The Manosphere Report

0:23Okay. Hello. Hello. Hello. Uh, we're back.

0:31Oh, shit. We're recording. Yeah.

0:33That was fast. I mean, let's get the show on the road, you know?

0:44Oh, God. Well, see you in hell.

0:52Don't look so down, babe.

0:55No, I'm in good spirits.

0:57This is the episode everyone's been dreaming of.

1:00I'm like, okay. What? I'm just exhausted and addled.

1:07Per usual. I'm rested. Damn, good for you.

1:13And having breakthroughs left and right in psych.

1:16I know, I know. Very impressive.

1:19Already. Off to the races.

1:21Amazing. Best patient award. Uh -huh.

1:30We're going to talk about the new Lena Dunham memoir.

1:37Mm -hmm. Fame Sick. Which, she's done it again.

1:42Mm -hmm. She's a genius.

1:44Yep. Incredible. Mm -hmm. I just finished it.

1:49Have you? I was crying.

1:51I cried too. It's harrowing.

1:54Mm -hmm. I guess uplifting.

1:59Is it though? It's moving.

2:02Would you call it uplifting?

2:03It's moving. It's moving. It's touching.

2:05And she is a survivor.

2:08Of her own making. I mean, no, not, I mean, you know, in the way

2:15that we all are. Yes.

2:18I feel like, um, collective, the collective we kind of harmed her.

2:29Not me and you, but.

2:31Well, we kind of did.

2:33We actually kind of did.

2:35You know, I mean, whatever.

2:37We were part of that commentariat of haters.

2:41Were we? That had her coming back for more, that she had like, um, a

2:46dysfunctional, codependent relationship with. I mean, we weren't even as so bad.

2:51No, I don't think so.

2:53And it's not even, you know, though, yeah, she, I'm, I find the, um, the

3:02comeback to be uplifting. Yeah.

3:04Because she did really was, she was so like inordinately and uniquely hated and really

3:12and victimized. Well, yeah, the, the, the two broads who were inordinately hated and victimized

3:20were, um, Lena and Lana.

3:27And they, I guess, both came out on top in a way, weathered the storm

3:34and, and were, I think, really the two voices of our generation.

3:39Truly. People are always asking like, well, do the zoomers have, um, anyone comparable?

3:46And I just think it's too soon to tell.

3:49Cause like their history hasn't been written yet, but no, they don't.

3:53And it's just another, it was a really another era.

3:57A more innocent time. Yeah.

4:01Like the, the first portion of the book where she, her rise feels very, um,

4:09impossible kind of now. Yeah, it does.

4:13And I was, I saw somebody on Twitter being like, well, um, Ivy Wolk is

4:20the zoomer Lena Dunham. Like she is to zoomers what Lena Dunham is to millennials.

4:27And, you know, that remains to be seen because just because she hasn't really had

4:32her big break or like hit the mainstream or anything like that yet, but they

4:37do like share certain qualities, like the kind of letting it all hang out, sensibility

4:46and like body horror aesthetic and that sort of thing.

4:50I mean, Lena really. Yeah.

4:52Yeah. But she, but already she's somebody like that is coming up through like a

4:56totally different mechanism in a totally different culture and climate.

5:00that. And already, like, youngest person to ever be canceled, Ivy Woke.

5:05Yeah. And Lena was never, though I guess, yeah, there's so much I, like, forgot

5:13about. Yeah, yeah. And then, like, here, like, Lenny Letter.

5:19Yes, forgot about that. Completely forgot about Lenny Letter.

5:23And, yeah, her first collection of essays.

5:27Did you ever read that one?

5:29Yeah. Okay, I've never read it.

5:31I don't remember it that well.

5:34And it was, yeah, it was ill -timed, though obviously it did very well.

5:42But the way she describes, like, the way that attention, like, begets attention.

5:48And she just was getting so much backlash kind of left and right, no matter

5:56what she really did. Yeah.

5:58And even before, I guess, we have, like, the clarity of hindsight, I, she always

6:10felt sort of like a cautionary tale to me of, like, industry cannibalism and, like,

6:18burnout. And how she really was just, like, they took everything from her.

6:25Mm -hmm. They bled her dry.

6:29Yeah, but it's also. So, she was such a promising talent.

6:33And, yeah, it was very lucky to have the opportunity she did, which she discusses

6:38in the book. But really, it was, like, there's no, there's no way a person

6:42could have, like, withstood the amount of pressure that she was under at such a

6:45young age. Yeah, but also not just lucky, because she was, as it turns out,

6:51in spite of her biggest predestations, like, a very talented and hardworking person.

6:57Mm -hmm. Um, who really only knew how to work at, like, the expense of

7:02everything else. And, you know, crucially, she did, and I don't think she would even

7:08deny this, bring a lot of it on herself, invite it, like, let the vampires

7:13in. Which is, like, a unique facet of millennial stardom in particular.

7:20I mean, I think it's dogged all celebrities throughout time.

7:24Yeah. But she also, like, came of age and became famous as guinea pig or

7:32test tube baby of the online age.

7:36She was very, like. Like, Zoomers now are born into this life.

7:39Yeah. She wasn't really. And she was engaged with it in a way that she

7:44didn't necessarily have to be.

7:46Yeah. But. She was reading the comments.

7:48Due to the idiosyncrasies of her.

7:51Responding to them. And her personality, like, really had no choice.

7:54Yeah. And so, like, this book.

7:56It couldn't have gone any other way.

7:58Yes. But it is a tragic tale.

8:01Yeah. Tragic, but also self -fulfilling and prophetic.

8:05The book, it, like, chronicles her, quote, journey from this, like, random, unknown downtown minor

8:12Nepo baby to the voice of a generation.

8:17It, like, tracks her indie origins, her mainstream fame, her present day post -girls era.

8:26And the title, I thought, was really good.

8:29I bet she came up with it herself.

8:31It's, you know, she spent the last decade of her life famous and sick and

8:35pining for fame, but also sick of being famous and famous for being sick.

8:41Famously sick. Yeah. I mean, it's a great.

8:44I love the cover. Yeah.

8:46I love this, like, Lolita -esque kind of person.

8:50It's very Lana, actually. The kind of, like, lazy selfie.

8:56And, yeah, it was clearly just a person so, like, driven to express herself.

9:03Herself, yeah. And so, what's really cool is that what began is this, like, ironic

9:09and iconic line delivered by Hannah Horvath in the pilot episode of Girls.

9:14Ended up becoming true for Lena Dunham herself.

9:18She did become not a voice of the generation, but the voice of the generation.

9:22And she really was, like, a blueprint, like, when I was starting out in Hollywood.

9:36And taking general meetings and, like, you know, trying to forge a career.

9:42It really, I feel like I had so many meetings with industry people where they

9:50were, like, we really want, like, they wanted so badly to replicate the success of

9:56Girls. But with, like, but with, like, an intersectional, like, everyone wanted, like, girls, but

10:03Hispanic, girls, but sex workers, girls, but, you know, they wanted, like, Girls X, like,

10:11something else. Yeah. To capture, like, the lightning in the bottle.

10:15And I was with, yeah, no real successes, really, like, trying to pitch people on

10:22kind of something I could do that would be girls -esque, but just don't have

10:26that dog in me. Well, it's funny, because I had forgotten.

10:28and this in this book jogged my memory that like one of the big criticisms

10:32she received out the gate was that girls wasn't diverse enough I remember it's kind

10:39of like the the criticism that Welbeck gets a lot that um his um characters

10:46especially the female ones are too flat and that's kind of like part and parcel

10:50of their art like it has to be that way otherwise there's no um creative

10:55product it doesn't hit well had it been more diversified she would have gotten blowback

11:00for you know not being disposed to tell the stories of marginalized people as you

11:07know yeah yeah and she like describes how she sort of stumbled into television because

11:11what she really wanted to do was make indie movies and she figured it it

11:16would be like a good placeholder and jumping off point and of course like her

11:22modest and humble desire to be like a mumblecore auteur a la like Noah Baumbach

11:33and Greta Gerwig like she very quickly exceeded like transcended that at her own expense

11:41and I was thinking about relatable honestly the reason that she's the voice of a

11:46generation is that um she embodies what like friend of the pod yerk said on

11:52twitter a while back that she embodies this like defining ethos or ideology of the

11:57millennials which is passivity um it's this like overwhelming need to be seen as a

12:03good person and an overriding guilt at like making decisions or taking action or at

12:09least being seen as a person who does those things because that involves trade -offs

12:16which may reveal that you're a bad person right and like you know it's it

12:25may reveal that like you've gotten ahead in questionable ways that you did people dirty

12:33that you like didn't live up to certain expectations that you failed to consider the

12:41voices of the unheard or marginalized groups it's too much yeah honestly um I I

12:49was talking about it with um Eli and he asked me like well how is

12:53it how's the book what do you think of it and I said like you

12:56know it starts off strong and then it kind of spirals out of control and

13:00becomes like sluggish and unfocused and kind of a slog at times and he was

13:04like so like her career ah which is true and like by the end of

13:08it but no one could sustain like yeah and she's back and better than ever

13:15um but like you know by the end of it I was like tapped out

13:20from reading about her body horror health woes and much like her loved ones wanted

13:28to like take a step back and move on with my life I found that

13:34to be the most compelling part of the book I mean yeah like you said

13:38it was like moving and uh compelling but it really like takes the wind out

13:45of you I mean it was frightening yeah two things stuck out at me about

13:50this book initially that I liked um which is like her initial prose stylings and

13:58her portrayal of youth like I'm very glad that people are talking about what a

14:02good actress Lena Dunham is in addition to being a good writer and director and

14:07she had to learn that shit yeah you know on the spot while debilitatingly addicted

14:15to Klonopin yeah and having like debilitating chronic pain or whatever and she's not an

14:19actress she's not a trained professional of the acting vocation she kind of fell into

14:26that um thanks to like you know her mentors Jenny Connor and Judd Apatow and

14:33the various like exacts at HBO yeah well out of she claims out of necessity

14:39I mean I think again because of her overall attitude of passivity she kind of

14:43downplays the amount of agency she had in her own life and choices and that's

14:49the frustrating and charming aspect of Lena Dunham but people also forget like how much

14:54of a good pro stylist she is when she wants to be she's an incredible

14:57writer she's a great writer her style is like clean and cool and funny it's

15:02Jewish but also American and it's also very feminine but in a more kind of

15:09mature brassy old school style like a Joan Didion or a Nora Ephron not like

15:14um sub -stacked feminist confessional well she's yeah she's clearly very prolific yeah and I

15:23think has honed her craft yeah it's yeah her style is very like breathy but

15:30it's not breathless mm -hmm it's out of breath but yeah it's like yeah no

15:38it's very honest and very like yeah self -reflective like yeah but I guess that

15:53goes without saying because it's very it's very warm it is yeah which is nice

15:57cozy yeah she's cozy maxine but like of course she's like extremely capable at writing

16:07about herself which is her main subject but I think like if you put her

16:11up to writing about virtually anything she would do a good job of it that's

16:15what I would like to see really that's an idea for Lena Dunham I would

16:18like to see like a book or a collection of essays about something other than

16:21herself a novel yeah like fiction non -fiction whatever you name it well it would

16:27probably be auto fictional but that's also why she's such a good artist for our

16:32era yeah is because that is like the main mode right of human experience in

16:41contemporary life yes yeah and but she sort of transcends exceeds the genre she's like

16:50the exception that proves the role because generally I'm not really a fan of this

16:54genre of the memoir or like yeah anything that's like confessional or auto fictional I

17:02know those are two different things but anything that involves like the me and to

17:07give an example this is how she describes her state of mind in the lead

17:10up to writing tiny furniture which you know becomes her first break that leads to

17:14the big break of girls I had been in a period of conflict with my

17:17mother that felt to me like a biblical battle between good and evil but was

17:21really just about the fact that I never ever cleaned up after myself I was

17:26like a bit worried going into this book that it might devolve into pure self

17:31-indulgence but um I do appreciate that she really goes through the process of how

17:36the sausage was made and like those first one or two chapters like you know

17:41for people like me who are her age and her who followed her career it's

17:46very nostalgic and comforting to read her memories to have her back in the discourse

17:53and then I would assume that for people who are younger and are trying to

17:58follow in her footsteps it's inspiring even though it's so scary and harrowing well I

18:10yeah I mean I found it so relatable yeah because though my success is fractional

18:21it was like you know I really wanted to be like I'm indie mumblecore darling

18:32you know um I I met Lena when I first moved to New York yeah

18:40and it was interesting to read later in the book because as you recall when

18:49I broke up with Adam Friedland she let me stay in her house I thought

18:53of you when I read that passage about um her letting people stay in her

18:56yeah well yeah and then I realized like oh wow that's something she was doing

19:04because she felt guilty but she had no reason to feel guilty towards me no

19:11no but she felt but she talks about this like in the book which I

19:14want to get to that she she felt guilty when she couldn't meet all the

19:18um favors and requests that um random strangers and I mean I didn't I didn't

19:23ask to stay in her house obviously I would never but it was it really

19:27like helped save my life because I was like basically I was like low -key

19:31homeless and she was newly sober or recently sober so I thought she was like

19:38kind of on like an AA yeah sort of you know tip kind of paying

19:44it forward style she wasn't there that's when she was doing industry um and she

19:51just let me live there for two weeks it was one of the nicest things

19:54I ever how did that come about she just like offered it I was we

19:59were texting and I told her that I was going through a breakup and I

20:02was like you know crying on the train and I didn't know you know um

20:11and she yeah she just said like I she had like some a refuge to

20:15offer me and out of like she does she is of extremely like generous person

20:20even if it comes from maybe like a pathological people pleasing kind of yeah it

20:28also made me I like was looking back on our you know our text which

20:31is like don't go quite that far back um but yeah it made me kind

20:37of cringe to like the be like sending her links to my movie and stuff

20:41and I was like oh like you just don't realize like how because I just

20:50do like I'm such a bitch I like ignore people don't I don't feel as

20:54like beholden right I'm like I'm like a people displeaser I'm like the opposite um

21:01and it's not like that is just kind of what you do when you make

21:07something you try to like you know you have to put yourself out there and

21:12like send it to people yeah and also I think on the flip side once

21:18you've done that and other people start hitting you up you have to know when

21:23to withdraw uh and enforce boundaries which a lot of people who are like in

21:30entertainment media don't know how to do yeah i never i never struggled good for

21:41you it's something i struggle with all the time because i feel like completely like

21:45i i found that relatable i feel completely like beholden obligated to to respond to

21:50everyone at all times there's certain people who have a weird randomly will kind of

21:55lock in to me yeah and i will weirdly um yasha vin's wife uh -huh

22:05evgenia she was someone who like yeah like when she would text me i would

22:10get full i would be full of dread and like feel like i owed her

22:15something for some reason but that's rare that's like take something there's like some kind

22:20of like maybe because she's russian reminds me of my mother something something something you

22:25know like there's um but most people i'm kind of fine just blowing off yeah

22:30i mean it's a skill that you have to hone um or in your case

22:34probably not but like in general i mean it could have saved her a lot

22:38of grief yeah but she but that that's like her um it's her personality yeah

22:44and yeah it's like her genius and her tragic flaw is like the unboundariedness the

22:51generousness the generosity with which she like makes her art and like interfaces with the

22:57people in her life is also what like destabilizes her crazy and intensifies her illnesses

23:07and but also like in spite of this being like primarily a memoir about her

23:12struggles with fame i thought her depiction of youth was very universal and generous and

23:20and forgiving of like the hapless horny retards that we all were at some point

23:25there's this youthful desire that we all have as like creative misanthropes to i guess

23:32be someone and be part of something and it's unclear what that um something is

23:39which is essentially her pitch for girls at the time she says it seemed like

23:43um she was always wondering about what someone thought of her and trying to understand

23:48the position she occupied in their life and making decisions based on her abstract findings

23:53when she gets paired with her hollywood mentor and uh eventual best friend jenny connor

24:00who's the person that the hbo execs um kind of nominate as her supervisor she

24:06has this impression that they'd been separated for a lifetime and share commonalities that can't

24:11be explained which i i suppose is like a kind of shorthand for the familiarity

24:17that that sustains a lot of like productive working relationships um but it it just

24:22it's also something that like young people always feel about other people that they meet

24:30when they've been yeah when they've been like um lonely and misunderstood um and i

24:38mean when you are like up in showbiz it does feel like the sun is

24:46like shining on you yeah and like even though you might intellectually know that like

24:53these people don't have your best interests at heart there is something that like does

24:58make you want to please them because you don't want this like feeling of good

25:04fortune to go away yeah she like actually gets into that at some point i'm

25:10gonna try to pull up that passage and yeah the sad thing is like during

25:13this period she's very like sloppy and unself -possessed and and she like you know

25:18surmises that her failures with men have to do with the fact that she's too

25:21chubby and not pretty enough and they're all busy fucking like hot petite brunettes and

25:28american apparel leggings um but she it doesn't occur to her that maybe just like

25:36her personality is like voracious and consuming and demanding and but you know she has

25:43this self -awareness in hindsight of how like innocent and charming and cute she must

25:48have been she was really cute if you look at like old photos of her

25:51when she's like doe eyed and knock me and she knew i mean obviously there

25:58was like it was like dual you know there was a shadow there but she

26:03knew that she was cute and had enough like confidence in herself to do the

26:10things that she even did even if they were like driven by a sense of

26:13like inadequacy deep down yeah um i found a lot of the like uh sartorial

26:21details and like like there's two points where she mentions her like urban outfitters comforter

26:28and her urban out like it's so true yeah and when she starts dating jack

26:35antonoff like the stuff that they're wearing uh -huh and like the way that they're

26:39like exhibiting themselves uh gauchos and yeah is so like vivid and precise yeah it's

26:47like very 2009 2010 um um you she um yeah she talks about her her

26:56her name becomes a metaphor for her experience of fame because her mother gave her

27:02deliberately like old hollywood sounding name um and she then goes on to to use

27:10a series of aliases though she says it wasn't like the threat of stalking and

27:14harassment though she did have her run -ins that made her do that it was

27:18simply that she preferred to not be herself um it was only when my name

27:22entered the spin cycle of mass media surprising early classmates my family but no one

27:27more than myself that it started to feel alien like a character in a film

27:31i didn't write it became a mark of excellence and a signifier of a certain

27:35kind of millennial absurdity and finally a punchline that felt more like a slur this

27:40really mirrored the evolution of the term girl boss for me there's like a direct

27:45parallel um and then she offers up this like very true um and painful explanation

27:50of like the main theme of the book and of her life um it offered

27:57freedom in a life that seemed to anyone looking in from the outside to be

28:01lousy with it already i was it was only me who had forgotten that i

28:04had the gift of choices maybe i was dead set on eliminating them it seems

28:11like yeah her her life was at that point it became like a series of

28:15trying to identify what was ailing her eliminate her options develop some kind of fixed

28:25identity and then in typical fashion she like pulls back and obfuscates um she claims

28:30she didn't set out to be famous and instead i'm here because of an almost

28:34unrelenting drive towards self -expression which manifests as workaholism and single -minded obsession that actually

28:41runs counter to a skill skilled manipulation of fame i think here she makes the

28:47mistake of assuming that a skilled manipulation of fame has to be something conscious when

28:52it can be something totally subconscious i don't think her manipulation of fame was entirely

28:58unskilled though of course it was uh painful and costly for her well i think

29:04she was nice she just was so young and when you get an opportunity like

29:08that like the hbo series yeah like it is like crazy to go from south

29:17by southwest yeah to immediately movie premiere to like six i mean it shouldn't it

29:24wasn't six seasons at the gate but like it was so charmed and also like

29:31haunted but like the way the door is kind of like open for her yeah

29:37the kind of instantaneous cascade which happens for like nobody yeah it's like it's most

29:43people like you know spend decades like building a career to be like a showrunner

29:48and she was i'm not gonna say handed it because she did work hard but

29:54it was like you know she was exceptionally and i don't even want to say

29:59lucky because yeah i don't think it's that simple yeah lucky and prepared but it

30:05happened practically overnight she says to this day i still get a pang every time

30:08i watch a documentary about an artist and they talk about this very moment when

30:12they first became part of a creative community but nobody was doing it for the

30:16cash yet when nobody had betrayed a trusted collaborator or called someone else a sellout

30:21and all lasted only a year or so but it felt much longer or maybe

30:25wider because it was when i really fell in love with movies and it was

30:28also the first time i felt like someone worth knowing the most fulfilling part for

30:33me was like her talking about her early experiences of going to oberlin and hanging

30:38out with audrey gellman and sarah rossine meeting josh and benny safdy sharing an office

30:42in tribeca with greta gerwig who was already famous to her because she was a

30:47mumblecore star starlet that's actually how i felt about lena dunham because again we are

30:53about the same age and i followed her career from the moment even before she

30:59became a household name because she and sarah started work on this web series called

31:03delusional downtown divas right which is how i first caught wind of her like 15

31:09years ago and it stars her and her childhood friends audrey isabel haley and joanna

31:13avila's is like these like clueless desperate social climbing wannabe gallerinas who are trying to

31:20break into the art world by like hanging out at openings and parties right and

31:25it was really the most hilarious thing i'd seen and i remember being jealous of

31:29them because not because they were successful but because they were like my age and

31:35they were cool downtown new york girls and they had a close -knit group of

31:39childhood friends while i was like this broke uncool maladjusted loser who had just moved

31:44to the city from new jersey and had no friends i mean it's unviewable and

31:49you know it's funny because like later i basically came to meet and befriend all

31:57of these people in that orbit just from hanging around long enough and they they

32:03proved to be like totally nice and kind and not intimidating like good people yeah

32:09even though we like trashed them a bunch on the show originally um i mean

32:16yeah new york is ultimately pretty provincial yeah so so you she was a townie

32:20yeah and now we're townies and that's just like kind of how it goes wade

32:26has a cameo it's really cute and amazing it's like um i remember i watched

32:31it but it wasn't i wasn't in new york so it wasn't yeah so it

32:34didn't like me i sort of knew of lena i guess from yeah like indie

32:39circles but not like quite like she wasn't yeah i was obsessed with her because

32:48she was like weird and quirky and like introspective and bookish and it's one thing

32:55being that in downtown new york but it's another thing being that in suburban new

33:01jersey sure where everyone's kind of a chud or indian and so you feel like

33:05totally alienated and you just wear like yeah like striped stockings and uh drive your

33:12car at night listening to morrissey was were you in your lasagna anna phase then

33:20no i was really skinny oh when was lasagna that was like after i moved

33:27to new york um no i was like at that point i must have been

33:33like i don't know it was before i moved for grad school so i was

33:36like pretty skinny and like hot and like a goth girl way and i felt

33:42like i was like too good for provincial new jersey and needed to move to

33:47the big city so i could be friends with gay guys and have casual sex

33:53with hot guys it's interesting how much she describes her even later in the book

33:59her like sexual encounters yeah are so charged yeah um and she's so good at

34:10describing kind of like the intrigue of each one in this very like skillful non

34:22-nestalt like it feels very real yeah instead like you know like i feel like

34:31a lot of people they have like kind of a negative or ambivalent experience when

34:36it kind of like colors their perceptions of what happened to them and that's why

34:41she's a good memoirist is because she's able to kind of like take you through

34:44the experiences except i mean i want to talk about jenny yeah we should okay

34:50first of all i want to call bullshit on lena dunham for a minute because

34:52she has this perception of herself as like an ugly chubby girl who never really

34:57had much success with men and that's just not true she seems like the impression

35:01i got it seemed like she was having a lot of kind of degrading sex

35:06yeah and okay she was maybe bad at keeping a man though she kept one

35:12one pretty good one who jack antonoff though he doesn't like us but she had

35:17he should be in jail dude well i have i have a lot of takes

35:20on jack antonoff but she had she had like a good guy boyfriend for a

35:24long time um but she okay she maybe didn't couldn't keep a man but she

35:28could get him pretty easily she had no problem doing that and i think she's

35:32such an overthinker and ruminator she like attributes good for us bad for her she

35:38attributes like excessive meaning and significance uh to her problems with men which are mostly

35:48if not fake then then totally typical yeah i mean it's the it's funny that

35:58she has yeah the like a self -awareness with which she describes how like repellent

36:02these men are to other people like the guy with the cleft yeah but she

36:07was like digmatized yeah yeah yeah and then she brings him to the premiere and

36:12kind of like gains this outside perspective that he ain't the one yeah because he's

36:17like in a corner making out with some hot skinny girl with under boob yeah

36:21as it turns out even like conventionally hot girls who are just like bipping bobbing

36:27about in the big city have very comparable experiences where they're um used and mistreated

36:33by men yeah it's like self -respect kind of yeah it's not yeah it happens

36:39her descriptions of like men and sex are a lot more magnanimous and neutral and

36:45not accusatory like compare this to something like my body by emily radichkowski which is

36:50much more acrimonious and hostile in its treatment of men to the point that it

36:55feels kind of unfair and it's interesting that yeah she's describes other people kind of

37:01characterizing her and having this idea of her which i think is true as like

37:07a man not true that she is but like that people think this about her

37:10that she's like a man hater um well probably because she's a feminist but of

37:19the girl boss era so it kind of comes with the territory to me she's

37:23pro -abortion well what gets the most like her relationship with jenny is really the

37:30one that is like the most ink is spilled over the most tea and the

37:35one that she like clearly like clearly like affects her the most yeah um well

37:42it it do be like that oh but before we get into jenny i just

37:46do i do want to say jenny i just do want to say that delusional

37:47downtown divas provided like the blueprint the formula for girls everyone should watch it it's

37:53like on vimeo it's like proto girl yeah because it's like a foursome of delusional

37:58and annoying chicks like stumbling through through life trying to um become famous um and

38:04she basically like took that format and broadened it from like the insular and narrow

38:09domain of the art world by like fleshing out the characters into these relatable millennial

38:15archetypes versus pretentious like urbanite caricatures and she makes the storylines obviously more complex and

38:24drawn out and one crucial element that she decided on with her mentors jenny connor

38:29and judd apatow was that the girls shouldn't be from new york well hannah specifically

38:33because that would dead in the conflict but i think also make it way less

38:38accessible so they made her from the midwest which she there is in her personality

38:46like though she has these kind of like classically jewish qualities like being successful in

38:53the entertainment industry and like you know self -effacing highly verbal and neurotic you know

39:00she mentions when she started dating jack he likened her to like a woody allen

39:05there's interesting yeah like moments where she mentions woody allen in this like nostalgic way

39:10um but there is also something like very waspy yeah because her dad's a wasp

39:20her dad's a wasp um and her the her the her like not it's she's

39:33not it's not politeness exactly but like the the people pleasing the like hospitality the

39:42accommodation of others is very um hannah horvath midwestern but like it you know it

39:53it it makes sense it makes a lot of sense yeah but as you say

39:57that it also dawns on me that um you know the rules don't apply to

40:01jews now you know there's like a common thread in the discourse that you know

40:06they're um hypocrites and double dealers who um insist on being seen as the chosen

40:14ones while also uniquely victimized yeah they yeah they um cry out as they strike

40:22you or whatever but the rules also just technically like functionally don't apply because among

40:29the jews like the rules that apply to like feminism and confessionalism among jews don't

40:36necessarily commute to the rest of the public which is why they historically like do

40:40make like better memoirists and they have a more equitable breakdown of like male versus

40:48female memoir writers i mean woody allen larry david like these guys are basically of

40:56a similar ilk where they're talking about themselves and their experiences yeah you can say

41:03like maybe in a more like detached and masculine way but not even no i'm

41:07not even barely larry david definitely not yeah and woody's like also workaholic you know

41:15movie a year famously so he like just and maybe by virtue of being a

41:21man like addresses like a wider you know he has like a more he casts

41:25like a wider net but his best movies are his like auto fictional ones yeah

41:31and like another person who made his career on the bit that he's uniquely unsuccessful

41:37with women while being pretty prodigiously successful with them i mean so true and because

41:44she's a micheling she is going to be eternally in conflict with herself she's got

41:50hybrid vigor yeah and she's she's not like i like don't think of her as

41:56jewish i don't either she doesn't she's not yeah she's not very like jewish coded

42:01actually even though she is in these in these significant ways she's not like i

42:06don't really think of her actually as me neither like audrey gelman and jack antonoff

42:10are way more jewish to me well they're full they're full on yeah but some

42:15yeah like the genetic expression in her really is like mixed and special um um

42:25yeah and i guess as you were saying so that despite all of her supposed

42:29problems with men the two big major conflicts she has in her life with other

42:35people that seem to leave a real like dent whatever mark on her character are

42:39with um her mother laurie simmons and her friend jenny connor well her mother of

42:46course yeah well not necessarily because you know she could have had daddy issues but

42:51she has mommy issues she's very much like um a daddy's girl and she she

42:56seems just coddled by her parents in general but her mom appears as a somewhat

43:02cold and um selfish figure who really knows what to do and does what's what's

43:13required of her and really sees her daughter in moments of crisis very my mom

43:21coded relatable i think yeah there she's she of course like anyone will have like

43:28blind spots but basically writes about her mom i think pretty compassionately and yeah and

43:36tiny furniture came out of not exactly but the she finds her mom's old diaries

43:45and spends like a summer reading them and then her mom ends up really helping

43:51her get tiny furniture made yeah and really like goes out on a limb for

43:56her yeah like in defiance of what she would expect from her mom she discovers

44:01that this um this woman who can't register an emotion beyond hostile bemusement was actually

44:09not so dissimilar from her this was after all the woman who told me to

44:13not hold her hand on the way to fifth grade because it would only increase

44:15my social isolation here she was she talks how she was like lonely weight obsessed

44:21angry violated indiscreet horny over hundreds of pages of these journals her parents are like

44:27both portrayed as these hardscrabble downtown art loft bohemians who know like art critics and

44:33queer theorists and cool gallerists but don't actually know anyone in hollywood um but except

44:39the one guy that her mom does know there's a couple moments where her mom

44:43like calls in yeah she calls in favors a favor to the founder of uta

44:48when it comes time to get her an agent but she's very bruised she's very

44:53bruised by the nepo baby stuff and as are her parents kind of because they're

45:00like we're hand to mouth we you know we we're bohemians just because we live

45:06in new york doesn't mean that we like we're really like handed anything or handed

45:11you anything well yeah i believe her i believe her her parents but it does

45:18it does just it's you can't deny that like growing up in new york well

45:24it's an advantage yeah yeah but plenty of people like squander that advantage of course

45:28of course i'm not that's not to diminish yeah and her accomplishments her talents one

45:34of the most um like uh i guess uh painful and difficult parts of the

45:42book is when she talks about her relationship with her parents and how it evolved

45:46over the course of her fame and struggles um she says that her successful artist

45:53parents became known as lena dunham's parents which stopped being cute and charming when her

45:58father's work started getting highlighted in articles as clear evidence of the kind of left

46:03-wing perverts who produce a sex obsessed narcissist and her mother stormed out of an

46:08endometriosis gala because um her work and identity were now coming in second which lena

46:14finds absurd given like the comical nature of the event itself she talks about how

46:21her fame began to impact not only her parents lives directly but um their identity

46:28as artists in indirect ways uh it became clear to me quickly that you couldn't

46:34ask your parents how your fame made them feel not directly it involved too much

46:38shame because it forced him her dad to admit how much of their own self

46:42-image rode on their own highly specific public identities niche as they were to admit

46:47that my success disarmed them was to admit the most vulgar and wanting parts of

46:52themselves it's hard to express the mixture of pride and loss that comes along with

46:56having a child become famous especially in a household where their careers are the driving

47:01force of our lives where we traveled who we socialized with what we valued what

47:05we disdained one of the things we disdained though we never really said it out

47:09loud was the commonness of wanting to be seen we could speak abstractly about wanting

47:14the work to be seen but the work their art wasn't them and then yeah

47:20because her work is so closely linked to herself as like the vessel through which

47:25it manifests in the world it reverberates through her life and it's like yeah the

47:31part where she's not talking to her mother after the endometriosis gala was really like

47:37heartbreaking but it would come to that yeah you know she's clearly so close with

47:43her parents continued to kind of live with them longer than she needed to and

47:50like yeah maintained definitely with her dad but and i think her mommy issues are

47:56part of the reason why she had this toxic relationship with jenny who was kind

48:03of like a surrogate mother for her when she like went to los angeles um

48:10and yeah who was assigned to be like her mentor but obviously would psychologically occupy

48:17like a maternal role in her life yeah and it was like the mother she

48:22earned not the one that she was born with yeah which made it much more

48:25significant and she discusses yeah and like the fracturing of her identity and relationships as

48:30she becomes more famous um this delusional feeling that you could like escape where you're

48:37from and like choose a new family that you could like succeed your you way

48:42into um that you could replace your family with this new family do you think

48:48her sister trundo is a reaction to her fame no it is weird how both

48:53of these people's daughters ended up removing their female sex organs like lena removes her

49:00uterus and then her ovaries and um cyrus removes her breasts or his breasts sorry

49:08um yeah and it's interesting um we should talk about jenny that like in her

49:14characteristic self -effacing way lena has a very hard time attributing like ambivalent or negative

49:20intentions to those closest to her like not her mother but like to cyrus to

49:24jack to jenny she um she says it's not just that um cyrus felt intruded

49:31upon by her fame or the gelatinous way in which she took up space but

49:36um obviously there must have been some jealousy and rivalry i think they i don't

49:43know i really believe her in the way she describes just like the constitutional differences

49:51like i don't think cyrus wanted fame in the way that lena did so it

49:58wasn't like jealousy per se it was like just a it was like i mean

50:04i don't have a sibling but just like a difference in in temperament and when

50:10one person's personality and preferences seem to take precedence and then just have such a

50:18influence on people's lives you know inevitably it's going to cause discord yeah i don't

50:29even mean jealous that um she became famous but like jealous that in her own

50:36um family and social circles she was the one who took up all the space

50:41she always got what she wanted i guess resentment maybe more than jealousy but that

50:49seems natural also to like especially because lena does work in this like super confessional

51:02mode obviously the essay she wrote that ends up getting like spinning out into this

51:12sort of like crisis about how she quote molested her sister yeah and lena didn't

51:18have the foresight to like anticipate that and it's just like she just seems yeah

51:27like a real genius who like expresses herself at the expense of you know other

51:32people and they're kind of just collateral yeah i think sylvia plath's mother said this

51:38about sylvia plath which is like you know well you know she really like fucked

51:43over and betrayed a bunch of people in the course of her like consuming all

51:49-encompassing need to express herself at all costs people never talk about the collateral damage

51:56that the friends and family incurred um real quickly this is my favorite part honestly

52:03the whole my favorite anecdote um and it's when she's doing um the girls press

52:16tour i think after the first season she says i knew girls was going to

52:24be misunderstood from the time we stepped out onto stage as a foursome it was

52:28on the view where barbara walters presided in a series of suits so well cut

52:33they could have maimed us there's a lot to talk about on the show she

52:36said backstage i mean anal sex in the first episode do you mean sex from

52:41behind i asked yes she said nodding anal sex i still think about this all

52:46the time who told barbara walters that the only kind of sex you could have

52:49from behind was anal what did her 20s look like as a result that was

52:58crazy and hilarious yeah that was such a good detail and you really like lena's

53:11voice really is so strong you like can really and because she's such a good

53:15writer but you really like you can really like picture that uh -huh interaction uh

53:20-huh and like hear it even like in her voice yeah i can't do a

53:27good impression anal sex i'm not even gonna try uh what do you mean anal

53:32sex what do you mean um so okay jenny mm -hmm so to preface this

53:43also um another it's like minor but critical issue i have with um i guess

53:52lena dunham's mode is that you notice in all of her um descriptions of people

53:59and then like the gratitude page that comes at the end of the book is

54:04how like glowing and complimentary she is of everyone in a very the lady doth

54:11protest too much way but that's what you do in a gratitude page now yeah

54:16but even before that like in the book itself like she has like um positive

54:21praiseworthy descriptions of these various people that come in and out of her life mostly

54:29women that because of how like or gay guys or gay guys because of how

54:35yeah like glowing and praiseworthy they are they almost feel like she's compensating for a

54:40certain repressed emotions that she can only get at passive aggressively and it's very clear

54:47that like um jenny connor is like a very um formidable and problematic force in

54:56her own right because she obviously also you know clearly resents lena because she needs

55:04her financially and reputationally like um when lena muses for the millionth time that she

55:11needs a break from work and jenny sarcastically quips or you can take the rest

55:15of the year off i guess my kids can just pay for their own college

55:18education well that's towards the that's like towards the end of their working relationship but

55:23the first sort of though she well okay it's very very interesting with jenny because

55:31um reading it like kind of taking it at face value you know sort of

55:38like immersing yourself in the memoir as like a record of experience you are like

55:46jenny seems like a monster yeah she seems like selfish and greedy and kind of

55:54um yeah punishing but then like adulating when it suits her manipulative um not in

56:05the way that lena is manipulative because she's a people pleaser who wants to be

56:08liked and who wants to be in people's good graces um but because uh she's

56:14like a ruthless operator and pragmatist who wants to ring what she wants and needs

56:22from this new innocent talent i know but and i was really like so finally

56:34the last interaction they have is in they when lena gets sober and gets you

56:41know it's like getting a hold of herself she tells jenny that she she's not

56:46a healthy person for her to be around because of all the things that transpire

56:50between them in the first in the you know the rest of the book um

56:54and then she only wants to talk to her in a therapeutic setting and then

56:58they have this like kind of like final mediated reckoning with the therapist where lena's

57:03hoping that obviously their professional relationship has become very toxic for lena um but she's

57:14hoping that they can like work through it to come out the other side of

57:20the friendship and that's like clearly not to mend their personal relationship yeah um because

57:27she's at capacity jenny is like a walking talking at capacity meme i it's very

57:40telling to me the way that lena is able to detail uh -huh with um

57:48so much like precision she has this like it's almost as if she has this

57:55like running ledger yes of every time that jenny and if you really thinking back

58:03on it upon finishing the book so much of what lena feels wounded by is

58:12a little narcissistically uh -huh like jenny failing to mirror her yes that she like

58:21wants something from jenny she wants personal validation um that jenny gives her sometimes yeah

58:29and jenny gives her personal validation strictly in the context of a personal relationship though

58:34she leads her to believe and possibly believes herself that they have well yeah there's

58:40the there's the a very damning story where um i guess maybe after the third

58:46season of girls lena gets a very generous offer uh -huh from hbo as the

58:53you know principal talent uh -huh and jenny kind of manipulates her into disclosing what

59:00the offer is and tells lena not to take it unless they match jenny jenny's

59:09salary to her in the contract so they're basically negotiating a joint contract that's somewhat

59:15opaque because yeah lena brings the name recognition i mean and she's the celeb she's

59:22the talent and as a brand but she also bears more she has more like

59:30what's clear in the book is you know jenny doesn't have to bear like the

59:37purse she's the talent and she's the talent and she's the talent and all she

59:38asks you know that this is cost that lena does right yeah but jenny i'm

59:41i'm not even sure how much manipulating jenny had to do because it's conceivable that

59:46lena saw it coming and wanted to cater to jenny's demands by disclosing her portion

59:52of the contract and basically she ends up walking away from the contract because the

59:56execs can't match jenny's salary to hers and then they all really take from her

1:00:04bonus to compensate jenny something like that but then yeah there's someone it's unclear how

1:00:13much of this is like really jenny's doing versus lena's perception obviously we're only getting

1:00:18really one side of the story but she basically starts goes cold yeah on her

1:00:23and has this party um where she's like icing lena out and then when lena

1:00:32tells her that she's said no to the contract she hugs her and says like

1:00:36you're my soulmate yes and there are there are plenty of incidents like that throughout

1:00:40even before that when lena gets a book deal with a handsome advance yeah um

1:00:48during i think the second or third season of girls jenny um takes it personally

1:00:55and i think it wasn't even in advance i think it was after the book

1:00:58comes out no it was it before she started work on the book because jenny

1:01:03says like well i hope this won't take you away from your main focus and

1:01:09purpose which should be the show though it's unclear how or whether that would even

1:01:15be a problem because it seems that lena can she said she's already multitask yeah

1:01:21of the and then there's the first um conflict where lena basically catches wind of

1:01:30the fact that jenny may not merely be a friend but could possibly be an

1:01:37adversary um which is during like the early days of filming girls when jenny like

1:01:45takes her aside and corners her and says like hey you know you're too pretty

1:01:50and too skinny and you need to eat something and this is coming from a

1:01:56woman who's obviously as it turns out who she describes herself as like a swarthy

1:02:00jewess with like heavy eyebrows but is obviously has her own struggles with weight is

1:02:08very clearly um a person with a lot of vanity likes dressing there's she loves

1:02:15throwing parties she's much more social lena sort of like charts her um like standing

1:02:24in jenny's eyes with whether or not she's invited to the parties i mean fair

1:02:31yeah you know because all these you know they'll be at lunch somewhere and some

1:02:37starlet will come over and be like see you on saturday at the party i

1:02:43mean it's painful yeah it's awful and i'm not like a jenny defender i don't

1:02:50you know i'm not either you i mean you can see it from her um

1:02:53perspective like she's a divorced mother of two she's like um a self -made and

1:03:02um self -centered self -seeking girl boss who has like a string of boyfriends she's

1:03:10trying to make ends meet put her kids through private school yeah she has like

1:03:17a vested interest in lena that's not um it's not it's never like an e

1:03:24like a even -sided relationship yeah um there so and finally um yeah they have

1:03:38this like blowout that um comes to you know a head at the therapist's office

1:03:45but even before that there was um this very telling episode hold on i'm gonna

1:03:54pull it up um well she's very yeah put upon by lena's like sickness yeah

1:04:04well which she like in turns is like supportive about but then resents her for

1:04:09and it's like not she doesn't and this goes back to like the mommy issues

1:04:16that the recurring problem with jenny is not only that she like fails to mirror

1:04:23lena and her attachments but that she doesn't love her unconditionally yeah that she's not

1:04:29her her mother um and she's not all you know obligated to love her unconditionally

1:04:38she clearly has fondness for her but it's very very very conditional yeah well yeah

1:04:46of course and this like comes down i think to like lena's central conflict which

1:04:50again like her account of herself is very passive and lacking in accountability in spite

1:04:55of her considerable self -awareness you know throughout the book she just lets things like

1:05:00happen to her like adam driver like her hurling a chair at the wall when

1:05:03she forgets her lines um um or buying her brooklyn heights uh apartment that jack

1:05:11antonoff now lives in with margaret quali like sight unseen she buys a lot of

1:05:15apartments sight unseen um developing a clonip and addiction like casually dropping that she was

1:05:20raped but you don't really like randomly have like judd apatow and nora afron cold

1:05:25emailing you being like hey i want to be your friend and mentor but like

1:05:29i said yeah she's obviously like bright and savvy enough to know what she wants

1:05:33and to operate in the world but for some reason she feels this like tremendous

1:05:37sense of guilt over it it's not that she's passive it's that she has a

1:05:41problem being seen as active because again this would maybe imply that she's not entirely

1:05:48a good person or possibly a bad person you know we mentioned she expresses this

1:05:55anxiety several times in the book and attributes it even like how long her and

1:06:01jack maintain a clearly failing relationship is that neither of them want to be seen

1:06:07as bad people that he wants so much to be like a good guy that

1:06:14he can't leave her in the throes of her like sickness yeah and then she

1:06:20in turn feels so validated by being chosen by a quote good guy uh -huh

1:06:27that she also can't really like cut the cord yeah um and then it's clear

1:06:33that like in moments where like even you know psychopaths who she owes nothing to

1:06:44like might perceive her as being uh ungenerous or unkind uh -huh like motivates her

1:06:54to betray herself basically yeah her her relationship with jack antonoff is is um funny

1:07:02because he you know he seems like a manipulative uh non -threatening like over socialized

1:07:08type who flatters women um and tells them what they want to hear his whole

1:07:12thing as she describes being like available and conscientious in his personal life and you

1:07:17know kind of twee adorable and safe in his personal aesthetic yeah um when but

1:07:24when she suggests having a baby as their relationship is falling apart um he lists

1:07:28off a myriad of things that would have to change before he would even consider

1:07:32having a child with me that's evil and manipulative because you either want to have

1:07:36a baby uh with somebody or you don't in which case you shouldn't drag it

1:07:42out in the first place which is to say nothing of getting into it of

1:07:45course but he needs jail time yeah eventually he decides he's allergic to something unidentified

1:07:50in her parents home to avoid going there um she likes him because he's he's

1:07:56at least um kind of superficially unlike your typical indie sleaze bad boy she says

1:08:01looking back it's hard to understand why two people with seemingly endless options financial freedom

1:08:06and almost nothing that they still enjoyed doing together besides talking shit about the occasional

1:08:11third party would simply not break up but one of the last things we still

1:08:16shared was the sense that our ability to keep the relationship going was directly proportionate

1:08:20to our inherent goodness jack had always placed a heavy premium on the idea of

1:08:24being a good guy so wanting to be seen as a good person is a

1:08:31you know common and unremarkable trait in women but it's a total red flag in

1:08:36men jail time jail time yeah and as you said she had gotten it in

1:08:42her head that retaining the love of this so -called good guy was the ultimate

1:08:45sign that she was not the detestable toxic monster that like the internet said she

1:08:52was and yeah and then there's clearly this attachment to their like salad days yeah

1:08:57where they had almost like a cbk jfk jr kind of you know they were

1:09:03like uh they were both like their stock was up yeah he had that song

1:09:09on the radio she had the hbo show and they like like found each other

1:09:16and felt that people were though i guess not online but you know that they

1:09:24had they were like they were like bonded yeah i mean they were like trauma

1:09:28bonded through the experience of gaining young fame yeah she talks about how she felt

1:09:35a tremendous sense of guilt for being famous and responded with unsustainable levels of availability

1:09:41and generosity that like inevitably turned to resentment at all the favors and requests that

1:09:46she had to field from strangers and acquaintances the first explanation she offers as you

1:09:52mentioned is that she feels like if she didn't give away what she had been

1:09:56given like alms to the poor that it would invite bad karma and be taken

1:10:01away from her and the second more plausible explanation is that she didn't want to

1:10:05be known as a flake or a snob or ungenerous by people talking at parties

1:10:09or whatnot i could handle a lot of accusations but the idea that i did

1:10:13not give wasn't one of them um she she talks about how it was impossible

1:10:22to count all the people hitting her up um either for requests for unrealistic favors

1:10:28or meltdowns over perceived slights um she she can't say vitamin and other for me

1:10:33yeah so she's okay oh i really i don't know she's doing that There is

1:10:33some relative by marriage who like now divorced, she says, who like made some indie

1:10:39movie that he wanted her to go to.

1:10:43And when she wasn't like enthusiastic, like berated her and made her say sorry and

1:10:49like show up. I'm sure most of this is not even in the book.

1:10:54Obviously, it can't be. But there's like probably like hundreds, if not thousands of these

1:10:58incidents. And she says that she had made the mistake of assuming that these people

1:11:02were otherwise sane until they prove that they obviously weren't.

1:11:06She and she observes that if you respond with like contrition to ignored or missed

1:11:10asks, like if you say I've been busy, please forgive the delay.

1:11:14They will always take you back.

1:11:17Except there's always strings attached because the minute that you're back in their good graces,

1:11:21you owe them something again.

1:11:23And she talks about how she understands that other people may have a more well

1:11:28-adjusted relationship to fame, but she's not one of them.

1:11:31And, you know, in another classic moment of self -awareness, she says, I wanted to

1:11:35have my cake and eat it too, to have this big impossible life and to

1:11:38be loved by everyone I met in the process.

1:11:40It reminds me of this really good tweet that I saw that said, well, you

1:11:43know, Lena Dunham's problem is that she's a prophet who wants to be loved as

1:11:48an icon. And icons are loved in their time, but eventually discarded, whereas prophets are

1:11:53hated in their time, but eventually vindicated.

1:11:55And you can't have it both ways.

1:11:57I mean, she sort of is.

1:11:59She did manage to manifest it Jewishly.

1:12:03But millennials in general have this problem of wanting to be liked and caring about

1:12:07what others think. They want, like, total control with no responsibility.

1:12:12There's this really cute line where she...

1:12:15Also, feministically, I'll say, you know, men are not as afflicted.

1:12:19Yeah. They have more license to be, like, difficult or calloused or impossible.

1:12:28Yeah, people expect that because they're disagreeable, which is why, yeah, Jack Antonoff is so

1:12:34creepy and bad. Like, I don't think anyone's hitting, like, Larry David up.

1:12:39I mean, obviously, people hit him up for favors, but they're definitely not as, like,

1:12:44slighted. Yeah, they're like, hey, can you come to my son's bris?

1:12:47Because, like, he just has more leeway to be disagreeable.

1:12:53Well, because he built his reputation on it, probably in a self -protective way, partially.

1:12:59Yeah, there's this line where she even says, I was never even, like, a habitual

1:13:03drug user. As, you know, drugs are mainly taken to impress others.

1:13:07Even when you view her, like, chronic illness in this light, which she's actually very

1:13:14honest and aware about, you realize it was, like, partly a means for her to

1:13:19finally, like, detach and disconnect from all of the responsibilities she had while getting the

1:13:28attention and sympathy that she desperately needed.

1:13:33In a way that she felt other people couldn't call her on or guilt her

1:13:38for. Which they still do.

1:13:41She says, I could sense that Jack felt sure that my illness was as much

1:13:45a matter of refusing to try as anything else, and perhaps he thought I'd found

1:13:49a loophole for doing exactly what I wanted to anyway, hiding in bed, away from

1:13:53the needs and thoughts and requirements of the outside world.

1:13:56And then later she acknowledges, I'd sniffed this weakness in women and hated what I

1:14:00smelled, a pathetic choice, a desperate bid for attention and empathy, while not doing anything

1:14:04to deserve it. But there's a moment where Jenny, like, frustrated and exasperated, calls Lori

1:14:12and says, I think this illness is in her head.

1:14:18And Lori shuts her down, not because she disagrees necessarily, but because she's the final

1:14:26boss of criticizing her own daughter, which is fair.

1:14:28And she resents the imposition of this other woman trying to, like, level or reason

1:14:32with her. Well, the thing about psychosomatic illness is that the body and the mind

1:14:40are connected. Keeps score. The body literally keeps the score.

1:14:46Of course, yeah. And symptoms do manifest that are real, even if they have psychological

1:14:56origins. And I'm obviously, I mean, the, another huge takeaway, the most, the most horrifying

1:15:05part of the book is when she is taken to that doctor who fingers her

1:15:14and ruptures her cyst. And that's not even, like, her doctor, a doctor she chose,

1:15:22that's a doctor she's going with, with a producer from HBO for, like, insurance purposes.

1:15:28Because they want a second opinion, because they don't trust her doctor.

1:15:31No, no, because it's some, like, it's, like, a bureaucratic thing.

1:15:35And they didn't have, like, an ultrasound that day.

1:15:38And so, he had to, like, manually feel around her cervix.

1:15:42And, like, I mean, that was horrible.

1:15:47Yeah, yeah. But the takeaway overall is, like, the failure of, like, doctors over and

1:15:56over and over. Mm -hmm.

1:15:59And the. insidious is a like metal medical intervention well she especially as it pertains

1:16:07to like women's health of course and and she as a feminist um pays a

1:16:17lot of lip service to that line of argument but it is in part something

1:16:23that she brings on herself though of course it must be pointed out that um

1:16:30while her illness might be partly in her head or um exacerbated by like um

1:16:38stress and inflammation like cortisol spiking that she exposes herself to like habitually over and

1:16:46over again it's no less real like her symptoms are real her suffering is real

1:16:50that's the big issue with treating um patients of psychosomatic disorders as um a friend

1:16:57of mine who shall remain anonymous uh has pointed out oh yeah um so it's

1:17:05not it's not like um a cruel moralistic judgment to point out that your psychology

1:17:14is obviously linked to your physiology sure and that you are partly responsible well you're

1:17:24not managing certain symptoms and episodes which she's like historically bad at i don't think

1:17:34you're necessarily responsible the same way you're not like responsible for like a mental illness

1:17:41and though she does eventually she kind of connects the dots with the what's it

1:17:46called ellers -stanlow syndrome um that was a remarkable interesting footnote because i think it

1:17:55was um a doctor friend or maybe just a um like the wife educated um

1:18:03civilian who was a woman that um jenny's ex -husband ben had met on hinge

1:18:11and had gone on a few dates with right right right so also jenny is

1:18:16like so a formidable monstrous because she she's keeping she has the succession of boyfriends

1:18:22but is keeping her ex -husband on deck as like her husband was the ceo

1:18:28of lenny letter so it's like super incestuous but this woman writes her and she's

1:18:34she sort of like dreads it groans she's like another random um friend of a

1:18:40friend yeah she's like she wants something she wants to stay in my apartment yeah

1:18:43she wants she wants to pitch a script yeah for a reality show some bullshit

1:18:49and this woman is like hey like she sends her like the nicest email you'll

1:18:54ever get because it's um simple and neutral and it wants nothing it's just informing

1:18:58her hey i've um heard you talk about your symptoms and i've read a lot

1:19:04about this and maybe you have this congenital collagen disorder that makes you prone to

1:19:11um chronic pelvic pain hives inflammation hyper anxiety mimicking symptoms and she mentions how she

1:19:23had done this video of her vogue where she was like bending her fingers back

1:19:26which i guess is also like yeah you're like hyper flexible in these ways and

1:19:31have like very elastic skin which is why she looks so good now it's kept

1:19:36her skin you know you know sometimes those jewish congenital disorders um do you end

1:19:42up benefiting you in weird imperceptible ways even as they cut you down well it's

1:19:49like having acne makes you look more youthful because your skin's so oily you know

1:19:53you suffer but then there's a little bit of a payoff um but that seems

1:20:02really like that sounds like she has that yeah it's a syndrome right not a

1:20:07disease so it's a constellation of symptoms right of unclear origins and she has yeah

1:20:15there's that part where she gets the she meets this like turkish doctor at the

1:20:20endometriosis gala who's very um he says that the when they remove when they do

1:20:31the endometriosis surgery um they i forget exactly the details but it's like he's like

1:20:40they're just creating more scar tissue uh -huh which sounds very real you know i've

1:20:46been illich mode yeah it's like he's like but i can perform this surgery on

1:20:52you in a way that will actually like like alleviate your symptoms instead of like

1:20:56causing all these horrible new ones yeah but he says but generally like the the

1:21:01western medical establishment will do perform all these interventions to um temporarily alleviate your pain

1:21:11but create more pain down the line which is typical um that was my favorite

1:21:18part of the book because this guy takes a hard line against giving her a

1:21:24hysterectomy and says in this woo woo because this guy takes a hard line against

1:21:28giving her a hysterectomy and says in this way that's the new age eastern medicine

1:21:30way the the soul of the woman is in her uterus and everybody's gonna think

1:21:39i'm crazy but that's so true it's it feels true because i don't know if

1:21:49any other ladies relate to this i don't know if you relate to this but

1:21:52whenever i've felt true fear or pain in my life i feel it in the

1:21:58womb i mean like a cute stuff like if if i'm about to be grazed

1:22:05by a vehicle or somebody is like pursuing me down a dark street that's where

1:22:11i feel it it's crazy interesting yeah i don't know why and it's like this

1:22:17um kind of nagging needling um ice cream scoop feeling well don't you think the

1:22:32amount of like fear and stress that lena was exposed to yeah would make sense

1:22:40that she would want that organ yeah it ate away at her soul which is

1:22:46housed in the uterus yeah so true it makes sense it does that you'd want

1:22:52you'd want that thing out um but as she details she continues obviously to have

1:23:00ailments even after after the hysterectomy she goes on to get one and then the

1:23:08other both ovaries removed as well which i yeah i'm my she continues to ovulate

1:23:16and then she even begins to lactate which is right well it was also crazy

1:23:22to me that she post hysterectomy having all the problems that she does then tries

1:23:30to freeze her eggs and have a baby which not the having a baby part

1:23:36but the like i mean after all the things that happened to you that you

1:23:46would trust some like fertility doctor who clearly you know you're gonna they're trying to

1:23:54make money no of course they're gonna tell you to like freeze your eggs but

1:24:00she's addicted to the process because she wants it on her terms um in the

1:24:05last pages of the book she talks about like you couldn't i would never like

1:24:08i mean for you know religious reasons as well but just like having the limited

1:24:18experiences that i've had even with like hormonal birth control yeah to like inject yourself

1:24:27with she needs repeat i know to treat yourself up with hormones i mean really

1:24:33after all this and i know she was i know she was desperate and i

1:24:37know that i i understand psychologically yeah but like that's medical malpractice but she needs

1:24:43to build muscle she does i'm sorry that's the number one thing um well what's

1:24:50done is done yeah she means she's still it would still benefit her in the

1:24:54last page of the book she talks about feeling jealous and derailed when confronted with

1:24:57reminders of motherhood um you know her friends having babies are an article about celebrity

1:25:02moms which is something that you know she'll never get to experience um yeah she

1:25:07talks about um ovulating and then lactating and i was like when is this woman

1:25:11like not excreting buckets of pus or vile she even gets a tattoo that says

1:25:17sick and like crucially though like in line with her and with millennials in general

1:25:21she doesn't really care about having a child even though she claims this is her

1:25:26lifelong childhood dream and she doesn't even understand what that means um she like covets

1:25:32the abstraction of being a mother and um dreads the hypothetical that her ex and

1:25:40his new partner might become parents and she admits all of this openly by the

1:25:45way i'm not inferring it or attributing any undue meaning to it um and it's

1:25:52incredibly frustrating for anyone from the outside looking in because you know we can see

1:26:00what she can't which is like you know she could have just had a baby

1:26:05with her first love jack antonoff right instead of devising this like elaborate rube goldberg

1:26:10machine of misery and trauma but that's her magic that's the magic of lena dunham

1:26:16that's why he needs the jail time because he wasted her damn time and was

1:26:23too weak to like be decisive and proactive enough to knock her up yeah which

1:26:35would have alleviated her endometriosis symptoms so they say uh -huh even if they didn't

1:26:40stay together yeah and all good he could have given her peace and he made

1:26:47a choice to betray her and with lord yes and i understand it goes both

1:26:53ways um you know to defend not even to defend but to you know to

1:26:57see things from again jack and jenny's perspective it's very difficult dealing with um yeah

1:27:04like a voracious devouring figure in your life when you have like practical concerns and

1:27:10are just trying to be happy or whatever but lena dunham for all of her

1:27:14lying and omission cannot help but tell the truth it always comes out one way

1:27:20or another um even when she's trying to um paint a pretty picture it ends

1:27:26up coming out uh a lot of um her fans especially on the right attribute

1:27:35this to like some kind of subconscious drive but i think it's more like a

1:27:41divine force i don't think it's fully subconscious she's like too smart for that reading

1:27:48the last quarter of the book where she's just like um dreadfully ill and spiraling

1:27:55out of control and like pissing and shitting and vomiting everywhere it reminded me of

1:27:59um andrea dworkin because they're very similar types like dworkin is more of an intellectual

1:28:06and um dunham is more of an artist one is like more polemical the other

1:28:11is more introspective etc they're both critics of society but they have like a similar

1:28:16motivating drive which is food no camille paglia had that great line how dworkin pretends

1:28:24to be a daring truth teller but never mentions her most obvious problem food um

1:28:29no it's just like this and encompassing consuming need to like inflict yourself on others

1:28:37um here's another great quote by paglia dworkin wallowing in misery is a type that

1:28:42i recognize after 22 years of teaching i call her the girl with the eternal

1:28:46cold this was the pudgy clumsy whiny child at summer camp who was always spilling

1:28:50her milk dropping her lollipop in the dirt getting a cramp on the hike a

1:28:55stone in her shoe a bee in her hair in college this type pasty bilious

1:28:59and frumpy is constantly sick from fall to spring she coughs and sneezes on everyone

1:29:03is never prepared with the tissue and sits sniffing in class with a roll of

1:29:07toilet paper on her lap she is the ultimate teacher's pest the morose unlovable child

1:29:12who never got her mama's approval and therefore demands attention at any price that is

1:29:18very harsh and unflattering but it's so lena i mean it's so me it's really

1:29:23it cuts deep honestly it's i'm like the fuck i mean i'm not um overweight

1:29:31but i i have like the i feel like i have like the thin corollary

1:29:40which is like sickly the way victorian hysteria yeah who's like you know who has

1:29:49religious fervor pro religious frenzy whatever yeah and i'm like can't get out of bed

1:29:54and i'm like my melancholy's taken me again but it is just like female artistic

1:30:00type lena says our whole culture values the potential of life more than the existence

1:30:05of it and women as vessels for that life more than a sentient beings um

1:30:10this is kind of her pro -feminist pro -abortion argument for like getting a hysterectomy

1:30:16um but that's not even remotely true or defensible in any way like our culture

1:30:22is obviously like asexual and antinatalist and abortive and it actually values um the life

1:30:30of the woman far more than the life of the child because girls around the

1:30:33world it's interesting actually that um seemingly in the book her healthiest relationship and the

1:30:46one that she feels like the least ambivalence about is is the one with jemima

1:30:54kirk uh -huh who has yeah a baby very young uh -huh when is pregnant

1:31:02when they are doing the first season of girls and then it gets pregnant again

1:31:09like the way that she writes about jemima is very like tender uh -huh and

1:31:18she does seem like a very good friend to lena but someone who's i mean

1:31:29because she's able to be such a good friend to lena because she is able

1:31:35to be like boundary with her and not exploit her and um but is also

1:31:42this like kind of fertile foil yeah she is who's like self uh self -assured

1:31:50self -empowered because she doesn't overthink she's a woman of action not a thought when

1:31:54she gets pregnant at 23 she's like not okay i guess i'll keep the baby

1:31:58guess we'll do the series we're just gonna have to tape around it yeah i'm

1:32:03a slut but so there's something in her i think that does you know value

1:32:15that mode yeah i mean but not intellectually i think she values she does have

1:32:24of an actual like in spite of herself and all of her layers of like

1:32:29fake empathy she does have real empathy as a lot of people have pointed out

1:32:33um the like legendary abortion scene between Mimi Rose and Adam yeah where you would

1:32:43think that a dyed -in -the -wool like culturally conditioned liberal like Lena Dunham would

1:32:50make the man who objects to his girlfriend getting an abortion without telling him out

1:32:55to be the villain but for anybody with like you know a normal common sense

1:33:02outlook on life he's the victim sure and he's basically portrayed that way it's funny

1:33:09the way right -winger is conservatives how that scene constantly like resurfaces yeah to this

1:33:16like weird conservative like outrage and it's so I see this happening now also with

1:33:24like euphoria uh -huh the way like conservatives watch tv and movies like they're like

1:33:29documentary like they can't like attribute any like theory of mind or like uh artistic

1:33:37intent they like kind of like just like the sydney sweeney is like a sexy

1:33:42baby they're like this is disgusting and like yeah it's like meant to be it's

1:33:49meant to be gross on the show and like other characters on the show are

1:33:52grossed out by it because it's like that's because it's like a cutting commentary that's

1:33:57like the whole the current culture yeah the whole point but there's like something like

1:34:02broken in the conservative mind where they like see something yeah and then like just

1:34:07take it as like an endorsement or like yeah it's that it's like that really

1:34:12funny I was gonna say famous but no one actually remembers it Brad Trammell line

1:34:16um that they uh are you know watching a movie with like an 18 wheeler

1:34:22crashing through a barricade on screen and duck because they think it's gonna pop out

1:34:26of the screen they're like what is they're like they're like Michael Bay um obviously

1:34:34like Lena Dunham wrote that scene to be deliberately ambivalent about abortion because as much

1:34:42as she supports abortion from a political perspective I think she's smart enough to recognize

1:34:48what a gray area it is yeah she's an emotional you know Taurus interestingly oh

1:34:55yeah cancer moon hmm oh that makes sense damn Taurus kind of black you know

1:35:03kind of calls the whole astrology thing in a question for me honestly wait why

1:35:07she doesn't seem like a Taurus I guess she's domestic I guess she likes the

1:35:12home body she likes the finer and she's overindulgent yeah what all Tauruses are like

1:35:18prone to gaining weight because they can't control themselves around food or sex but that's

1:35:23not they're like hedonists no I guess so but there's not but that's not her

1:35:27defining characteristic no it's her stubbornness maybe I would have pegged her as like a

1:35:37water sign honestly yeah I she does seem kind of watery and mushy yeah and

1:35:43that's where I guess the cancer moon comes of course there's always something in your

1:35:47chart that but she doesn't seem yeah like her predominant personality is like Taurus like

1:35:53well no I think it is because her um because she likes the finer thing

1:35:58well her whole brand is being like in conflict with her fame is that Taurusian

1:36:06just earth sign right like all earth signs um are yeah analytical and paranoid and

1:36:14uh really huge attention whores but resent the attention because they think they're above it

1:36:21right um I guess yeah I well you obviously but I was gonna say I

1:36:30don't have a theory of mind for earth signs because I don't have any earth

1:36:33in my chart but I do I'm you know I'm highly empathic yeah you're earth

1:36:39sign adjacent because of your relationships with earth signs this kind of um overbearing guilt

1:36:47that she has about everything it like affects all of her personal relationships but also

1:36:53her relationship to like motherhood to money she says I've never been comfortable talking about

1:36:58how much money I make I know a few people who are and I don't

1:37:01like them very much I've never even been comfortable having money so her relationship to

1:37:08money is similar to her relationship to motherhood because her discomfort at having money is

1:37:13is that she's seen as rich which makes other people jealous of her and it

1:37:18makes them think she's a bad person uh because you know in liberal and leftist

1:37:23circles uh having money is uh a negative quality it's not due to any like

1:37:32theoretical issue with having wealth like it being unequal or corrupting or anything like that

1:37:39um and this is in sharp contrast to someone like jenny who has no such

1:37:44qualms about um being greedy or ruthless and she yeah guilts her all the time

1:37:48for their financial relations you which are obviously like split shared because they have a

1:37:55business partnership. Here's another good example concerning Jenny.

1:38:02I don't know if you clocked on, I think it was like two pages, two

1:38:0539 to two 40. She refers to like the, the November 17th, 2017 state.

1:38:13That's very, very interesting. I was wondering to what she was alluding to so pregnantly,

1:38:19but refuse to mention. I shouldn't explain outright.

1:38:22Well, and she, you know, she describes it as this thing that happened to her.

1:38:27The only thing that she feels shame beyond the pale.

1:38:29Yeah. She says, yeah. You know, it was so definitive in making her confront her

1:38:34guilt and shame that she prefers to not speak on it ever.

1:38:39She claims this is out of respect for the people involved, but it's obviously to

1:38:43cover her own ass because, you know, you can Google it.

1:38:47It's out in the open.

1:38:49If she knows, she knows that and she's doing it on purpose or originally the

1:38:55very day that it happened on purpose.

1:38:57This is such classic Lena Dunham, you know, where she's like, no, I don't, I

1:39:03want a baby. I don't want to be famous, but then does something that's like

1:39:07exactly the opposite of what would, of what you would expect a person with those

1:39:11priorities to have. Like she literally just has a big problem taking responsibility, taking accountability

1:39:19because this makes her feel monstrous.

1:39:21She is referring to a writer on girls.

1:39:26Yeah. Who was, this is 2017.

1:39:30So like height of me too.

1:39:32Yes. This guy catches a stray, you know, in hindsight, she really didn't need to

1:39:44issue this statement, which she did in conjunction with Jenny.

1:39:47Yes. She claims, and I believe her that she was like, basically like anesthetized, like

1:39:53wasn't, it was like right after.

1:39:55She attributes all this to, to the intoxication and dissociation post endometrial surgery.

1:40:00And then it was in the aftermath of one of her many surgeries sort of

1:40:04implies that Jenny like basically crafted the statement while Lena was like incapacitated.

1:40:12And basically they say after a writer on girls who no one remembers gets me

1:40:23toed by a woman who claims he had sex with her when she was too

1:40:27drunk when she was 19 and he was 35.

1:40:31Yeah. It was some random actress.

1:40:32I don't know if you're familiar.

1:40:33No. No one. All of this is like dustbin of, it didn't really like make

1:40:41a splash in the grand scheme of things.

1:40:43It really. I don't remember this particular cancellation.

1:40:45I can think it wasn't because it wasn't the cancellation itself was so minor, but

1:40:50then the blowback that they got for making the statement where they said there are

1:40:57necessary changes happening. Women are speaking their truths.

1:41:00We stand with them. However, in this case we have insider knowledge that says this

1:41:07guy, we stand with him.

1:41:09Actually, he's one of the 3 % of cases.

1:41:13And that's where they really fucked up is saying like, this is actually one of

1:41:17the 3 % of cases where you don't need to believe women.

1:41:22Well, classic. It's like, this is like the classic lib femme playbook.

1:41:28Like when a Bill Clinton stood accused of all his sex crimes, which he's guilty

1:41:33of, by the way, all the top dog feminists, including Gloria Steinem rallied around him

1:41:41because he was the democratic candidate.

1:41:45They closed ranks, but this wasn't even an instance where that was so necessary, but

1:41:50they were just caught up in the fur, like the, it was, I can understand

1:41:58it, but in hindsight, it was too extra and not really necessary, but all, but

1:42:09the impulse, right. To express solidarity with someone, you know, that you have a personal

1:42:17relationship with. With. Um, is healthy.

1:42:25Yeah. Yeah. Even noble in this day and age is correct.

1:42:29Yeah, actually. And so this contributed to, this was basically the defining episode, I think

1:42:38of the falling out between Lena Dunham and Jenny Connor, because Jenny, as I understand

1:42:42it, remained loyal to the guy.

1:42:44Whereas Lena walked back her remarks.

1:42:47Um, and it seems like Jenny had ambivalent feelings about, well, Jenny had never had

1:42:53that heat on her. Yeah.

1:42:55It was the first time Lena had been used, used to being dragged through the

1:43:00press, the court of public opinion for this and that.

1:43:04Jenny had never really had to experience that by virtue of being more like behind

1:43:10the scenes. Right. And. So this was the first time that, yeah, the, like Jenny

1:43:18felt the. inordinate amount of stress that lena had been subjected to for years at

1:43:25this point yeah and because jenny's a monster and a bitch but actually i i

1:43:36really wanted to say i like it came it like flashed in my mind i

1:43:44wanted to say that i've been a jet i've been alina and i've been a

1:43:49jenny yeah we all have that's the thing it's like but i've never really actually

1:43:57been alina i think in that dynamic i've only really been a jenny in what

1:44:03dynamic like in the one that she describes in the book oh right and like

1:44:07the overarching dynamic not the particular situation yeah yeah yeah like i yeah i mean

1:44:16in their interpersonal relationship right i feel like because though i am i am an

1:44:24empath um but i i came away and though lena says kind of like in

1:44:35the epilogue of the book she kind of does this thing where she's like um

1:44:39you know it's not jenny's fault that she hurt me it's that i like allowed

1:44:44myself to be hurt which is kind of this like therapeutic like you know taking

1:44:50accountability like fake thing kind of but like that's not the impression you get reading

1:44:55the rest of the book it's like over and over and over how much jenny

1:45:00hurts her well that's the thing it's like when she sets up these um uh

1:45:04dynamics and passages where she's issuing um glowing overcompensatory praise only to passive aggressively imply

1:45:13that actually someone else wronged her and they were the real villain and she was

1:45:18the real victim that's the part that so again confounding frustrating about lena denim because

1:45:26she's actually very intelligent and empathetic and can understand that people contain multitudes she clearly

1:45:34does yeah and so okay so obviously like sure i'm sure she was like pilled

1:45:42out of her mind and in a lot of pain and like totally dissociating and

1:45:48whatnot but at the time it was a completely like rational involuntary move on her

1:45:53part that like can't entirely be pawned off on those things and she should just

1:45:58simply take responsibility for it because at the end of the day it's like you

1:46:02can see that the statement as like an unforced error or you can see it

1:46:09as like a james demore like attempt to um seek the truth and defend somebody

1:46:15close to them well they just they got so much it's you also can't like

1:46:20they got so much blowback for it yeah and of course you can argue that

1:46:23and had a feminist hypocrisy um it's funny because if i recall correctly there was

1:46:30like a similar cancellation surrounding her being photographed by terry richardson who was yeah who

1:46:37was dating audrey gelman at the time they work a downtown compower couple for a

1:46:40minute um and he was under fire at the height of me too of course

1:46:45for being like a rapist and a predator which is funny because i recently like

1:46:49um did a stroll through his old work and um it's amazing to see how

1:46:58much fun people were having in those photos i know nobody was getting like um

1:47:04raped or abused uh do you have that do you have the part about the

1:47:11statement it's it's pages 239 to 240 yeah okay you've got it you've got it

1:47:16down yeah yeah and i remember back then people were piling on lena for not

1:47:22condemning terry because obviously as i remember it maybe i'm misremembering she was like protecting

1:47:29the boyfriend or ex -boyfriend of her close childhood friend out of respect for the

1:47:35people involved some of whom i care about deeply and some whom i cared about

1:47:38deeply once i will not describe this thing except to say that it happened on

1:47:42november 17th 2017 which means and i can only figure this out based on dates

1:47:47in hospital records and time stamps on the internet that i had only gotten home

1:47:51from the hospital that morning therefore how i managed to make a public statement much

1:47:57less a careless blithe and damaging one about a subject that should only ever have

1:48:01been approached with full spirited care and precision confounds me to this day i know

1:48:05that jenny had come in from los angeles to see me i know that we

1:48:07made the statement together in response to a request for comment and it was decided

1:48:11up for text message only hours after i got home i know that my mother

1:48:15had tried to hold on to my phone saying there was no comment needed this

1:48:19isn't you she implored me and i wondered who it was maybe i thought there

1:48:24had been an accident lena dunham had died and someone else had been reincarnated into

1:48:28this failing body instead of a fresh one they were promised at this point jenny

1:48:32and i were barely in touch save for the intermittent text i tried to keep

1:48:34appealingly casual yet somehow together the statement was written and published and before i even

1:48:39knew it was online i was receiving messages so many messages asking why during my

1:48:44entire career whenever something exploded online people and you went quiet when we're tentative danced

1:48:48around it now they wrote missives asking why often when i opened them i had

1:48:53no idea what they were talking about it was like waking from a dream back

1:48:57into life and for a moment having no idea where you are what is true

1:49:00every text i got even the kinder ones from people who knew what was happening

1:49:04behind the scenes and therefore how compromised i really was confused me am i awake

1:49:09now okay am i awake now i could try would have tried if i had

1:49:14written this book any earlier to explain to you all the backstory that informed the

1:49:17statement i don't remember writing the specificity of the relationships the obligations and emotions bound

1:49:23up in the decision to defend someone against an accusation i had no business attempting

1:49:27to debunk no clear reason to fight no fucking right to have an opinion on

1:49:31but none of that matters what wait it does not materially i don't remember writing

1:49:39i mean i believe that she doesn't remember writing it if she had like i

1:49:44don't know i couldn't have made a statement when i woke up out the coma

1:49:47you know no obligation all i could have said was what time is it and

1:49:51why are you lying to me but like did did she not maybe have some

1:49:56inner obligation to opine given that this was a person that she probably owed some

1:50:01modicum of loyalty to i was so deep in my own distress physical emotional existential

1:50:06that i had ceased to be able to imagine or invest in anyone else's empathy

1:50:09the most important quality in a writer a woman a friend all the things i

1:50:13once had been and had no idea if i would ever be again had left

1:50:16me in a sense this is the narcissism of fame in its purest form like

1:50:20some abstract monster in an h .p lovecraft novel the threat that had hovered over

1:50:24me for the last seven years had finally descended and taken me into its guts

1:50:27taken the guts out of me i thought of what dr second said about the

1:50:31hysterectomies they steal a woman's soul and i felt the last spark being placed on

1:50:35my tomb i mean incredible i guess i mean beautiful like very beautifully written sure

1:50:43but it's like a a beautiful meandering like sprawling apologia for the fact that she

1:50:52can't take responsibility for making a mistake that was not even such a great issue

1:50:59in the grand scheme of things wouldn't have remembered it if she hadn't put it

1:51:04in the book but i understand you know sorry and what did she call the

1:51:11narcissism of fame was uh being not being able to empathize with other people's experiences

1:51:18yeah but who's she she should be empathizing with the experience of her writer not

1:51:24the stated victim i mean i mean the the real narcissism of fame is that

1:51:31you start to um editorialize editorialize um self -censor double down on your uh people

1:51:40-pleasing ways and address all the controversy that's the narcissism of fame it's not the

1:51:47lack of empathy i mean i think her mother was right to say that there

1:51:51was no comment needed sure that maybe yeah jenny felt that yeah i like there

1:52:00was something to be gained from i don't even think that i think she was

1:52:05just probably um coming to the defense of somebody in their inner sanctum which yeah

1:52:12again is a normal and healthy impulse but but she also read it just reading

1:52:16it now like she kind of does say like you know she's not going to

1:52:22get into new knowing what she knows just that she shouldn't have commented on it

1:52:29which i think is basically true sure there was really no need to because this

1:52:33wasn't something that really made a splash in the grand scheme of me too right

1:52:38um but it is once again kind of no need for comment honestly um there's

1:52:54an also another part um where she's in la being harassed and tormented by scott

1:52:59rudin because um she um drops out of a film project to focus on writing

1:53:05season two of girls and like punctures her eardrum absent -mindedly cleaning her ear with

1:53:10like one of those long medical grade q -tips um so she has to summon

1:53:14her sweet sweet where have i heard that before friend to drive her to the

1:53:17er um and i say this with no disrespect but obviously she's a person who

1:53:23has no problem unloading and trauma dumping on others and using them in moments of

1:53:30convenience um there's a part where she like immediately rebounds from her breakup with her

1:53:36alcoholic sensitive wigger childhood friend who she sees once every 10 years um and then

1:53:43discards him five months later after they've been engaged because she gets out of rehab

1:53:49and you know doesn't look back and obviously yeah there's an argument to me that

1:53:55they were both using each other because they were drug addicts and were like caught

1:53:59up in a lie where um as she points out they were you know both

1:54:06so so self -involved so self -centered that that the other one even failed to

1:54:11register to them and they didn't really care about that other you you you Thank

1:54:14you. person's like uh story making sense or timeline lining up or whatever but that's

1:54:25also because this guy was like a brain damaged pathological liar alcoholic who was constantly

1:54:32having seizures because he was withdrawing from alcohol knows the yeah it was like he

1:54:37would drink and then sees when he was like withdrawing from alcohol she describes how

1:54:42three of her pregnant friends complain that she took no interest in them or their

1:54:47pregnancies um during her rehab stint which again like it may be true that those

1:54:55people are being a little bit too needy and asking too much of her but

1:54:59she clearly was also like reaching out to them in her moment of need or

1:55:06whatever you know what i'm saying like she she's also like guilty of being a

1:55:11user and an abuser in her own way which is basically intolerable for her the

1:55:17other thing that um stuck out to me is like throughout her um entire like

1:55:23years long struggle of suffering through like crippling chronic reproductive system pain she never once

1:55:35ceases sucking and fucking i mean right she starts having sex with this alcoholic um

1:55:48earlier than it is advised for her to start having sex and that causes yeah

1:55:55like more ruptures yeah i think she like busts the seizures in her or the

1:56:00um sutures in her cervix the stitches yeah um but like it's something that psychologically

1:56:06she needs to do because of her relationship with jack right but it's like you

1:56:13know if you're in in horrible pelvic pain you don't let some guy like with

1:56:19a dirty dick fuck you in the ass while you're on drugs that's you know

1:56:27sure but you you understand like i i i get how realistically that can and

1:56:31does happen but it is inconsistent with um her account it's like also stated versus

1:56:40revealed preference yet again um there's a part where she admits to cheating on jack

1:56:45well that's with this guy yeah yeah um but it's like also one of those

1:56:49classic end of the relationship moves women always pull to force the issue cheat to

1:56:55stay in her case kind of to leave cheat to leave women cheat to leave

1:57:00men cheat to stay uh and you know it barely registers as like true infidelity

1:57:04because they already both have one foot out of the door they're more or less

1:57:08separated uh so yeah like again so what was shocking to me about the um

1:57:16cheating incident wasn't that she like committed adultery against her live -in boyfriend it's that

1:57:22she got like dick down pounded in her ailing cervix by some random drug addict

1:57:29off the street homeless guy yeah classic lena though that's why we love her sure

1:57:37that's that's you know that's yeah that's why she made the big bug yeah um

1:57:45she says the events of the last six months were almost comical in their volume

1:57:50the dive bombing of my career inadvertently or utterly with purpose depending on your perspective

1:57:55i didn't yet have a perspective the loss of my fertility the end of my

1:57:59relationship oh this wasn't even to mention the events of the last six years which

1:58:04i didn't have the energy to process poor thing she is like a tumbleweed or

1:58:14or you know bowling ball in her by her account that just kind of um

1:58:21rolls through life tramps like us baby we were and stuff like crazy stuff just

1:58:27keeps happening to me yeah um i guess my favorite um self -revelation or self

1:58:34-insight that she has is that she says i had never known whether my own

1:58:38propensity for tears is a weakness or a form of manipulation another why not both

1:58:43relatable moment but it's one of the qualities i trust least in myself it seems

1:58:49especially damning that i can also vomit on command you know real the chinese finger

1:58:59trap of the matter is that if she exercises if she were to exercise some

1:59:05like control discipline restraint over her personal life she would cease to be such a

1:59:14great artist and such a good professional sure that's kind of like the rub yeah

1:59:21and we're indebted to her yeah for her struggle because it is generous and not

1:59:36i mean not interpersonally but like as an artist you it's not like generous the

1:59:45people closest to her but it's generous for you know to the audience to the

1:59:51world well yep but also not to the degree that she expects people to sit

1:59:59courtside with her without unleashing this torrent of criticism and insults of course they're going

2:00:09to do that you invited it what the from the public yeah and of course

2:00:17most of it is going to be um based on like editorialized or fake bullshit

2:00:25that like the media she really set the record straight on killing that dog i

2:00:32know well that's she got a lot of flack for that and the way she

2:00:35tells it i'm like uh for sure oh was that bowie yeah remember that though

2:00:41that was like people were like she's a narcissist and a bitch she killed this

2:00:46dog and it's like look yeah i'm an animal lover but i don't really give

2:00:51a shit about her relationship to her pets or their welfare whatever i mean that

2:00:58dog had to go that dog was sick yeah that's why she got entangled with

2:01:03bowie in the first place because she saw herself in him or her i don't

2:01:09know the sex of the dog good girl yeah um yeah what was it that

2:01:21we were saying that even if you don't you can ask for it and not

2:01:29deserve it oh yeah one of my favorite lines it's like yeah women ask for

2:01:34it all the time which doesn't mean that they deserve it right yeah women are

2:01:38always going around asking for it and she did in a way but she just

2:01:48it was on it's i do i did come away from the book i guess

2:01:58i felt i guess i felt this way prior uh -huh but she had sort

2:02:02of like been sacrificed on some altar uh -huh she's a gerardian scapegoat yeah exactly

2:02:12of like millennial feminism uh -huh and like she ultimately paid the price mm -hmm

2:02:19and she you know gained from it in some material ways but that ultimately it

2:02:32wasn't i mean remains to be seen she's still pretty young mm -hmm yeah she

2:02:37has like a life and career ahead of her um and you know as richard

2:02:46kern once told me when i was um doing my self -deprecating shtick and being

2:02:51like uh well i'm like he said well i you know i listen to your

2:02:54podcast and you're always making fun of yourself for for being old which is you

2:02:58know sweet because he's much older than me and so he views like 40 year

2:03:01old women as young right though i'm surprised by that because you know because he's

2:03:07he seen much younger his preferences for much younger i should be like a clapped

2:03:14out old bag in his eyes we was like 40 that's young that's like when

2:03:17you start your life for the first time that's nice it's honestly like very sweet

2:03:24and inspiring sweet to hear yeah yeah sure but like that applies to her as

2:03:30well like there's no reason that she can't have like a second or third or

2:03:33fourth act um so even something outside of like writing i mean this is already

2:03:37well yeah she's gonna keep making work yeah like movies shows whatever she has produce

2:03:46something camping yeah too much uh -huh i watched some of that show uh sharp

2:03:55stick i actually thought was amazing i should watch that yeah it's really good and

2:04:01she's in it herself is like it really is like grappling with like infertility and

2:04:06it's a really it's a very very interesting movie um but i think she's got

2:04:12another girls in her yeah maybe not with quite the like well they should just

2:04:16remake girls but like 20 years later about 40 when they're when they're all older

2:04:22women trying to have relationships with younger men making it into a media trend they're

2:04:27like girls let's assemble a round table panel for the new york times or npr

2:04:32where we talk about this hot new trend taking america by storm well that's kind

2:04:37of what sex in the city was sure you know but she could circle back

2:04:43well i like how she girls was kind of like what if sex in the

2:04:46city was young now what if girls was old well she does we call it

2:04:51hags and it's about four women who are aging in new york city and the

2:05:02trials and tribulations of being old as fuck yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah they're

2:05:10like no you don't understand all these young hot men want us because we're more

2:05:14desirable than ever we're sophisticated we're experienced we have our own bag it's not because

2:05:23they can nut inside of us indiscriminately with a much lowered risk of pregnancy and

2:05:32because they're broke they're broke as fuck so they they need it but i did

2:05:42like how she described um girls as sex in the city but for women in

2:05:47a um much less established i mean that's sort of what i was and i

2:05:54also i should read her pitch for girls which is amazing because sex in the

2:05:59city was a very formative show for me in a way as like a teen

2:06:07but they seemed like impossibly old yeah you're gonna say aspirational but they're yeah no

2:06:15i was like this is about like people i can't even imagine being this fucking

2:06:19old and like wow i guess miss havisham was her only 40 i i assumed

2:06:27she was like 70 well people love to point out how in the reboot of

2:06:33sex in the city and just like that yeah they're the same age that like

2:06:37the golden girls were but they're all like bogged with like plastic surgeries and like

2:06:44stunted so they're not like wholesome old ladies cohabitating they're like still like doing their

2:06:51thing in the city i guess and just like that is like the hags yeah

2:06:56so we don't need a new we need a yeah we need the way girls

2:07:01was to sex in the city we need a new lena dunham bencher that's parallel

2:07:06to like and just like that girls reboot uh -huh that's like in between we

2:07:13just need shows about women at every age yes that's what i want especially probably

2:07:19the age i am yeah especially at 35 to 40 yeah when you're more attractive

2:07:25and desirable than ever these young girls they have nothing on us they got nothing

2:07:33except for smooth skin less emotional baggage higher fertility um here's her for girls these

2:07:44girls are over educated and underemployed sure that they're too smart for their positions as

2:07:49assistants nannies and waitresses but not necessarily motivated enough to prove it or even do

2:07:54their jobs well enough to advance they have that mix of no at all entitlement

2:07:59and scathing self -deprecation that is the mark of all great jewish comedians and many

2:08:0324 year old women with liberal arts degrees they have varying degrees of ambition but

2:08:08have been raised to achieve they know they want to be successful long before they

2:08:12know what they want to be successful at so true queen so true also reading

2:08:22the book the whole like um adam driver spin zone oh yeah headline kind of

2:08:30stuff that people are doing where she's like she's me doing him right or being

2:08:34abusive and it's like no she's actually doing what she's always done which is like

2:08:38describing a character in a nuanced way and like from her perspective but one that's

2:08:48capable of being like empathetic and universalized i mean it's not like obviously he's a

2:08:51male actor of course he's gonna be kind of like unhinged and like borderline abusive

2:08:56or whatever like right but like but reading the book you don't come away with

2:09:01this impression that he was like her tormentor her rapist yeah jenny's the villain right

2:09:07yeah it's not doing a sex scene with my rapist uh no well as usual

2:09:14the retard right saw that headline and made it like either really thought or made

2:09:21it seem like lena dunham authored the headline which that's also how the sausage is

2:09:26made that's like how um media outlets uh get viral content because they write like

2:09:33rage bait headlines yeah like lena dunham says adam driver threw a chair she says

2:09:39a lot of things lena dunham said adam driver ruptured her cyst on set to

2:09:47me hbo the real villain jack antonoff and jenny jenny and maybe judd apatow judd

2:09:55apatow kind of gets off unscathed but he didn't you know sure yeah whatever he's

2:10:01doing his thing no jenny's the real villain in her life yeah for sure but

2:10:09charitably again i don't know why i'm like she really loves these j's i don't

2:10:15know why i feel compelled to like defend jenny and not even really defend her

2:10:21just like well yeah well because she's a person with a perspective too and yeah

2:10:26and she's clearly like the monster in lena's life uh -huh but we're all the

2:10:33monster in someone's life right like lena's the monster in jack antonoff's life like he

2:10:37good you you pen a memoir i'm sure well she um jenny and jemima are

2:10:42both shadow selves of lena that are like um unreconstructed or unreconstituted or whatever that

2:10:53what's the word they use kind of like um right jenny she's not like the

2:10:58devouring mother she's like the unavailable mother and then jemima's sort of her like um

2:11:06fertile muse uh -huh yeah like fertility figure or whatever yeah and then jack antonoff

2:11:18should be in jail but you know we all inflict all sorts of pain on

2:11:27each other i get it uh -huh that's the big takeaway yeah that it's a

2:11:35human centipede of pain life is pain fame is pain no one's really got it

2:11:43that good pain is a fat circle that leads to weight gain so true yeah

2:11:53yeah nobody has a good that good everybody's kind of unhappy in their own way

2:11:57and constantly struggling with their weight she does i looked when she um she was

2:12:09quite thin in 2017 yeah i know of course it's like you look back on

2:12:13photos of celebs and also yourself and you're like wait i was actually pretty cute

2:12:19and thin um there's some girl um dystopian gf had a good take on on

2:12:24twitter today about how um you know there's this trend that people are finally reporting

2:12:30on that younger women zoomettes are more radicalized against men than ever they really hate

2:12:37men again i don't know if this is like stated versus revealed preference blah blah

2:12:41blah but um well it's another weird study yeah there's like another study that's like

2:12:47women are more patriarchal and oppressed than ever and it's unclear if there's like a

2:12:52selection box sample size blah blah anyway go on but she um she makes this

2:12:57point that like you know big if true but um it was really feminism itself

2:13:02that rushed women headlong into the sexual revolution and into hookup culture into casual sex

2:13:08which is what really makes them miserable and unhappy because they want to lock it

2:13:11down and um in response to that um they've taken to blaming men who have

2:13:19merely adjusted and adapted to the new sexual mores through non -commitment and situationships but

2:13:27the sexual revolution would have happened if men hadn't facilitated it sure but like the

2:13:33the point that she makes is like well taken because it's like you know they're

2:13:37they're blaming the patriarchy which actually protected them for the ills of feminism right you

2:13:44know as is often the case with like progressive activism of any sort and lena

2:13:49dunham is obviously like amazing because she embodies both the folly and the hypocrisy but

2:13:56also the power and achievements of millennial feminism right like she is the she is

2:14:04millennial feminism incarnate and as it turns out it's actually much more complex and nuanced

2:14:13than anyone in the media gives it credit for yeah even though it seems like

2:14:19strident and shrill on the face of it i mean it's just unfair that she

2:14:28got so much blowback and suffered so much when she was a pioneer mm -hmm

2:14:36and then you know people like emerald finnell right really kind of get no hate

2:14:46even though low -key she's kind of fatter yeah and also way less talented and

2:14:55totally derivative yeah yeah i'm telling lena dunham but also the amount of muscle okay

2:15:02i swear to god just she needs to lift weights it'll help her so i

2:15:05know she can't now she had to take hormone blockers i know i know it

2:15:16wasn't you know that i don't feel like that was an option i mean at

2:15:22some point it was but and she was doing the tracy anderson workouts yeah i

2:15:28guess so where she tried yeah but then you know estrogen is the stress hormone

2:15:35well she didn't try hard enough um but you know i mean i think you're

2:15:41right that is like it is it'd be nice if we could all build muscle

2:15:46sure yeah it is unfair that to her personally that she was so maligned scapegoat

2:15:53but i think it's only fair in the cosmic sense it couldn't have been any

2:15:57other way that's where her true like role and purpose becomes its clearest it's gerardian

2:16:05it's gerardian it's gerardian it's gerardian it's gerardian and christ -like not to be blasphemous

2:16:09but you know we all we all did it talena not individually but collectively you

2:16:20know like she was she was she was totally scapegoated and she suffered for our

2:16:28sins and well she was scapegoated because she reflected our sins back at us so

2:16:38she had to go she had to be nailed to the cross and what a

2:16:42heavy cross it was i mean i'm happy she's the redemption arc is is good

2:16:50and it is inspiring mm -hmm and i wish her well same uh see you

2:17:05in hell see you in hell you

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