Pathetic. The question was perfectly reasonable--nudity that serves a narrative function is ok, nudity for the sake of nudity is not. So why be nude for no reason?
Dunham can disagree, she can claim it does serve a narrative function, but to attack the questioner (SEXIST!) is pretty stupid. Dunham, clearly, is not stupid, but I'd really like to call her stupid anyway because so many of her ideas are stupid.
The question was perfectly reasonable--nudity that serves a narrative function is ok, nudity for the sake of nudity is not..
I don't even think that the question said or implied that it was not OK, just that it did not serve an obvious purpose and he was wondering what the purpose was. It was value-neutral.
Incredibly silly - what happens to women like Dunham that make them so incredibly sensitive to the idea that someone might not be dying to see her nude?
I've not seen her show, so maybe it's great and I'm missing out, but it sounds absolutely awful.
Maybe so, Lyssa. But I am taking the value judgement from his complaint that the nudity appears to have no purpose. He wouldn't ask the purpose of having her wear a blue shirt rather than a yellow shirt, but he will ask the purpose of no shirt.
I don't think it's possible for the question to be value-neutral.
I find this quote by Dunham to be...eh...quite something: "If you’re not into me, that’s your problem and you’re going to have to work that out with professionals."
Judd Apatow's response was predictably absurd. The question was offensive on its face? Now it's obviously offensive (and sexist!) to even question purposeless nudity?
I think she took the question to suggest that HER nudity would not "be salacious and titillate people," that is, that in Game of Thrones, the women being naked meet traditional norms of beauty and sexuality, while perhaps Hannah does not. Which would be a somewhat offensive question, although not, I think, deserving of a "rage spiral."
Don't know if that's the correct interpretation or not. I only watched the first few episodes of Game of Thrones, so I don't know how carefully they've weaved nudity into the plot line to give it some patina of legitimacy. But if the only motivation ascribed by the questioner to the GoT nudity is that it is to be salacious and titillating, then that's just nudity for the sake of nudity, with hot people. If Girls also has nudity just for the sake of nudity, but with perhaps not-quite-so-hot people, it does seem perhaps a bit rude to point that out, at least to the face of the actresses involved.
I haven't spent much time with the show -- characters range from shallow to pathetic to nasty, not so interesting -- but the nakedness has been remarked upon from the beginning.
This is the first television series in my recollection to employ nudity so often and so casually, and without any apparent intent to arouse sexual reactions in viewers.
If Girls also has nudity just for the sake of nudity, but with perhaps not-quite-so-hot people, it does seem perhaps a bit rude to point that out, at least to the face of the actresses involved.
The nudity in GoT is nudity meant to titillate its largely male audience. The nudity in Girls is there for the titillation of its female audience. Female pornography is much like "Fight Club": The first rule of pornography for women is that you never, ever, call it pornography in public. The reporter got smacked down hard because he was touching the third rail of the "Girls" marketing machine.
The problem is that the reporter didn't just ask about the nudity, but made a loaded statement combined with a question.
"I don’t get the purpose of all the nudity on the show -- by [Dunham] in particular, I feel like I’m walking into a trap where you go..."
The reporter is being a douche; he/she knows there is nudity o the show and then says he/she feels like they are being "trapped" by it when it happens. That's more than being a douche; it's being fucking retarded.
I think Dunham and Apatow are reacting more to that as to the nudity question itself.
It would be like a reporter complaining during a Dexter press junket about all the murdering in the show (or all the swearing in Archer, etc.)
One thing to remember is that producers and actors do hundreds of these press junket interviews with reporters who don't know shit and sometimes get really fed up with the stupidity.
"I was just looking at him looking at him and going into this rage [over] this idea that you would talk to a woman like that and accuse a woman of showing her body too much. The idea it just makes me sort of sick."
Not nearly as sick as the idea of Lena Dunham nude makes me, yet I'm able to avoid getting hysterical about it. Yay for the Y-chromosome!
I get the nudity in Girls because the show itself is trying desperately to be "honest." The most apt description of the show is simply The Real Sex and the City.
Another problem is that it's not possible to act intercourse, the deep problem being that the popular narrative does not coincide at all with the real thing.
A surface problem is that it's not taken as acting, as a kiss might be, as a cultural matter.
Nudist camps presumably strip away the narrative that nudity is erotic. This is not owing to ugliness.
Re Trashhauler's astute comment at 11:37, Girls in fact has an obsession with urinary issues. Adam relieves himself on Hannah in the shower in one episode, Hannah relieves herself by train tracks in season three, and every couple of episodes one of the ladies is shown sitting on a toilet.
It did seem to me that the questioner tried to pretend his point was about the gratuitousness of the nudity, but the comparison he made to Game of Thrones made it more likely that his real complaint was that the nudity of Dunham wasn't titillating.
Which still isn't sexist. A little harsh, but not sexist.
Apatow is right. Dunham had the courage to confirm publicly, what we all suspected privately, that human life is a commodity. Women, in particular, should be appreciated for the assembly of their parts. Moral regression and progressive corruption is an inevitable outcome of dissociation of risk which is an inherent feature of a "progressive" civilization.
That said, it's interesting to observe how people are manipulated for a material return. Even their morality or tolerance becomes merely a mechanism for leverage by competing interests. It's no wonder that religious people are regarded as weak or inferior. Their better nature leaves them vulnerable to exploitation by simian derivatives. Perhaps it's time for a crusade to reclaim lost ground.
If Apatow wasn't already aware, moderation is a prerequisite of liberty, and is a requirement for men and women. The demand by a moral society occurs within a context. She can still do her slut walk in the bedroom, and to varying degrees outside.
That said, she should get her rage treated. While many people will tolerate progressive morality when reasonably compensated, more people will be less accommodating of unmoderated liberal behavior.
I truly can't decide if they misheard the question as, "you're so ugly, why do you insist on showing us your naked body" (in which case their response is reasonable), or if they just decided ahead of time to attack anyone who mentioned nudity in order to make the most consistent criticism of the show (after, "wow, that's boring") politically incorrect.
After seeing a post about this over at The Other McCain, I was motivated to look at a clip of "Girls" for the first time. This is the first clip I saw - don't have the motivation to look further. Warning - if you follow this link, don't ask me for 3 minutes of your life back.
I think being in a rage over this is very attractive, very modern feminine. It shows that you have brains and think deeply on topics like this and frankly, being female, can't control your emotions and thus fly into a rage spiral. It, stuff like this, will make you literally, and that is literally, space out. With rage.
The modern female is becoming a thing to behold. Get a big mad on and let it spiral.
I do think the the questioner meant "you're so ugly, why do you insist on showing us your naked body"
and Lena Dunham is committed to showing off her naked imperfections as often as possible not to titillate but to make the statement that most naked women do not conform to what you see in Playboy. And still these imperfect lumpy women still have and enjoy sex. So there.
I know I'm just a guy, but after watching the link you posted, I'm thinking there's just no way, after one of those "Goddammit, what the fuck is up with today" kind of days, that I'd ever react by taking off my cloths & getting in the bathtub with a naked guy.
I think that if Lena Dunham was beautiful then she would be getting some push back from feminist circles. Somehow it is okay for a dumpy, out of shape woman to be featured in lots of nude scenes, but not okay for a beautiful woman to do so. Don't ask me why, I am clearly not smart enough to be a feminist.
Patrick: Rage Spiral would be a good rock band but these angry chicks would have to learn to plan an instrument to be in it. Unless, of course, Rage Spiral played in German bars and the "vocalists" just raged.
It was the other woman on stage that was in the rage spiral, right? Lena Dunham has been called a "fat chick" IIRC by Howard Stern and she was remarkably good-natured about it. He later apologized.
The questioner clearly asked the question because she is a bit of a fleshy gal, let's be honest here.
But really, if you are going to make nudity such a part of your show, you need to be able to handle a few questions without resorting to the usual adolescent language.
“I literally was spacing out because I’m in such a rage spiral about that guy,” she said pointing to the question-asker. “I was just looking at him looking at him and going into this rage [over] this idea that you would talk to a woman like that and accuse a woman of showing her body too much. The idea it just makes me sort of sick.”
More evidence that feminism was invented by 1960s frat boys. You ladies didn't think it was about ending workplace exploitation and enhancing your sexual freedom, did you?
I'm trying very hard to understand what there is to this.
I tried to watch this show the first season. I made it through one entire episode. One. I went into it with an open mind and a bag o' chips. When it was over I wanted that time of life back to stare at my own navel.
Bullshit. These are uninteresting people of little note. I'm going back to work now.
The SLATE commentator nails it. (1) The guy wasn't asking a question; he was expressing befuddlement about a topic that Lena Dunham has already addressed extensively in interviews. (2) The subtext of the comment--"Female nudity for the purpose of titillation, I can understand; but you're not titillating me at all! Therefore, your nudity is 'random' and has no discernible point"--is arguably sexist but inarguably obnoxious and willfully ignorant.
> He wouldn't ask the purpose of having her wear a blue shirt rather than a yellow shirt, but he will ask the purpose of no shirt.
Why are you so sure that he wouldn't ask about shirt color? Colors have meaning, must work in context, and so on.
Are you implying that men can't know such things or that he doesn't?
> I don't think it's possible for the question to be value-neutral.
No question is "value-neutral", so if you're going to claim that his values are inappropriate, you get to tell us what those values are, how you know, and why they're inappropriate.
Isn't this just all about publicity? If Dunham and the producers didn't plant the reporter and question, they should have.
They are not mad, they are ecstatic.
Tens of millions of people who had never thought about the show before are now thinking about it.
Too much nudity is a bad thing? Gratuitus or not, many people think there can never be enough nudity in a program.
I've heard of the show, never thought it sounded interesting enough to watch. Now they got nude women running around? Not just a flash or two but lots of nudity?
Let me grab my TV listings. I have to check this show out.
I must have missed the questioners actual quote that led to such overboard vitriol from the producers. Maybe he actually said "you're fat and gross and as a man I should be able to control you and keep your gross body off the TV and Apatow, your recent movies suck and I've had your wife many times and she's only with you for your money and I also sneezed on all the snacks in the Green Room."
Because short of a statement like that, what could unleash such rage? How sheltered are these people that they're enraged by anyone questioning pointless nudity?
I read the "not titillating" part not to mean that she was not attractive, but that they were using nudity in non-sexy contexts - i.e., rather than showing it in a hot sex scene, they were showing someone changing clothes or getting out of the shower, or something boring like that.
But I could be wrong - I've never seen the show and didn't even really latch on to the fact that apparently the only nude person we're talking about is Ms. Dunham.
OK, so I have never seen the show and I don't think I've ever seen the woman (or maybe she did an ad for Obama in '12?), so I googled for images of Lena Dunham nude. She's kind of a chubbette, isn't she? When I was 14, I would look at a picture of any female human being who was showing her tits (you remember the old National Geographic?), but now my standards are higher. Do they really think that American males (older than 14) will watch this show to see THAT body? I don't THINK so . . . .
The subtext of the comment--"Female nudity for the purpose of titillation, I can understand; but you're not titillating me at all! Therefore, your nudity is 'random' and has no discernible point"--is arguably sexist but inarguably obnoxious and willfully ignorant.
It's almost like they never heard of the Boner Test.
What Lena Dunhma doesn't understand is while her body is closer to the average, TV viewers don't want to see that body naked. They would rather look at the top 1% of beautiful bodies.
No matter. I feel for the "Girls" camera operators, their film school dreams crushed before them with every episode, alcohol their only effective salve.
But this is why she's such a relief. How many fat or old guys have I freaking had to look at in film or TV dating way out of their league, being held up (AND PAID) as leading men way past their prime, etc?
This is just evening the playing field a bit. If it takes an entitled attitude from a relatively spoiled woman to go forward in this area, then fine.
It's about time. It's a MUCH milder version, but still akin to Muslim guys dealing with their own lust rather than forcing their women to wear veils. Rather than fat chicks hiding their bodies, talent, and not getting paid because guys don't want to see it, let the guys deal with their discomfort.
And yeah, I think she was being called ugly. He phrased it circuitously, but she knows the deal. She's been dealing with the media long enough to know.
Working for the people that make "Girls" is probably like having a line job in one of those store brand cereal factories, making knock-off versions of Raisin Bran and Froot Loops.
You make a depressing tasteless product of low quality for low value customers.
In the art of the ancients, there isn't a whole lot of naked realism. There is, instead, a lot of perfection (male and female). People like to see the naked ideal. That's obviously how we are wired. Sure, we like and love people who are less than perfect in real life, but we don't watch entertainment and look for reality.
This is true of bodies, faces, and homes on television. We like to see a little bit of a reality upgrade. Don"t like it, don't get into the visual arts.
Sojo- but you aren't going to see a lot of naked Seth Rogan unless there's comedy involved. Fat men may improbably date up in entertainment, but the viewer isn't asked to want to see them sexually or naked.
The most frequent comment I have read about this show online is " It is the only cable show guys watch and hope the woman doesn't get naked." I assume she knows this, and knows that that is what the guy was implying. Personally I think her personality is even uglier than her outside.
It's not too far from the campaign to attack and intimidate critics of gays on TV. The TV gay characters are put in the shows just to "raise awareness" and "mainstream" gayness. Sometimes producers do it to deflect criticism from the usual suspects, like GLAAD. It's political.
Lena Dunham's out-of-scope nudity is an in-your-face demand to accept her gender feminism, and she attacks you if you question the necessity of it. Believe me, not only isn't it necessary, it is aesthetically destructive.
I've seen her on talk shows. In the right dress with the right hair stylist, she's attractive and witty. It's only when she's in character for her role as a chunky, displaced intellectual with too many tats that she's unattractive......I'm not completely kidding. On the show, she wears dowdy clothes and lets her hair go dank and stringy. She really makes an effort to appear unattractive......I guess that's honest. I think a lot of actors spend a considerable amount of time with their trainer, nutritionist, hair stylist, and lighting tech before they appear nude. Dunham goes out of her way to appear grotty.....it's either a comment on our preoccupation with beauty, or she eats too much.
Extensive nudity (i assume; I've never watched) is probably the only way Girls is able to attract the paltry audience it has. More people watch airport radar than do that show.
Speaking of Judd Apatow, why did we have to see Jason Siegels penis in Forgetting Sarah Marshal. Perfectly reasonable question. Bet you wouldn't get this response if you asked the question.
BDNYC - if he's a journalist and has to watch the show for his job, then he should know what a lame question that is at Season 3. If this is all new to him, then he didn't do his homework.
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117 comments:
Pathetic. The question was perfectly reasonable--nudity that serves a narrative function is ok, nudity for the sake of nudity is not. So why be nude for no reason?
Dunham can disagree, she can claim it does serve a narrative function, but to attack the questioner (SEXIST!) is pretty stupid. Dunham, clearly, is not stupid, but I'd really like to call her stupid anyway because so many of her ideas are stupid.
“a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive."
So is taking a crap.
"How dare you question me! I AM AN ARTIST!"
"They do it to be salacious and titillate people. And your character is often nude at random times for no reason.”
Busted.
The question was perfectly reasonable--nudity that serves a narrative function is ok, nudity for the sake of nudity is not..
I don't even think that the question said or implied that it was not OK, just that it did not serve an obvious purpose and he was wondering what the purpose was. It was value-neutral.
Incredibly silly - what happens to women like Dunham that make them so incredibly sensitive to the idea that someone might not be dying to see her nude?
I've not seen her show, so maybe it's great and I'm missing out, but it sounds absolutely awful.
Is a "rage spiral" what a whirling dervish gets into after a really, really, bad day?
Modesty enrages our moral and intellectual superiors.
No, YH, it's what the Tasmanian Devil does when he's really, really mad after having been tricked once again by Bugs.
The word that comes to mind regarding this woman is "slattern."
Maybe so, Lyssa. But I am taking the value judgement from his complaint that the nudity appears to have no purpose. He wouldn't ask the purpose of having her wear a blue shirt rather than a yellow shirt, but he will ask the purpose of no shirt.
I don't think it's possible for the question to be value-neutral.
I still say the naked ping-pong episode was Hannah's "there's a part of me that wants what's material, comfortable" sexual fantasy.
There has been no reference to the liaison with the older man since.
Maybe it was his tone of voice. Based on the text, it is hard to see why all three would be so angry.
Terry Richardson
I find this quote by Dunham to be...eh...quite something: "If you’re not into me, that’s your problem and you’re going to have to work that out with professionals."
Judd Apatow's response was predictably absurd. The question was offensive on its face? Now it's obviously offensive (and sexist!) to even question purposeless nudity?
I believe my rage spiral over the lack of nudity at Althouse may have spun long enought to shift the polar vortex.
I think she took the question to suggest that HER nudity would not "be salacious and titillate people," that is, that in Game of Thrones, the women being naked meet traditional norms of beauty and sexuality, while perhaps Hannah does not. Which would be a somewhat offensive question, although not, I think, deserving of a "rage spiral."
Don't know if that's the correct interpretation or not. I only watched the first few episodes of Game of Thrones, so I don't know how carefully they've weaved nudity into the plot line to give it some patina of legitimacy. But if the only motivation ascribed by the questioner to the GoT nudity is that it is to be salacious and titillating, then that's just nudity for the sake of nudity, with hot people. If Girls also has nudity just for the sake of nudity, but with perhaps not-quite-so-hot people, it does seem perhaps a bit rude to point that out, at least to the face of the actresses involved.
"If you’re not into me, that’s your problem and you’re going to have to work that out with professionals."
WAIT! Is Dunham implying here that male homosexuals, who wouldn't be into her nudity, need to seek professional help?
HATER! Off to the re-education camps with her!
I think the rage comes from a void of logic and morality the far left experience.
I haven't spent much time with the show -- characters range from shallow to pathetic to nasty, not so interesting -- but the nakedness has been remarked upon from the beginning.
This is the first television series in my recollection to employ nudity so often and so casually, and without any apparent intent to arouse sexual reactions in viewers.
Asking why this is seems fair enough to me.
How dare someone question the actions of a woman?
“a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive."
How much of being alive is spent nekkid?
I love Lena so fucking much and the show is abs to die for. I can't wait for it to start again. I love you Lena!!!!!!!
I was hard when she was shirtless playing ping pong with Patrick Wilson in one episode...total tour de force for days and days.
I think Dunham understood the questioner as really saying that he found viewing her in the nude to be an unpleasant experience.
After seeing her fully clothed, I think Dunham may have been right about the questioner.
How dare someone question the actions of a woman?
Isn't she just following script and directions, though?
It's like my dream leftist cage match
@PatHMV,
If Girls also has nudity just for the sake of nudity, but with perhaps not-quite-so-hot people, it does seem perhaps a bit rude to point that out, at least to the face of the actresses involved.
The nudity in GoT is nudity meant to titillate its largely male audience. The nudity in Girls is there for the titillation of its female audience. Female pornography is much like "Fight Club": The first rule of pornography for women is that you never, ever, call it pornography in public. The reporter got smacked down hard because he was touching the third rail of the "Girls" marketing machine.
Nudity in 'Girls' is definitely art. It's even got a special name, you just don't have it in English. Maybe that's the problem.
Turpismus
Isn't she just following script and directions, though?
I believe Dunham also writes a majority of the episodes (designated as "creator" with 31 credits to her name) and has directed 9 of them.
The problem is that the reporter didn't just ask about the nudity, but made a loaded statement combined with a question.
"I don’t get the purpose of all the nudity on the show -- by [Dunham] in particular, I feel like I’m walking into a trap where you go..."
The reporter is being a douche; he/she knows there is nudity o the show and then says he/she feels like they are being "trapped" by it when it happens. That's more than being a douche; it's being fucking retarded.
I think Dunham and Apatow are reacting more to that as to the nudity question itself.
It would be like a reporter complaining during a Dexter press junket about all the murdering in the show (or all the swearing in Archer, etc.)
One thing to remember is that producers and actors do hundreds of these press junket interviews with reporters who don't know shit and sometimes get really fed up with the stupidity.
I never heard of or about the show.
Nudity has a sameness about it and never serves a narrative function, unless it's to show that nudity is less interesting than you'd imagined.
Guys watch at most seven minutes of it.
"I was just looking at him looking at him and going into this rage [over] this idea that you would talk to a woman like that and accuse a woman of showing her body too much. The idea it just makes me sort of sick."
Not nearly as sick as the idea of Lena Dunham nude makes me, yet I'm able to avoid getting hysterical about it. Yay for the Y-chromosome!
I get the nudity in Girls because the show itself is trying desperately to be "honest." The most apt description of the show is simply The Real Sex and the City.
Another problem is that it's not possible to act intercourse, the deep problem being that the popular narrative does not coincide at all with the real thing.
A surface problem is that it's not taken as acting, as a kiss might be, as a cultural matter.
Nudist camps presumably strip away the narrative that nudity is erotic. This is not owing to ugliness.
The show, I assume, is trading on the narrative.
Her over the top reaction is because she knows that she, the ultimate liberated woman, will never ever look like a Barbie.
I give this a big "WHO CARES?"
Re Trashhauler's astute comment at 11:37, Girls in fact has an obsession with urinary issues. Adam relieves himself on Hannah in the shower in one episode, Hannah relieves herself by train tracks in season three, and every couple of episodes one of the ladies is shown sitting on a toilet.
If you’re not into me, that’s your problem
Why is it a problem? Is there just some universally accepted law (that I am ignorant of) that everyone should be into her?
Narcissus come home!
It did seem to me that the questioner tried to pretend his point was about the gratuitousness of the nudity, but the comparison he made to Game of Thrones made it more likely that his real complaint was that the nudity of Dunham wasn't titillating.
Which still isn't sexist. A little harsh, but not sexist.
I'm in such a rage spiral
The fat, tattooed, homely chick is the Queen Bee.
Do not mess with the Queen Bee.
Apatow is right. Dunham had the courage to confirm publicly, what we all suspected privately, that human life is a commodity. Women, in particular, should be appreciated for the assembly of their parts. Moral regression and progressive corruption is an inevitable outcome of dissociation of risk which is an inherent feature of a "progressive" civilization.
That said, it's interesting to observe how people are manipulated for a material return. Even their morality or tolerance becomes merely a mechanism for leverage by competing interests. It's no wonder that religious people are regarded as weak or inferior. Their better nature leaves them vulnerable to exploitation by simian derivatives. Perhaps it's time for a crusade to reclaim lost ground.
If Apatow wasn't already aware, moderation is a prerequisite of liberty, and is a requirement for men and women. The demand by a moral society occurs within a context. She can still do her slut walk in the bedroom, and to varying degrees outside.
That said, she should get her rage treated. While many people will tolerate progressive morality when reasonably compensated, more people will be less accommodating of unmoderated liberal behavior.
I truly can't decide if they misheard the question as, "you're so ugly, why do you insist on showing us your naked body" (in which case their response is reasonable), or if they just decided ahead of time to attack anyone who mentioned nudity in order to make the most consistent criticism of the show (after, "wow, that's boring") politically incorrect.
After seeing a post about this over at The Other McCain, I was motivated to look at a clip of "Girls" for the first time. This is the first clip I saw - don't have the motivation to look further. Warning - if you follow this link, don't ask me for 3 minutes of your life back.
"Inanity Alert"
HBO Girls - Jesse & Hanna
I just looked at a pic of Dunham naked.
I won't do it again. Ugly thing.
If you’re not into me, that’s your problem and you’re going to have to work that out with professionals.
"Vanity is my favorite sin" - Devi's Advocate
I think being in a rage over this is very attractive, very modern feminine. It shows that you have brains and think deeply on topics like this and frankly, being female, can't control your emotions and thus fly into a rage spiral. It, stuff like this, will make you literally, and that is literally, space out. With rage.
The modern female is becoming a thing to behold. Get a big mad on and let it spiral.
Just imagine what they were like before the pill stabilized their emotional outbursts. Is it any wonder that men oppressed them for so long?
I like Judd Apatow, but I think he's off-base here. I don't get what was offensive about the question.
I do think the the questioner meant "you're so ugly, why do you insist on showing us your naked body"
and Lena Dunham is committed to showing off her naked imperfections as often as possible not to titillate but to make the statement that most naked women do not conform to what you see in Playboy. And still these imperfect lumpy women still have and enjoy sex. So there.
"...make the statement that most naked women do not conform to what you see in Playboy"
Why doesn't she just say that? She's undermining her position by being so sensitive about how others view her nakedness.
And Geez, don't EVER answer when she asks "does this make my look fat"
Thanks Martha. NOW, I get it!
Fat chicks fuck! Put it on HBO!
n.n said...
Women, in particular, should be appreciated for the assembly of their parts.
I strongly disagree. I believe a woman should be seen as a whole.
( Crap. That joke doesn't work when you write it down. )
What does it mean to *literally* "space out."
Nudist's Rights. It is about time that Constitutional Rights of women to be nude in public are upheld.
but maybe there is a reasonable state interest in an age limitation...not too young, but too old.
The publicist behind this stunt was a genius!
@Alan markus,
I know I'm just a guy, but after watching the link you posted, I'm thinking there's just no way, after one of those "Goddammit, what the fuck is up with today" kind of days, that I'd ever react by taking off my cloths & getting in the bathtub with a naked guy.
A shower stall, well, maybe....
A repellent TV star.
Fascinating.
Which makes the viewers dung flies.
"Rage Spiral"would make a good name for a rock band.
WELL! It's all about LENA! How. Dare. YOU. Question. ME?
Tad sensitive, seems to me. Mayhap having "body issues". Or too big a sense of entitlement. Both; more?
I think that if Lena Dunham was beautiful then she would be getting some push back from feminist circles. Somehow it is okay for a dumpy, out of shape woman to be featured in lots of nude scenes, but not okay for a beautiful woman to do so. Don't ask me why, I am clearly not smart enough to be a feminist.
Patrick: Rage Spiral would be a good rock band but these angry chicks would have to learn to plan an instrument to be in it. Unless, of course, Rage Spiral played in German bars and the "vocalists" just raged.
It was the other woman on stage that was in the rage spiral, right? Lena Dunham has been called a "fat chick" IIRC by Howard Stern and she was remarkably good-natured about it. He later apologized.
The questioner clearly asked the question because she is a bit of a fleshy gal, let's be honest here.
But really, if you are going to make nudity such a part of your show, you need to be able to handle a few questions without resorting to the usual adolescent language.
"Rage Spiral"would make a good name for a rock band
I don't know, sounds so marginal 90s post-Seattle grunge missed-the-boat band to me.
I'm still trying to choose between Fantoid Vapors and Catholic Heaters for my band.
The only upside to "Girls" is that you don't "have" to watch Lena Dunham shake that skanky ass. You have to choose to do so.
“I literally was spacing out because I’m in such a rage spiral about that guy,” she said pointing to the question-asker. “I was just looking at him looking at him and going into this rage [over] this idea that you would talk to a woman like that and accuse a woman of showing her body too much. The idea it just makes me sort of sick.”
More evidence that feminism was invented by 1960s frat boys. You ladies didn't think it was about ending workplace exploitation and enhancing your sexual freedom, did you?
Low level celebrities and media mediocrities negotiate the entertainment crab bucket.
The publicist behind this stunt was a genius!
Very true. They've earned their money today.
I'm trying very hard to understand what there is to this.
I tried to watch this show the first season. I made it through one entire episode. One. I went into it with an open mind and a bag o' chips. When it was over I wanted that time of life back to stare at my own navel.
Bullshit. These are uninteresting people of little note. I'm going back to work now.
The SLATE commentator nails it. (1) The guy wasn't asking a question; he was expressing befuddlement about a topic that Lena Dunham has already addressed extensively in interviews. (2) The subtext of the comment--"Female nudity for the purpose of titillation, I can understand; but you're not titillating me at all! Therefore, your nudity is 'random' and has no discernible point"--is arguably sexist but inarguably obnoxious and willfully ignorant.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/01/10/nudity_in_girls_television_critic_tim_molloy_doesn_t_get_why_lena_dunham.html
Apparently fat, drunk and stupid is a way to go through life.
> He wouldn't ask the purpose of having her wear a blue shirt rather than a yellow shirt, but he will ask the purpose of no shirt.
Why are you so sure that he wouldn't ask about shirt color? Colors have meaning, must work in context, and so on.
Are you implying that men can't know such things or that he doesn't?
> I don't think it's possible for the question to be value-neutral.
No question is "value-neutral", so if you're going to claim that his values are inappropriate, you get to tell us what those values are, how you know, and why they're inappropriate.
Yum, spiral cut ham.
Isn't this just all about publicity? If Dunham and the producers didn't plant the reporter and question, they should have.
They are not mad, they are ecstatic.
Tens of millions of people who had never thought about the show before are now thinking about it.
Too much nudity is a bad thing? Gratuitus or not, many people think there can never be enough nudity in a program.
I've heard of the show, never thought it sounded interesting enough to watch. Now they got nude women running around? Not just a flash or two but lots of nudity?
Let me grab my TV listings. I have to check this show out.
John Henry
I must have missed the questioners actual quote that led to such overboard vitriol from the producers. Maybe he actually said "you're fat and gross and as a man I should be able to control you and keep your gross body off the TV and Apatow, your recent movies suck and I've had your wife many times and she's only with you for your money and I also sneezed on all the snacks in the Green Room."
Because short of a statement like that, what could unleash such rage? How sheltered are these people that they're enraged by anyone questioning pointless nudity?
I suppose that for people like Peter, the big question is hair or bare?
Hopefully they have some of each.
We are talking nudity here, right? Not just toplessness or butt shots.
Unless there's nekkid wimmin, I take back my last comment about checking the show out.
John Henry
I think the rage spiral is it's season 3 and she's been asked questions about her nudity a million times.
I did not hear the audio to know tone either.
My issue with girls is it's her playing ping pong topless. Who does that. You would either be nude (ping pong after sex?) or clothed, not half way.
But I get the reason for her rage. It's season 3, she gets nude a lot. You don't like? You're problem. Don't watch.
I read the "not titillating" part not to mean that she was not attractive, but that they were using nudity in non-sexy contexts - i.e., rather than showing it in a hot sex scene, they were showing someone changing clothes or getting out of the shower, or something boring like that.
But I could be wrong - I've never seen the show and didn't even really latch on to the fact that apparently the only nude person we're talking about is Ms. Dunham.
Just so we're all on the same page, the person in the rage spiral was not Dunham but the other female (the producer) on the panel.
Bring up images.google.com and put her name in the search field.
ouch.
"Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves."
Perhaps Adam saw something like Lena Dunham, and he immediately thought 'that could use a bunch of fig leaves'.
Freeman,
"it is hard to see why all three would be so angry."
It's possible that angry is their default condition, don't you think?
"But I get the reason for her rage. It's season 3, she gets nude a lot. You don't like? You're problem. Don't watch."
You realize, of course, that the questioner was not a random viewer but a journalist, right? It's his job to watch the show and review it.
OK, so I have never seen the show and I don't think I've ever seen the woman (or maybe she did an ad for Obama in '12?), so I googled for images of Lena Dunham nude. She's kind of a chubbette, isn't she? When I was 14, I would look at a picture of any female human being who was showing her tits (you remember the old National Geographic?), but now my standards are higher. Do they really think that American males (older than 14) will watch this show to see THAT body? I don't THINK so . . . .
She's Jame Gumb bait.
The subtext of the comment--"Female nudity for the purpose of titillation, I can understand; but you're not titillating me at all! Therefore, your nudity is 'random' and has no discernible point"--is arguably sexist but inarguably obnoxious and willfully ignorant.
It's almost like they never heard of the Boner Test.
Apparently fat, drunk and stupid is a way to go through life.
That's no way to talk about a Job Creator!
Am I supposed to picture a cartoon-version of Lena Dunham where she spins around like the Tasmanian devil?
What Lena Dunhma doesn't understand is while her body is closer to the average, TV viewers don't want to see that body naked. They would rather look at the top 1% of beautiful bodies.
garage should know all about getting through life fat, drunk and stupid.
That's not very nice.
Did I hurt your feelings?
"That's no way to talk about a Job Creator!"
Is she? She has a job.
Is she creating any?
No matter.
I feel for the "Girls" camera operators, their film school dreams crushed before them with every episode, alcohol their only effective salve.
But this is why she's such a relief. How many fat or old guys have I freaking had to look at in film or TV dating way out of their league, being held up (AND PAID) as leading men way past their prime, etc?
This is just evening the playing field a bit. If it takes an entitled attitude from a relatively spoiled woman to go forward in this area, then fine.
It's about time. It's a MUCH milder version, but still akin to Muslim guys dealing with their own lust rather than forcing their women to wear veils. Rather than fat chicks hiding their bodies, talent, and not getting paid because guys don't want to see it, let the guys deal with their discomfort.
And yeah, I think she was being called ugly. He phrased it circuitously, but she knows the deal. She's been dealing with the media long enough to know.
Working for the people that make "Girls" is probably like having a line job in one of those store brand cereal factories, making knock-off versions of Raisin Bran and Froot Loops.
You make a depressing tasteless product of low quality for low value customers.
But hey, it's a job.
In the art of the ancients, there isn't a whole lot of naked realism. There is, instead, a lot of perfection (male and female). People like to see the naked ideal. That's obviously how we are wired. Sure, we like and love people who are less than perfect in real life, but we don't watch entertainment and look for reality.
This is true of bodies, faces, and homes on television. We like to see a little bit of a reality upgrade. Don"t like it, don't get into the visual arts.
Sojo- but you aren't going to see a lot of naked Seth Rogan unless there's comedy involved. Fat men may improbably date up in entertainment, but the viewer isn't asked to want to see them sexually or naked.
Is she creating any?
She's rich, ergo a Job Creator.
garage mahal said...
Is she creating any?
She's rich, ergo a Job Creator.
She sure is.
Eat your heart out.
People like to see the naked ideal.
O rlly?
She sure is.
Eat your heart out.
I'm riding a customer high right now. I may have even [gasp!] created a job today. I'll get there. I'll be old, but I'll get there.
The problem with naming a band Rage Spiral is that it reminds some of us of Mystic Spiral, the pretentious crap band in the Daria show.
garage mahal said...
She sure is.
Eat your heart out.
I'm riding a customer high right now. I may have even [gasp!] created a job today. I'll get there. I'll be old, but I'll get there.
Good on ya. Sincerely, I hope it works out for you.
Thanks, Crusty.
Some fat women can look good naked. It's the hideous tattoo that's the worse thing about her. That and her abrasive personality.
The most frequent comment I have read about this show online is " It is the only cable show guys watch and hope the woman doesn't get naked." I assume she knows this, and knows that that is what the guy was implying. Personally I think her personality is even uglier than her outside.
Garage. Hope you do create a job!! Which means you are doing well. Good for you.
Yah hey. The pipeline is crammed. And I cannot fucking wait to go fishing tomorrow. Life is good.
It's not too far from the campaign to attack and intimidate critics of gays on TV. The TV gay characters are put in the shows just to "raise awareness" and "mainstream" gayness. Sometimes producers do it to deflect criticism from the usual suspects, like GLAAD. It's political.
Lena Dunham's out-of-scope nudity is an in-your-face demand to accept her gender feminism, and she attacks you if you question the necessity of it. Believe me, not only isn't it necessary, it is aesthetically destructive.
Titus:I was hard when she was shirtless playing ping pong with Patrick Wilson in one episode
Poor Patrick Wilson -- from banging Kate Winslet in Little Children and Malin Akerman in Watchmen to a tattooed walrus in Girls.
He must have p*ssed off the wrong Show Business big shot.
If only Girls could find itself in an "increased quality" spiral.
If only Girls could find itself in an "increased quality" spiral.
Who is Lena Denham and why should I care if she's naked, or that somebody in her TV show is naked?
John Reece
Truckee, CA
I've seen her on talk shows. In the right dress with the right hair stylist, she's attractive and witty. It's only when she's in character for her role as a chunky, displaced intellectual with too many tats that she's unattractive......I'm not completely kidding. On the show, she wears dowdy clothes and lets her hair go dank and stringy. She really makes an effort to appear unattractive......I guess that's honest. I think a lot of actors spend a considerable amount of time with their trainer, nutritionist, hair stylist, and lighting tech before they appear nude. Dunham goes out of her way to appear grotty.....it's either a comment on our preoccupation with beauty, or she eats too much.
How could the naked, fat, tattooed toadstool so well known as Lena Dunham fail to be tittilating?
How could the naked, fat, tattooed toadstool so well known as Lena Dunham fail to be tittilating?
Extensive nudity (i assume; I've never watched) is probably the only way Girls is able to attract the paltry audience it has. More people watch airport radar than do that show.
It's just a T&A show, why do they try to make it complicated & "significant"?
Speaking of Judd Apatow, why did we have to see Jason Siegels penis in Forgetting Sarah Marshal.
Perfectly reasonable question. Bet you wouldn't get this response if you asked the question.
BDNYC - if he's a journalist and has to watch the show for his job, then he should know what a lame question that is at Season 3. If this is all new to him, then he didn't do his homework.
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