The Met Gala was months ago, but actress and writer Lena Dunham decided last week to gripe about something that happened to her (or rather, didn’t happen to her) during the event.
She accused New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. of refusing to talk to her because she’s unattractive. Beckham never said or did anything to give her an indication of this, but that’s how Dunham saw things.
Dunham put misogynist words in Beckham’s mouth, and engaged in some pretty racist stereotyping by assuming Beckham didn’t want to talk to her, a white woman, because Beckham, who is black, didn’t want to have sex with her.
“I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards,” Dunham said on her podcast. “He was like, ‘That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.’ It wasn’t mean — he just seemed confused.”
Beckham didn’t comment on the accusation, even as the media turned against Dunham. Now, Beckham has finally responded, sort of, and he certainly took a higher road than Dunham. In an interview with Complex, Beckham briefly commented on the accusation.
“I don’t have enough information to really speak on it,” he told Complex. “We’ll see what happens from there. I never want any problems with anybody in this world.”
Here’s a man who had just been accused of sexually objectifying a stranger, who was accused of falling into the old racist stereotype of the sexually charged black man looking for white women. And how did he respond? Simply, and gracefully.
Of course, he was lucky that he didn’t have to fight back accusations that had been generally accepted by the press. The media was already on his side, given what Dunham had described. Still, he handled it like a pro, and probably won over some new fans in the process.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
