Have you ever read Lena Dunham’s Lenny letter? It can be great, informative, funny, pretentious and a bit waffly. The newsletter has hosted writings from Michelle Obama, Jennifer Lawrence, Alicia Keys and many more, and it also has a tagline - 'where there is no such thing as too much information’
But Lena Dunham and latest Lenny interviewee Amy Schumer learned that sometimes there is. The pair got together or a Skype chat - probably one of tens of chats the long-term pals (Amy has a cameo in GIRLS after auditioning for the role of Shoshanna) have had this month - and then it was all written up. An editor’s note said the interview had been ‘condensed and edited’ but it was still quite long. And it still included this, a passage referring to two men, Odell Beckham Jr and Michael B. Jordan.
We could really go on - some people like to dislike Lena Dunham because of previous racially insensitive tweets, others like to dislike her because she’s an outspoken feminist. Some people have done more to help people than she has, others have done a lot less. If you’re going to browse through comments about Lena, it’s worth taking this into consideration e.g. plenty of pro-gun white Republicans who’ve only got bad things to say about black people are using this as an opportunity to say she’s stupid.
What’s sure, though, is there’s a long-running trope of black men being sexually rapacious and it’s hurt them. Emmett Till, aged 14 in 1955, was lynched because he allegedly flirted with a white woman. Against the cultural backdrop of the Black Lives Matter movement, which is pushing for black men to no longer be killed by authorities simply because of the assumptions police make about black men, Lena Dunham, a white, middle-class woman, made an assumption about a black man, winching herself into his brain. Getting behind the controls.
When Lena saw the upset and anger online, she responded by explaining:
However, people were still angry, and her and Amy decided to meet with a black friend, Xavier Burgin, to discuss what they’d done. Lena later uploaded this to Instagram and Twitter:
Meanwhile, there’s an alternate reality where Lena had actually edited and condensed the no-holds-barred interview, which also veers on the bit-too-far when the pair agree they’re kind of cool with men making rape jokes, because that's not as bad as actual rape.
Perhaps the other story to come from this interview would have been Jennifer Lawrence’s Joan Rivers-level bleak humour. At a screening of Amy Schumer’s film, *Trainwreck *in 2015, a gunman entered and started shooting at people, killing two people and injuring nine. The perpetrator is linked to far-right groups with extreme views on race and gender.
**AS**: [When the theater shooting happened,] it was such a shock, and it shouldn’t have been because it happens, but … You know, that is actually when I felt the closest to Jennifer Lawrence, because that day she texted me, “It’s your fault.” And in times like that only jokes make you feel a little better.
**LD**: Jennifer Lawrence texting “It’s your fault” is like the greatest worst thing I ever heard.
Us too - for what it’s worth, Amy is a gun control advocate, working with charities and government to stop gun violence. While Lena and Amy lose a lot of respect when they make jokes that punch down rather than punch up, it’s worth taking a look at who’s cross at them and why. The majority of well-meaning people feel let down that a woman heralded as one of her generation’s most important voices, one of her generation’s best feminists, is so frequently offending on race. These people deserve a thorough hearing out. But the minority of people are continuing to call her out, by for instance calling her a ‘fat pig’ under her Instagram apology? Who on earth are they helping? Hmm. Maybe THIS article needs editing and condensing? Feel free to get in touch.
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In The Quest For Body Postivity, Can We At Least Be Positive?
Why Black British Women Understand The Pain Of America's Race Problems
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.