To Lena Dunham, I need to say that I’m sorry. I’m sure she’ll never read this, since she doesn’t seem like the kind of person who Googles herself. If I was Lena, I certainly wouldn’t. The internet is full of mockery, sarcasm and outright cruelty. I’ve been part of the problem, too. Lena and I were starting off our careers at the same time, those halcyon days of the 2010s, when people still subscribed to cable TV and social media was just a fun new tool to post random thoughts and photos of your brunch. Now, if you post a photo of a meal, people will scream at you for bragging that you can afford food.

Fourteen years since HBO’s Girls turned Dunham from an indie film darling into a mainstream superstar, the writer/director is now releasing a memoir that reflects on her time in the cultural crosshairs. The headline of a New York Times interview reads: “Lena Dunham Is Still Trying to Figure Out Why People Hated Her So Much.”

This is an odd thing to wonder about, since so much of the criticism was so thuddingly unsubtle or thoughtless. They complained about her weight, her propensity toward nudity on Girls, how ubiquitous she was in the media, and maybe the most popular one – her status as a so-called “nepo baby” of celebrated artist parents in New York City.

I won’t debate the merits of the latter, since you’ve all had more than a decade to make your mind up about that. There’s certainly plenty of misogyny that clouds all of the moldy, oldy Lena........

© The Guardian