"At a Television Critics Association panel for Girls on Thursday, a writer for The Wrap asked the show’s creator and star, Lena Dunham, why she insists on appearing naked so often on the show. “I don’t get the purpose of all the nudity on the show. By you, particularly,” the writer, Tim Molloy, said to Dunham. “I feel like I’m walking into a trap where you say no one complains about the nudity on Game of Thrones, but I get why they’re doing it. They’re doing it to be salacious. To titillate people. And your character is often naked at random times for no reason.”
Dunham, likely bored by the subject which has been raised again and again since the show’s first season, brushed him off by saying her aim was realism. “It’s a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive,” she said. “If you’re not into me, that’s your problem.” Judd Apatow, who executive produces the show along with Dunham, took a harsher stance, later accusing the journalist of asking a question that was not only “sexist and offensive, it’s misogynistic.”
But Molloy was still confused, going on to write a post about the panel where he again noted his confusion over why Dunham’s character frequently appeared naked. “I don’t like it or not like it,” he wrote. “I just don’t get the artistic reason for it, and want to understand it, because I’m a TV critic.”"
I've only watched one episode of Girls. Here is a brief clip of the beginning of that episode:
He is a doctor who is separated from his wife. After they have sex, they hang out a while, and end up playing ping pong, she in the nude. Nothing sexual about it, just playing ping pong, retrieving balls, chatting.
The whole time I'm thinking, this is weird. Her body is not attractive, she is just being a regular person, apparently completely unselfconscious, as an actress, to be revealing a plain body in a graceless manner. How mysterious.
And truth to tell, I was annoyed by her awkward, homely nudity. How dare she clump around in her altogether?
What does this say about me? I need to examine my thought process. As much as Dunham annoyed me, I think she may be on to something: “It’s a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive.”
55 comments:
“I just don’t get the artistic reason for it, and want to understand it,..."
Maybe there is a premise there that's not accurate.
It's not realistic, if that's her intent. People, even familiar people, don't generally walk around naked in each other's presence in the light. Of course, I don't know, but I doubt that she even does it in the presence of friends and lovers, at least not ones that she likes.
I walk around naked all the time inside and out in broad daylight, but I'm usually alone. I often wash my dogs in the nude in my driveway, but nobody can see unless they look over the fence, or are taking off from the north runway of LAX, which only a few million people do each year. It's possible that more people see me naked annually than see her, but I never took a survey, and have yet to receive any checks.
If you do sit on the starboard side of the plane and look down, and have seen me, I'd just like to say that the water in the jacuzzi is cold, so...
Galateo would not approve of Dunham.
Bago:
"It's not realistic, if that's her intent. People, even familiar people, don't generally walk around naked in each other's presence in the light."
Very good point...Dunham wouldn't walk around nude in front of her real friends. But is there a subset of millenials that do? I doubt it.
I'm just having trouble accounting for Dunham's incredibly in your face flaunting of unattractive nudity.
(Galateo approves this post.)
One would have to watch it to either like it or dislike it, I imagine.
But I don't imagine Dunham either. I just don't.
I'm google earthing the north runway approach to LAX.
"
I'm just having trouble accounting for Dunham's incredibly in your face flaunting of unattractive nudity."
I think it's obvious. It's 90% of why the show gets talked about - present company demonstrative. It's an easy way to get attention. If you spend much time around people who need public attention like those I live around in L.A., being outrageous is kinda like a common daily greeting among many here.
Them: "Hi, I'm naked. Hi, I'm wearing a snake. Hi, I'm dressed like the opposite sex. Hi, I'm screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs. Hi, I pooped my pants."
Me: "Hi, I'm just walking here. I'm gonna get a beer, and some pizza. Have a nice day."
Must we talk about ugly naked women?
I only want to talk about pretty naked women.
"she is just being a regular person"
I've played a lot of ping pong in my day but have never seen it played in the nude.
And I certainly wouldn't want to destroy a perfectly lovely imagining of that possibility by seeing Lena Dunham.
When I talk about naked women, I'm not interested in whether their nakedness generates controversy or advances some social cause.
I'm only interested in whether the naked woman makes me horny.
I read about the treatment of that reporter was annoyed. He was berated unfairly and of course used for publicity - because WOMEN!!
I will never watch this show. I dislike Dunham and really do not want to see her naked ever.
Lets get real, sportsfans. This is Dunhams way of shoving her "in-your-face" feminista
politics "in your face" and demanding that you not only tolerate it, but nay, CELEBRATE it approvingly as the "new normal"/"post-normal" aspect of human relationships--just one step beyond celebrity moms ostentatiously nursing their way too old child in public, daring you to tell her to cover-up or wean her child.
Pointless nudity is there to garner attention. People want to know if there's a point. If you never tell them the point, or make up some obviously fake point, and then insult them for asking, then they will keep talking about it [you].
Does any of this sound like a familiar tactic?
Let's all imagine Lena Dunham doing nude snow angels. Hahaha...sorry.
Hey...big snow coming this weekend here.
Where did all those comfortable upper-middle class sophisticated celebrants of liberation think their giddy mockery of the squares was going to end? It ends in the complete and utter in-your-face gross and aesthetically revolting behavior of a Dunham. Who can't be called on her boorishness. Because why? Because to call for restraint, or heaven forfend, modesty, would make the hip withits - oh the horror - squares themselves.
I don't get all this "Eww, ugly naked Lena!" stuff. She's cute --heck, she's 25, you have to work pretty hard not to be cute at that age -- and she has a terrific smile. I'm guessing she'll look like Gertrude Stein by the time she's fifty, but right now -- why the hate? Do you have to look like a porn star to be sexy?
Dunham is exactly why modesty as a cultural norm was invented. People assume it was to prevent men from getting all crazed by a woman's beauty and sex appeal, but in actuality it was to prevent us from seeing what's under the hood before we sign the contract. In other words, to further reproduction, which Dunham is retarding. I may go gay, just from imagining it. Maybe that's her plan all along.
"she has a terrific smile"
Agreed, and that's why she should keep her clothes on. I don't hate her for getting nude, I just think it cheapens what she does, including her smile.
@mumpsimus
"Cute" ≠ "Cute naked" in Dunham's case for many, if not most people. And being 25 has nothing to do with it.
I do think she has a cute face.
Speaking of being realistic, who in the hell plays ping pong in the nude?
“It’s a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive,” she said.
How painfully earnest.
Would have killed her to have deadpanned: "Because my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard."
I don't have HBO so I googled a bit to see what all the Lena Dunham controversy is about.
Here's my take:
1. I'm not in the age or gender demographic the show is aimed at. The show isn't interesting to me, but it is interesting to other people.
2. Every generation thinks that it invented sex. And proud of their invention, they want to tell everyone else about it in all of its forms, positions and practices. Lena Dunham is no different.
3. The Trollopy Twenties is a phase some young college educated women go through before finally growing up. It goes hand in hand with too much drinking, etc. Again, nothing new here.
4. Dunham's body is what it is. No big deal, except that it may be the first time that a woman with a normal body is nude on television.
5. The body that matters is the one that you love. How it looks undressed is one of the reasons why you love it, and why it's owner loves you back. Acceptance of the normal, call it.
You know, the FIRST thing my wife and I do after having sex is play nude ping pong. Every single time. But it's really embarrassing when the daughter catches us. I mean, just TRY explaining nude ping pong to a three year-old....
If you do sit on the starboard side of the plane and look down, and have seen me, I'd just like to say that the water in the jacuzzi is cold, so...
LOL
Now my wife used to walk around nude a lot. But that was back before we had a child, and at the time we had a house with a lot of privacy. (And the same was true of our apartments we had.) The new house is just too exposed for that.
Me? I prefer having snug nads, so I usually wear something on the bottom half. But really, with decent climate control I can get people walking around as naked as they want in their own homes. (Bagoh's set-up sounds perfect.) But naked ping-pong is just weird. I mean, volleyball I get. But ping-pong?
"Galateo approves" and "Gallateo disapproves" would make for excellent tags. Pretty much every post would get one of them.
Them: "Hi, I'm naked. Hi, I'm wearing a snake. Hi, I'm dressed like the opposite sex. Hi, I'm screaming obscenities at the top of my lungs. Hi, I pooped my pants."
The first time I went to Disneyland in California (as opposed to the parks at Walt Disney World here in Florida), there was a teenage girl, probably about 17 or 18, leading around another girl by a leash. Both were clad in bondage gear. I thought, "I don't think Walt would approve of that" and "All that leather must be really uncomfortable given how hot it is" and "Really?!!?" and "Wow, California is really fucking WEIRD."
Mumpsimus, she may have a cute face, but her body is kind of blah. That probably wouldn't matter if one were into her (or someone that looked like her in person), but it just doesn't play that well on screen, especially since it is so freakin' pointless. Occassionally? Maybe. But not all the time.
How painfully earnest.
A crime in its own right.
Would have killed her to have deadpanned: "Because my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard."
I don't know what to do with that.
I'm with Icepick on the 5 quick takes. I don't have a problem with Dunham's nudity nor her use and reasoning for it on the show. I even see some of the view that the question can be misogynistic in that "why is it ok for a man to be topless and not a woman?".
What I don't get, other than her pure stupidity, was the producer berating the reporter for asking the question. He's a TV critic. Critiquing TV shows is what they do.
There's lots of stuff Hollywood puts nudity into when it isn't necessary. My wife and I just watched Flight this weekend, and I have no idea why the full frontal female nudity was needed in the very first scene. For that matter, why did The Aviator need a scene with a grown female bathing a full nude and standing young boy? I understand in Flight, the scene conveyed the pilot having an affair with the woman, and in The Aviator, suggested the premise for Hughes germophobia, but both scenes could have been done without nudity. I'm not so prudish to be against seeing nudity, but I enough of a prude not to watch what otherwise would be a good movie simply because they flash some skin on the screen.
People are uncomfortable with pointless or inappropriate nudity, even when the girl is attractive. Anyone remember that Seinfeld episode where Jerry's gf was nude all the time, including changing a bike chain and opening a jar of pickles?
Maybe Lena Dunham is actually providing a public service, especially for young inexperienced men, by getting naked on her show. That way they won't be shocked the first time they see their normal-looking girlfriends without their clothes on.
Page six says that Crack... I mean Kanye West was mad that Dunham's en Vogue.
Well that is racist. It should have been a black model.
That's Kanye's thing. Just ask Taylor Swift.
I hear that the National Action Network is planning a big protest outside of the Hellman's plant.
Something about the color of the mayonnaise. It's racist you see.
White privilege or something.
I was in a waiting room this afternoon, and I caught a little bit of one of those women's TV talk shows (The View?), and they were all joshing around about how you have a baby and you get disgustingly fat, and how your snatch gets all flabby and stretched out, and how your man won't like having sex with you as much as before, and how that's not good, but it's like totally worth it because you get a baby out of the deal, and a surgeon can tighten up your snatch for you, but when you have another kid it'll just stretch out again.
I'd say we're well past playing ping-pong in the nude.
Did a bit more internet surfing re Lena Dunham's HOB show.
I still don't get why this is a big deal. The nudity and sexuality were normal things in normal settings. It seems to me (from the clips I watched) that Dunham's character in Girls is less offensive than Miley Cyrus's twerking her bottom against what's-his-name on that award show. Dunham's character was normal, Cyrus was raunchy.
Didn't we all when we were young hang around in an apartment nude(not together, of course) for a while after a good fucking? It's kind of a normal thing, unless your parents or roommates were around.
And Ping-Pong is okay, provided you have adequate ping in your pong.
HOB = HBO
Just one more way the doctors' office tortures you; making you listen to daytime programming.
" and how your snatch gets all flabby and stretched out,"
I've been with women who never had children, and ones who have had a few. No really, I'm not joking. I have been with more than one woman in my life. Anyway this myth doesn't not hold up for me. I have not noticed any real difference. They really are amazing creatures.
I'd say we're well past playing ping-pong in the nude.
This.
I'd say we're well past playing ping-pong in the nude.
C-sections, baby!
Uh, I mean,
C-section baby! Then it won't get stretched out, or something.
Really, this is probably the most revolting bit of conversation I've been involved with, short of talking about the SOTU, that is.
But the thing with the ping-pong in the nude isn't that it's rude, or disgusting, or even rude and a turn-on. It's just kind of ... stupid.
And I have seen some pics of Dunham nude. I couldn't get past the tattoos. I see tattoos on a woman and I just think, "Here is a woman with bad judgement. Steer clear." But then I'm one of the 27 people in American that doesn't have a tattoo on my face, so I'm clearly out of it these days.
I have to roll my eyes when people claim it is "misogynistic" to only want to see *attractive* women naked. Because, of course, women are all about the naked ugly guys... oh wait, no.
Flabby Snatch is a great name for a band.
Think of the singers you could sign up.
Grace Slick.
The girls from Heart.
Maybe even Pat Benatar.
Of course the undercard could be that famous punk band "Polluted Womb."
Starring Madonna.
With Courtney Love on guitar.
And Cheryl Crow on the other guitar.
Meh. I look at naked bodies all day long. None of them look attractive to me anymore
Speaking of being realistic, who in the hell plays ping pong in the nude?
She is a piker.....To be really daring, she needs to cook bacon in the nude.
Flabby Snatch is a great name for a band.
So would "Flabia Majora" be.
To be really daring, she needs to cook bacon in the nude.
I think jumping out of an aeroplane without a chute might be less dangerous.
I agree with Darcy's 12:17
My gripe with Dunham is her sexualizing support of Obama in the 2012 campaign. I thought it was disgusting.
I have nothing more to say on the matter.
Haz's comments on this are refreshingly decent and useful.
Okay, Haz and Mumps are right on. The thing I take into account, though, is Lena's 'if you don't like it, that's your problem.' No. If she puts it out there, it's her choice. If the viewer does not like, that's the viewer's choice. Can't have it both ways.
I agree with Darcy and chickenlittle.
Esp. this by pollo - My gripe with Dunham is her sexualizing support of Obama in the 2012 campaign. I thought it was disgusting.
Agreed. A new classless low from our political culture.
Agreed. A new classless low from our political culture.
It was effective, you must give them that. The number of clueless women who internalized that message put him over the top.
But it was still a new low in overt campaign strategy.
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