Writer and actress Lena Dunham has revealed that she received “incredibly conservative” backlash for her hit HBO series Girls.
Speaking on an episode of the Girls Rewatch podcast, the 39-year-old said: “I knew enough to know kind of the direction it was going – it was impossible to ignore – and I knew that people would tell me what it meant to them, but I also knew that there were people that were angry.”
Dunham, whose most recent work includes the Netflix series Too Much, added: “There were so many people who, when the voices of – whatever we want to call it – really alt-right, or MAGA [Make America Great Again], or conservative voices, Proud Boys or whatever started to rise, and people were like, ‘I’m so shocked by the way people are talking.’ I was like, ‘I’m not’.”
The star revealed that she had seen “angry” comments about her work as early as 2012, when the HBO series first aired.
“There were so many angry, seemingly men and some women dissecting the show in these incredibly conservative terms,” she said.
“There were people in Brooklyn who found us irritating or liberal people who took issue with the access of the show, and I always had a lot more respect for that ... but there was also a big contingent of conservative people really looking at it as almost like evidence of a certain kind of moral decrepitude, and also making big judgments about our physical bodies, our sexualities.”
Dunham said the series was released at time when there was a small “window” of opportunity to make controversial television, but this ended when Donald Trump started his first presidency.
Girls, which follows the lives of four girls living in New York City, ended in 2017, after it had won a Golden Globe for the Best Television Series and a BAFTA.
Her new show, Too Much, stars comedian Megan Stalter (Hacks) as newly single Jessica, a New York City workaholic, who decides to move to London to mend her broken heart. There, she meets Felix (Will Sharpe), a walking red flag, with whom she forms an unusual and undeniable connection.
The American writer co-created the project with her husband, British musician Luis Felber, and the series is loosely inspired by their relationship.
“I think obviously the seeds of it came from our life, and then once you begin writing, you find out who the characters are and you take a journey that moves away from it,” said Dunham last month.
“I always like to write from a place that begins with the personal, because I think personal stories are universal – and then see what it has in store for me.”
