Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Your Obsession With Hating Lena Dunham Is Terribly Boring

Over the weekend, New York Magazine’s female-focused vertical “The Cut” published an excellent profile by Allison P. Davis. It provoked a digital reunion of what must be the most diverse band of allies: loud liberals, alt-righters, millennials, dads, Midwesterners, art snobs, sexual conservatives, animal rights activists, and internet trolls. In other words, the stunning coterie of people who hate Lena Dunham.

Hating Lena Dunham is boring Image by Getty Images

And, of course, you. There’s something you can’t stand about Lena Dunham.

Maybe you hate her because she’s only famous because of her parents’ wealth and connections.

Just like you must hate Nick Kroll and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the children of billionaires. And you loathe Ben Platt, the child of a Tony-winning, and Oscar-nominated producer. And Carrie Fisher, and Drew Barrymore, and Angelina Jolie and countless other celebrities and influencers who walk the red carpet in their parents’ footsteps.

Maybe you hate Lena Dunham because she’s not really funny, or talented, or hard-working on the six season, Golden Globe and Emmy-winning show she created, starred in, wrote, and sometimes directed.

Maybe you have an airtight reason to hate Lena Dunham. After all, she has displayed racism, accused a woman of lying about rape, and compared Jewish men to dogs, and she never seems to learn from her mistakes. Those are possibly legitimate reasons to hate a person.

But boy oh boy, you must you be overwhelmed by your hatred of every celebrity who supported Roman Polanski after he pled guilty to charges of child rape! What do you do with all that time, since you can’t watch movies starring Polanski-defenders Kate Winslet, Pierce Brosnan or Meryl Streep?

You must spend those extra hours waging war against Justin Timberlake, whose history of racism and thoughtless treatment of homeless people and trans people is, like Dunham’s, on the internet for all to see. Or working to bring down an even better corollary to Dunham, Stephen Colbert. He has made comments like Dunham’s infamous “joke” about abortion about once a week throughout his decades-long career, regularly laughing about sex with “trannies.” Or Jimmy Kimmel, another born-rich-kid who made his career by starring in a “satire” about men’s rights. It must take a lot out of you to hate them with the equal tenacious rage you afford Dunham.

And maybe you hate Lena Dunham because you believe the conspiracy theory that she kills her pets. Or maybe you hate Lena Dunham because you would prefer to cast a quote you heard third-hand about her touching her sibling’s genitals as a seven-year old as child molestation than to heed experts’ warnings that the behavior she describes is normal and common.

Tweets and Instagram comments about Lena Dunham in 2018 Image by Forward Montage

Who knows why you hate Lena Dunham? Who could ever parse how much their hatred of a celebrity — a stranger — is related to that person’s actual behavior and how much it is related to that person being an overweight, not conventionally attractive, Jewish woman?

You can’t. And you don’t have to. Celebrities exist in the court of public opinion. And no one is obligated to have a reason for liking or disliking them — that’s the delicious pleasure of entertainment culture. Critiquing celebrities, especially those who make themselves into progressive mouthpieces, feeds the lifeblood of our culture.

But if you glory in using Lena Dunham as a punching bag while ignoring countless other celebrities’ problematic statements, the strong likelihood is that you are poorly uninformed, unreflective, and hypocritical.

And boring! Very, very boring.

Jenny Singer is the deputy lifestyle editor for the Forward. You can reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @jeanvaljenny

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.