Usually the Lena internet chatter is pretty minimal when there isn't a current Girls season airing, but the other day I came across this NY Post article about why Lena shouldn't follow through on her talks with Anna Wintour about posing for Vogue. The argument is that Vogue only puts heavier women on the cover as a way of occasionally showing, "oh hey, look at us, we're edgy and revolutionary because we put an ugly chick in our magazine," and not as a way of showing that those women - who, by the way, include Oprah, Adele, and Serena Williams, to name a few - are smart or talented or sexy or otherwise worthy of being on the cover of a famous fashion magazine.
I think this logic is totally flawed, and let me explain why (did I just ask for permission to write something on my own blog? I guess I did).
Lena Dunham is the shit. I don't know her personally, of course, so my opinions of her consist largely of what I can glean from a) Girls b) her Twitter account and c) Miranda July's We Think Alone project, where every Monday for 20 weeks you received an email digest consisting of personal emails from the archives of 9 celebrities, including Lena, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and Kirsten Dunst, among others.
From what I can tell, Lena is smart, funny, hard-working, humble, and passionate. She's a feminist role model, a confident woman, and does not appear to give a fuck what you think. I love all of these things about her. And sure, though it may not resonate with me 100% of the time, I think Girls is one of the best representations of life in New York that I've ever seen on TV. Though she may not have gotten the opportunity to write, produce, and star in her own show at age 26 without well-connected parents, I fully believe that she deserves it.
Though people have a ton of negative things to say about her, most of the controversy around Lena Dunham stems from the fact that she dares to walk around in her underwear on television despite, *gasp*, not having a perfect body. Ignoring the fact that the internet seems to think she wears a size 8, which is several sizes smaller than what the average American woman wears, I have to say - so what? Unless you live in Clockwork Orange, no one is forcing anyone to watch anything. If you don't want to see a size 8 woman play topless ping pong, you don't have to! It's a beautiful place we live in, isn't it? America the beautiful! Land of the free!
Frankly, I would give a lot of things to be a fraction as confident in my own skin as Lena is. I love the fact that she writes sex scenes for her Girls character much the same as she writes sex scenes for the other, super skinny characters. Maybe this shouldn't be necessary in order to demonstrate to some ignorant folks out there that you can be a "larger" woman and still be seen as sexually desirable, but I guess it is.
You know what else apparently needs to be very clearly explained to people? The fact that "fat" girls (I keep using quotation marks here because again, despite never having seen her in person I'm pretty sure Lena Dunham doesn't fully qualify) can take themselves seriously. I laughed just as much as the next person when Melissa McCarthy's character in Bridesmaids shamelessly hits on the air marshal. The only reason this bit landed with audiences is because we're not supposed to find her attractive. While I adore that movie and I really adore Melissa McCarthy, I appreciate that Lena doesn't feel the need to constantly poke fun at herself. She and her character Hannah are full and complete individuals who have lives - and relationships and problems and other real concerns - outside of their weight. But some people seem to think that if you're heavy, that's the be all and end all of who you are. As someone who is also in the not-even-close-to-size-zero range, I can always tell the difference between someone who views me as a normal human being and someone who views me strictly as a "fat chick." While I love the moments when I'm able to make my friends laugh (and I swear there was a time when I used to be funny on my blog), I resent the occasional pressure I feel to always be funny, partially because I'm not always funny, and partially because my weight doesn't preclude me from experiencing other emotions or eliciting those emotions from others.
But back to Vogue!
I think Lena should absolutely pose for the cover of Vogue. I'm not concerned that Vogue typically only puts the ultra svelte elite on their cover, even though this is true. If they truly only wanted Lena on the cover to prove that they don't feature thin girls 100% of the time, they wouldn't need to put her (or Oprah, or Adele, or Serena) on the cover - they could feature any overweight Jo Shmo. Or Jane Shmo, I guess I should say. But they choose women who are powerful and remarkable for exactly that reason - these women are powerful and remarkable and thus, worthy of recognition. They may not look like the typical Vogue cover model, but they're still worth highlighting.
Think about it this way: let's say Lena Dunham really wanted to be on the cover of Vogue, and they initially said no because she has curves and thighs that rub together when she walks. Then Vogue reverses its decision and says yes. Should Lena then refuse on principle because they didn't initially want her? Or should she seize the opportunity to do her small part in setting, or at least continuing, the precedent that you can grace the cover of Vogue by virtue of your accomplishments and not your tiny waistline? (Even if Vogue does a kind of annoying thing and photoshops you to the point of making it look like you have a tiny waistline. Baby steps, small victories, etc etc). Is there anyone out there who truly believes that the only reason anyone would ever put Oprah in a magazine is to prove that they don't have an anti-fat stance? I mean, Oprah is kind of the unofficial queen of the world.
I'm pretty low on the spectrum of people who follow celebrity news, but even I am tired of the anti-Lena rhetoric. I'm weary of reading comments about how fat she is, how she looks like a "sea cow," or how Girls is so unrealistic because no one who looks like her could ever have as much sex as Hannah does. Why can't we applaud someone for being bold and for kicking ass despite not conforming to conventional (and bullshit) standards of beauty?
Lena, I hope I do see you on the cover of Vogue one day. I probably won't buy it, because a Target-clad lady such as myself has no interest in high fashion, but it would certainly be the first issue of Vogue that I ever flip through while standing in the aisles of CVS.
Get it, girl.
2 comments:
I love Lena's contributions to We Think Alone! More than anyone else in that project she seems bold enough to expose her personal emotions to the world and that takes a kind of confidence that I'm just in awe of and will never understand how to channel.
She clearly had the best emails on We Think Alone. Kirsten Dunst's were always one line and only marginally related to the topic at hand. I agree with you in that Lena's submissions were actually really personal, thoughtful, and showed a lot of depth.
Post a Comment
What's on your mind?