Media darling Lena Dunham, who has been called a “genius” and compared to Woody Allen (for writing talent), has finally learned what it means to be at the center of “wrongthink” — the crime of not toeing the politically correct line.
Last week Dunham interviewed another media darling, Amy Schumer, for her newsletter. The two reminisced about the Met Gala — an event where famous athletes, models, musicians and actors come together to … do something. Oh, I guess they raise money for the Met’s Costume Institute. That’s a hell of a fundraiser.
Anyway, the gala was months ago, but apparently Dunham has had a bugaboo about an interaction she had (or, more accurately, didn’t have) with New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr. Dunham accused Beckham – who apparently said nothing to her the entire night — of thinking horrible, misogynist thoughts.
“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. “He was like, ‘That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.’ It wasn’t mean — he just seemed confused.”
She continued: “The vibe was very much like, ‘Do I want to f— it? Is it wearing a … yep, it’s wearing a tuxedo. I’m going to go back to my cell phone.’ It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, ‘This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes.'”
Remember, Beckham said nothing to her. She gleaned all of this information from him not saying anything to her. Unlike most weird, obnoxious or gross things Dunham does, this one actually earned her a backlash. And it came not just from right-leaning websites, but from staunchly left or feminist websites as well. Forbes called her “A Monster of Our Own Creation,” while Jezebel called the whole incident “embarrassing.”
Incidentally, the Jezebel article probably does the best job of pointing out exactly what was wrong with Dunham’s interview. For one thing, Dunham was ascribing misogynist thoughts to Beckham and perhaps falling back on the age-old racist trope of the sexuality of African-American men, as well as the white women who falsely accuse them. For another thing, she came up with all of this not based on anything he said to her, but merely because he didn’t talk to her.
It was childish and narcissistic. There might be a whole host of reasons why Beckham didn’t engage with her, any number of which could have nothing to do with how she looked. The other major problem with her rant was that Beckham might have been seen as a monster to her no matter what he did. If he had talked to her (judging by little he had to do to conjure up thoughts of misogyny from her) she might have claimed he objectified her. Ben Domenech of the Federalist explains this best.
“Dunham claims she never wants to be objectified, until she does, and when she isn’t, she feels pathetic about it,” Domenech wrote. “But we don’t get to decide who objectifies us and when. People see you that way or they don’t. That’s called life.”
Dunham first attempted to defend herself by doubling down on insolence. First, she wrote on Twitter: “My story about him was clearly (to me) about my own insecurities as an average-bodied woman at a table of supermodels & athletes.”
Not good enough. Just because you’re insecure doesn’t give you the right to ascribe nefarious motives to innocent people.
A minute later, Dunham tried again, writing on Twitter: “It’s not an assumption about who he is or an expectation of sexual attention. It’s my sense of humor, which has kept me alive for 30 years.”
Get that? She was joking. She was joking, everyone! Someone who subscribes to the notion that even jokes have deeper meanings and can reveal truths about how terrible people really are, is now saying that when she jokes, it’s just a joke. I also don’t recall the “joke” in her comments. Those were supposed to be funny? “Haha guys a black man views all women through a lens of whether or not he wants to sleep with them. Haha just kidding!” Yeah, okay.
Finally, Dunham got it right. She posted an apology (an actual apology, not some “I’m sorry if you were offended” drivel) to Instagram, that said she owed Beckham an apology. But here still, she blamed her actions on her own insecurities, which she said stemmed from “a certain standard of beauty” that she doesn’t fit. So, all the beautiful people at the gala are to blame for her bad actions, apparently.
She closed her apology properly, however. “But I went ahead and projected these insecurities and made totally narcissistic assumptions about what he was thinking, then presented those assumptions as facts,” Dunham wrote. “I feel terrible about it. Because after listening to lots of valid criticism, I see how unfair it is to ascribe misogynistic thoughts to someone I don’t know at all.”
We’ll see whether Dunham’s admirers in the media — who turned against her for her comments last week — will forgive and forget. Many people would never get a second chance for something like this. But Dunham is generally thought to have all the correct thoughts, so she may be forgiven.
This is not Dunham’s only transgression, but it’s the only one that has gotten her any backlash. She had been lulled into thinking she could say or do no wrong — because she had gotten away with so much before. Will this change anything? Perhaps not, but it is a good lesson for any modern outrage feminist or social justice warrior that they are not safe from criticism and mob outrage.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
