The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Lena Dunham: ‘If You’re Not Into Me, That’s Your Problem’

Posted on | January 15, 2014 | 51 Comments

Was a reporter guilty of misogyny in questioning the rationale of the frequent Lena Dunham nude scenes in the HBO series Girls?

Certainly, producers of Dunham’s show answered in the affirmative. “It’s sexist and offensive, it’s misogynistic,” said Judd Apatow, while another producer spoke of her “rage spiral” toward reporter Tim Molloy: “[T]his idea that you would talk to a woman like that . . . The idea, it just makes me sort of sick.”

All the focus has been on Molloy’s Sexist Offensive Question:

“I don’t get the purpose of all the nudity on the show. By you particularly. 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.”

Amid all the rage over Molloy’s question, no one seems to be asking, “Was Dunham’s answer to Molloy gay-baiting?” Seriously:

“[The nude scenes are] a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive. . . But I totally get it. If you’re not into me, that’s your problem and you’re going to have to work that out with professionals.”

WHOA!

A man who isn’t “into” Lena Dunham has a “problem”? He needs “to work that out with professionals”? As in, reparative therapy?

Look, I don’t know if Tim Molloy is gay or not, but to say that a man who isn’t attracted to Lena Dunham needs professional help?

What the whole controversy is actually about, of course, is the feminist notion that all women are equally attractive, or at least, that it’s sexist oppression for men to prefer some women over others. Wrapped up in this egalitarian idiocy is our contemporary fetish of self-esteem, and the idea that men’s differential preferences are to blame for the psychic trauma experienced by ugly girls.

Alas, beauty is an objective reality. Beauty is not culturally imposed. In no culture do men prefer Lena Dunham to Kate Upton.

The rage expressed by Dunham’s producers is the customary indignation of the Left — “How dare you?” — when someone calls attention to facts that contradict their belief system.

Rush Limbaugh’s Undeniable Truth of Life #24: “Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.” They’ve never forgiven him for that.

 


Category: Celebrities

Comments

51 Responses to “Lena Dunham: ‘If You’re Not Into Me, That’s Your Problem’”

  1. Frankly Bored
    January 15th, 2014 @ 8:48 am

    Lena Dunham…forever doomed to be “That chubby naked girl” who lost her virginity to Barack Obama…

  2. Calvin Everhart
    January 15th, 2014 @ 9:18 am

    Pillsbury’s Dough girl!!

  3. marew
    January 15th, 2014 @ 9:27 am

    Rush was right.

    Judd Apatow’s attempt to put lipstick on that pig to justify the nudity by Dunham is a bridge too far. Way too far. Really far.

  4. librarygryffon
    January 15th, 2014 @ 9:28 am

    I seem to recall reading that Malloy has a girl friend, and he says she has the same questions about Dunham’s constant nude scenes as he does.

    Dunham herself would be a lot more attractive without that ink on her shoulder. I hate to think what it will look like in 40 (or fewer) years.

    Elsewhere someone suggested that all we needed to know about Dunham we could get get by looking at the “art” produced by her father, Carroll Dunham. Having seen a few samples by using Google Images, I’m amazed the girl is a normal as she is. He seems to have quite the anal/vaginal fixation.

  5. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 15th, 2014 @ 9:44 am

    Is this just a conspiracy to try to make straight men gay? Sort of like, okay you want to look at naked chicks on HBO check out this…

    Seriously, Girls is a boring show. I like many HBO series, but Girls is not one of them. It is like Sex and the City, with all the glamour, talent, and appeal removed (and it is not like Sex and the City had that much glamour, talent and appeal, but it had some). I will give Girls that it is well written in that it is an accurate depiction of single girls in the city. Unfortunately it is a reality that I do not care to watch.

    Here is a Dunham Rule 5 for those who disagree.

  6. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 15th, 2014 @ 9:51 am

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lqAGocma1lE/UL4d8huzxlI/AAAAAAAAJh0/2AXxO7SggGY/s1600/CD1042+_m.jpg Young Lena: “Hey dad, what are you painting?”

  7. Unix-Jedi
    January 15th, 2014 @ 10:01 am

    But what if it’s a transwoman who’s not into Lena Dunham?

  8. Da Tech Guy On DaRadio Blog » Blog Archive » The Culture Wars & Lena Dunham Breasts
    January 15th, 2014 @ 10:12 am

    […] Update: Stacy McCain opines […]

  9. ajpwriter
    January 15th, 2014 @ 10:33 am

    It seems the purpose of the question was to ask: “Are you using nudity to be salacious? To titillate?”

    A simple, “No, I’m doing it for X reason…” would have sufficed.

    But a man cannot comment on nudity without his john thomas being involved, so it’s obviously a question of Lena Dunham’s relative attractiveness.

    Which, she seems less than confident about. Obviously she needs to be nude more.

  10. Blake
    January 15th, 2014 @ 10:42 am

    It’s not like Miss Lenham can’t afford to purchase the appropriate chest accessories so as to give herself better curves.

  11. K-Bob
    January 15th, 2014 @ 10:44 am

    I never cared for Rush’s perspective on this.

    1st clue) If you look at history’s most powerful women (i.e., those with major access to “the mainstream” — whatever the hell that means), “beautiful” is not the common characteristic.

    Not even close.

    At least, not “beautiful” in the sense of fashion magazines and wank photos.

    Beauty being a relative concept, that’s clearly not what feminism is about.

    2nd clue) Have a gaze at some of those “before and after” photos on the web of women before makeup. Also look at National Enquirer’s trademark cover photos of “beautiful people” caught without makeup, with photo effects applied so you can see every open pore.

    No, plenty of feminist women can look as hot as Conservative women if they want to. So that’s not really it. The real problem is the ugliness of envy.

    That’s a form of ugliness that shines through, no matter how lucky someone is in clear-skin/no-fat gene pool.

    It’s also a major contributor to the natural beauty of Conservative women, who can go out in no makeup and still look great. They don’t wear the anger and envy and self-loathing that characterizes so many modern feminists.

  12. Aslaug Lodbrok
    January 15th, 2014 @ 10:52 am

    I read that article. 5000+ comments. 99.9% reflecting RSM point of view and one or two defenders of her point of view. it was very amusing to watch the comment section grow and grow. Their other articles had approx 300 comments. I felt a bit of hope that we still outnumber them and can turn this ship around. .

  13. Pablo
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:12 am

    Dunham? As in Stanley Dunham? Hmmm….

  14. Alan Markus
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:15 am

    the idea that men’s differential preferences are to blame for the psychic trauma experienced by ugly girls.

    As the parent of a middle school daughter, I can assure you that the trauma experienced by ugly girls is more apt to come from other girls, and not necessarily just from the beautiful ones. The boys do focus on the good looking girls, so there may be some trauma based on “exclusion”, but my point is that the boys do not tend to actively do anything to inflict trauma on the “ugly” girls.

    Been a long time since I have been in a large workplace setting, but as I recall, women would say that they found other women more judgmental to each other.

  15. Dana
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:17 am

    And here I was going to suggest to His Wombatness that he needed to do a Lena Dunham Rule 5, but you beat me to it! 🙂

  16. MeasureForMeasure
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:18 am

    I have never seen “Girls”,have no desire to and the only thing I know about Lena Dunham was her “Voting for Obama is like your first time having sex”. My interest in her couldn’t get any lower.

  17. Alan Markus
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:18 am

    Whoa – good think I wasn’t eating breakfast when I opened this page.

  18. Dana
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:19 am

    Remember, there are ugly guys out there, too, and they exist so that the ugly girls can have boyfriends.

    The ugly, unpopular guys may want to date the cheerleaders, but don’t get the chance, so, eventually, they move back into their own league.

  19. robertstacymccain
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:34 am

    Absolutely. “Mean Girls” isn’t just a movie, it’s everyday reality. Fortunately, my daughters (a) are beautiful and (b) aren’t raised on the shallow materialistic fodder of pop culture, so they were/are strong enough to resist peer pressure.

  20. Alan Markus
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:39 am

    The ugly, unpopular guys may want to date the cheerleaders, but don’t get the chance, so, eventually, they move back into their own league.

    Or else they grow up and make an appearance on “To Catch A Predator”.

  21. librarygryffon
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:03 pm

    And that’s one of the less horrific ones that I’ve seen. Which is why I didn’t link to them.
    His people have no faces, just nipples, vaginas and/or anuses. You can’t get much objectifying than that.

  22. La Pucelle
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:05 pm

    This is precisely it; the bullying girls face (regardless of appearance) is almost overwhelmingly from other girls. Sometimes boys can get into the act, but 1) that doesn’t always happen, and 2) when it does, it’s usually instigated by said boys’ girlfriends. (As we know, boys will do stupid things for a girl)

    I think the current excuse to apply the “patriarchy” conspiracy theory is that “girls are trained by society to be passive aggressive”, which…doesn’t really fit either. It’s not terribly passive aggressive to get into a fist fight with another girl at the beach.

    The fact is, girls can be intensely competitive, even in the absence of male presence. (Girls’ schools still feature more than their fair share of bullying)

  23. richard mcenroe
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:16 pm

    I know the prop master on the show doesn’t like all the nudity. Gal’s hell on the upholstery IYKWIMAITYD.

  24. richard mcenroe
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:18 pm

    “Voting for Obama is like your first time having sex”.
    You were drunk and it was a big mistake?

  25. TheOtherAndrewB
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:35 pm

    This is what I had always feared about the future: Everything that is not forbidden is mandatory.

  26. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:50 pm

    Even the late Al Goldstein did not objectify woman quite so much.

  27. Quartermaster
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:51 pm

    Pretty is a physical trait. Beauty, on the other hand, is a package deal. Elizabeth Taylor, a very pretty woman in her youth, was reputed to be a very ugly woman because of what she had made herself. There are a ton of women out there that are beautiful because of the way they treat the men in the lives.

  28. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:51 pm

    I am a giver that way…but I am surprised their are any takers.

  29. MNHawk
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:54 pm

    The ultimate expression of Rush’s Truth #24. Fat chicks in nude scenes. I was lucky to have had memories of Phoebe Cates in my youth.

    Today’s youth have had so many things taken from them, such as their very future. To take away their Phoebe Cates arising from the pool, and replace it with Lena Dunham’s fat ass and tats just seems to be inhumanely piling on.

  30. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:54 pm

    I thought crimes against style and aesthetics were punishable in Manhattan. Has anyone alerted fashion police?

  31. MNHawk
    January 15th, 2014 @ 12:55 pm

    Maybe not beautiful in the Playboy sense, but never fugly in the Lena Dunham sense.

  32. PierrePinkFlamingo
    January 15th, 2014 @ 1:26 pm

    Didn’t know who she was so I googled her. Sadly I cannot unsee the photos of her naked. She needs to go paleo for a few years.

  33. concern00
    January 15th, 2014 @ 1:27 pm

    “… it’s sexist oppression for men to prefer some women over others.”

    Oh no; I can see where this is heading. My preference for women over men is probably also a deep seated mental problem that needs professional help.

  34. concern00
    January 15th, 2014 @ 1:32 pm

    Lena was probably the model.

  35. Mojo
    January 15th, 2014 @ 2:24 pm

    Fat, stupid and over-tatted is no way to go through life, hon.

  36. Reporter Commits Grand Misogyny Lena Dunham | Regular Right Guy
    January 15th, 2014 @ 3:27 pm

    […] you to our fearless blog leader RS at The Other McCain for the FMJRA this month. Also for linking this […]

  37. ChandlersGhost
    January 15th, 2014 @ 3:55 pm

    Raaaaacist!

  38. Adjoran
    January 15th, 2014 @ 4:12 pm

    I have no desire to see her naked or hear her voice.

    The first because I am a normal heterosexual, the second because I am a thinking American.

    My preferences are easily met by avoiding her, her show, and HBO generally.

  39. Adjoran
    January 15th, 2014 @ 4:24 pm

    Two words: plastic slipcovers.

  40. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 15th, 2014 @ 8:18 pm

    Pretty implies youthful physical attractiveness with a degree of purity. Beauty can be both aesthetic and inner.

    Elizabeth Taylor was an aesthetic beauty for most of her life, but you are right she became less and less attractive due to her behavior.

  41. Steve Skubinna
    January 15th, 2014 @ 8:50 pm

    More like “I should have known better than to accept a lift from that guy wearing the clown makeup in the van.”

  42. Steve Skubinna
    January 15th, 2014 @ 8:50 pm

    More like “I should have known better than to accept a lift from that guy wearing the clown makeup in the van.”

  43. K-Bob
    January 15th, 2014 @ 8:54 pm

    Amen to that!

  44. K-Bob
    January 15th, 2014 @ 8:54 pm

    Amen to that!

  45. Garym
    January 15th, 2014 @ 8:57 pm

    Bill Maher is also a reason not to pay HBO to insult our intelligence.

  46. Garym
    January 15th, 2014 @ 8:57 pm

    Bill Maher is also a reason not to pay HBO to insult our intelligence.

  47. Quartermaster
    January 15th, 2014 @ 11:24 pm

    You can be very pretty and quite impure. What you are calling aesthetic beauty is simply another term for pretty.

  48. Junior Samples
    January 16th, 2014 @ 2:18 am

    I do like hoggin’ every now and then. Anyone have her number?

  49. Junior Samples
    January 16th, 2014 @ 2:21 am

    Or “Sharktank” as newly minted millionaires.

  50. MattRoss
    January 16th, 2014 @ 7:38 am

    At last! There is a problem that I am happy to have!