at pitch meetings? Doesn't each system have its blind spots?

Of course it's hypothetical, I'm speaking about the movies that don't get made.

As our old friend Nothing would have been happy to tell you, Weerasethakul represents enormous privilege within his background- which does not mean his is not talented and does not mean his movies are not remarkable, but it does belie the idea that anyone can get movies made and seen. My point here is not to attack the privileged, which as I said coming in is not useful, but to point out that being the kind of person who can get movies made still represents a privileged position, and thus outs people of some backgrounds, outlooks, class positions, or whatever else. Getting a movie distributed is expensive regardless of how cheap the movie is to make, and being a person who has the time and money to buy a $1500 camera and make a feature is itself a somewhat limiting factor.

Not everyone can get a movie made, as is demonstrated by the commonalities between the people who do get movies made. That is my point.

Alan Smithee has the stronger argument for me. You can't do it if it doesn't even occur to you to dream it.

But if you can imagine the possibility, you can likely do it. You don't have to buy a camera. You can borrow or steal one. And you don't even have to start with making moving pictures if you really can't find a way to get any equipment. You can always write and/or perform stories while you develop your talent and connect with people who can help you realize them on film. Which is a route a number of African American entertainment moguls from older generations have gone (Chris Rock, Tyler Perry).

Soon this will almost have to turn into an argument that filmmaking discriminates inherently against introverts because the kind of person who can get a film made is more naturally extroverted.

[The Narrator Returns]

As there is no current thread for Girls, I'll post this awesome (and lengthy) smack-down here. This all happened in the comments section of the AV Club review of Girls' newest episode. Here, staff writer Todd VanDerWerff gives a sexist commenter a piece of his mind.

If you’re sporting a mug like Lena Dunham, you’d better be really,really fucking funny. Unfortunately…

I've been trying to think of a way to respond to this comment, and I just can't. Everything I want to say just would sound too angry, and I'm not angry. I'm... defeated.

I know you think you're making a joke. I know you think what you're saying is funny, and I know you think that the people who are on your level will laugh, and the rest of us will roll our eyes, and nothing will happen. And nothing WILL happen, because this is The A.V. Club, and what makes our comments great is that we have a very, very, very, very open door policy when it comes to what people can say here. We let people make off-topic jokes. We let them complain about how the Game Of Thrones reviews took a while in the Girls comments. We let them pursue their own creative endeavors and whatnot. You won't be punished or banned or anything of the sort. You shouldn't be. I'm a staff member here, and I agree completely with your right to imply Girls is bad because Lena Dunham isn't hot enough. (I know you think you're saying she's not funny enough; you're not, because you'd never say Louie isn't good because Louis C.K. isn't conventionally attractive.)

But your comment still really gets under my skin in a way I'm fairly sure you didn't intend it. And I'm sure if I said that, you'd say, "Whatever. It's just a joke." Maybe it's because I just got done watching a pretty amazing Mad Men episode about how no matter how good a woman is at what she does, some men will always perceive her as an object. Maybe it's because I've known a million amazing women who were far more Lena Dunham-esque than Allison Williams-esque. Maybe it's because, when you come right down to it, Lena Dunham is a very good looking woman. Maybe it's because I assume you're a young-ish kid, 18 or 19 or 20, and I know that if you shut yourself off from women who don't look TV-perfect, you're going to be missing out on amazing friends and girlfriends, people who could enrich your life. Maybe it's because what you said is what an asshole would say, and I don't like assholes. Maybe it's because this website's comments section is full of women--and more and more every day--and too many of you want to treat it like it's some old boys' club, where everybody can walk around and make sexist cracks and all the women are just supposed to take it (and you can say whatever you want, but what you said was fucking sexist and disgusting).

But no: Here's what it is. Every week, I like this show, and I tell you why. Every week, a bunch of commenters like this show and tell you why (or tell me why on Twitter, since so many of them have abandoned this thread to the gibbering assholes). And you don't have to like what we like. That's your prerogative as a human being. I've even found some of your criticisms persuasive in the past, or, at the least, seen why some of you don't like the show as much as I do from what you say. That's good. That's healthy. That's dialogue. When you guys say, "Hey, this show has spent too much time fleshing out Hannah and not enough time on the other characters" or "Hey, these people are all so unlikable that I'm not sure I can ever be interested in watching their adventures," that's cool. I don't agree, but I get it. We can have a conversation on that.

But a lot of you--including you, Drew (can I call you Drew?)--don't even bother with that. You reject the most basic premise of our critical dialogue, which is that a work of art is worth considering and discussing, especially when evident effort has been put into that work of art by someone who wants to express some piece of themselves. Please note this doesn't mean you have to like it. I really don't like, say, Whitney, but I'm aware that the people behind it have tried to do something expressive of what they want (within the confines of the network TV sitcom). We owe the art respect. More important than that, we owe the people who make it respect. That doesn't mean we automatically praise it because somebody made a good effort. It means that when we criticize it, we criticize it like we would want our own stuff to be criticized, even when we think it sucks. Everybody goes in for snark because it's easy. I know I have more than a few times. But when you just snark, you absolutely shut out whatever's going on onscreen. You're not open to it. And that's no way to approach anything. It's cynical and lazy. I think it's self-evident from this that Dunham and her collaborators are putting a lot of thought and time into this show to make it something that I and a lot of your fellow commenters and a lot of my fellow critics think is pretty special. You're dismissing it as if it were a crayon drawing by a particularly irritating 5-year-old. At least engage the work.

I don't know what it is about this show that makes people make snide, misogynistic attacks against it. I don't know what it is about this show that makes people unwilling to extend it even the most basic of critical charities, like accepting its central premises or letting go of, like, the fact that it didn't depict East Lansing, Michigan, exactly as it exists in real life. Every week, people come in here and harp and harp and harp on minor, minor, minor points and act like they're delivering the Sermon on the Mount. Again, you don't have to like this show. But Jesus Christ, if you can't see past your own anger toward it or hatred of it, why do you keep watching? To make fun of it? Do you really think that's worth it?

Most of all, though, it just bugs me that you--and yes, I'm sorry to single you out, because there are a ton of people in this very article who are being dicks and acting like it's the height of hilarity, when if you're going to be a dick, you'd better be really, really fucking funny--were just an asshole and didn't seem to care and (even worse) got 12 automatic "likes" for being an asshole who makes the world a worse place to live, just a little bit. Here's the thing: I don't know you, but I know you don't have to be an asshole. You don't have to say that thing. You don't have to start this whole conversation. You don't have to make the women in our midst feel unwelcome if they don't look like Allison Williams. You don't have to make me feel disgusted to write for a website that people like you comment on. You don't have to make the world a worse place. You don't have to make that joke. It's not worth it. You can be a bigger man. You can be a better person. And you're just not.

And that pisses me off.

[matrixschmatrix]

Haha, I'm glad to see someone in the comments there getting called out for sexism- one of the real downsides to an almost totally unmoderated board is that the assholes perennially refuse to accept that they're doing anything wrong, and the comments there are particularly bad when it comes to focusing entirely on women's looks (and often attacking them for them- viz, the giant threads of Sarah Jessica Parker horseface jokes, or attacking Jodie Foster for looking insufficiently feminine in Silence of the Lambs.)

[swo17]

Is it sexism if the comments are coming from someone of the same sex? Some of the harshest things I've heard about certain actresses' physical appearance have come from women.

[domino harvey]

If Dunham's show had more cross-quadrant appeal, people wouldn't give a shit about her appearance, but as her outlet is so polarizing and the piling-on so tempting, it's merely one more avenue to attack. It may be petty, but it's not completely off-limits, especially since part of Dunham's shtick seems to be an approximation of "Look at me, I'm sooo unglamorous" (which, I might add, comes off as pretty disingenuous as it functions as its own form of vanity). A person's attractiveness is always fair game in the visual arts: If we can praise a star for their beauty, we can decry one for their lack thereof. That said, no one should make the case for or against an actor or actress based solely on looks. The specific problem with the initial offhand comment is its underlying message of "Women comedians are either floating by on their looks or they're dogs that are overcompensating," which is tired and, yes, misogynistic.

That said, VanDerWerff's response is a cringe-inducing case of male-led heroics, "saving" an object of desire (he as much as admits he's attracted to her) from internet perils. The initial comment, while not defensible in itself, in no way merited such an embarrassing overzealous response. These sort of chivalrous acts do nothing to further women to the plane of equality the defenders think they've reached.

Also, the line of argument that it's a person's fault for watching a show they don't like is bizarre: Everyone has the right to watch whatever they want for whatever reasons. Any film student learns early that personal opinions don't matter, be it in terms of a working cannon or a given class' syllabus. Girls is a show people are talking about, and those who desire to be part of the discussion have every reason to watch the series, even if it makes their blood boil.

[mfunk9786]

The most baffling part of this is somehow imposing a lovely episode of Mad Men about the evolution of women's roles in society (in the fucking mid-'60s, no less) onto someone pointing out that they find Lena Dunham ugly in a poorly written format on the comments section of The A.V. Club in 2012. Domino, you hit the nail on the head re: VanDerWerff's ultimately just as misogynistic male-led heroics, though I would contend that's very similar to your sensitive reaction to Drag Me To Hell, dismissing it on the basis that a pretty female lead was in a tough spot and the film didn't condescend to come to her rescue.

[swo17]

Also, the line of argument that it's a person's fault for watching a show they don't like is bizarre: Everyone has the right to watch whatever they want for whatever reasons. Any film student learns early that personal opinions don't matter, be it in terms of a working cannon or a given class' syllabus. Girls is a show people are talking about, and those who desire to be part of the discussion have every reason to watch the series, even if it makes their blood boil.

I've lost count of the number of shows I've stuck it out with purely for the sake of having something to watch with my wife.

[domino harvey]

TDomino, you hit the nail on the head re: VanDerWerff's ultimately just as misogynistic male-led heroics, though I would contend that's very similar to your sensitive reaction to Drag Me To Hell, dismissing it on the basis that a pretty female lead was in a tough spot and the film didn't condescend to come to her rescue.

Sloper already did a good job in the Horror Thread explaining where negative arguments arise in regards to Raimi's callous film, but perhaps it would help to reveal that I'm not attracted to Lohman? My objection is one against abject and needless cruelty, cruelty that comes from a false moral superiority the film not only hadn't earned but went out of its way to mask.

[mfunk9786]

I'm not saying you are attracted to Lohman, and going back to that thread, I think most of that baffling finger-wagging was done by Sloper, so I apologize for associating it with you. I'm not really sure why I felt the need to hold you of all people to task in the first place, I'm just in a bad mood today. Good thing James Mills isn't here anymore.

[colinr0380]

The specific problem with the initial offhand comment is its underlying message of "Women comedians are either floating by on their looks or they're dogs that are overcompensating," which is tired and, yes, misogynistic.

Slightly off topic but I was recently re-watching an old episode of the Newsnight Review discussion programme that took place at the Edinburgh Festival in 2008 or 2009, and during the review of the various shows there was a discussion about the current wave of stand up comedians (mostly handsome, buffed 20-something men). One of the guests on the discussion show was David Schneider a comedian himself, most notably with Armando Ianucci on the Friday/Saturday Night Armistice shows and in The Day Today. Though he has branched out in a number of directions including children's television programmes and had a cameo as one of the scientists in the lab that the animal rights protesters target, starting the zombie plague at the beginning of 28 Days Later! (which almost ruined the film for me as recognising him in that small role made me think that I was in for a tongue-in-cheek horror film like Return of the Living Dead!) He also had a cameo as the Eurostar train driver who does a comic relief faint after Tom Cruise blows up the helicopter at the end of Mission: Impossible.

Anyway, I've digressed, but I particularly remember David Schneider saying the problem with the current wave of hunky, rather than angry, young men going into stand up comedy was that when he was starting out stand up comedy was one of the few areas which a supposedly less attractive performer could go into, and even use that to their advantage! And the problem with modern stand up was that rather than being an end in itself, or a place to hone their craft, it was being used much more just as a kind of career springboard into work on television and maybe getting a TV series. Schneider might have been being self-deprecating there about the worrying influx of attractive people into comedy as a career path but I wonder if that sense of a calculated and pre-mapped out career trajectory is the same thing which seems to be rubbing a lot of these commenters the wrong way about Lena Dunham?

[starmanof51]

Schneider might have been being self-deprecating there about the worrying influx of attractive people into comedy as a career path but I wonder if that sense of a calculated and pre-mapped out career trajectory is the same thing which seems to be rubbing a lot of these commenters the wrong way about Lena Dunham?

Colin, could you unpack that a bit for the slow among us (hello)? Is there a suspicion that she doesn't want to be a filmmaker or have an HBO series, and is instead shooting for something bigger?