Lena Dunham Explains Why She’s So Controversial

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As valid as many criticisms of Girls have been, we often ask ourselves why Lena Dunham — and not so many of TV’s other nepotism benificiaries or all-white character creators — has been so controversial. In a new interview with Esquire, Dunham explains why she believes she’s been a target: “People are ultimately threatened by young people taking positions of power. But there’s also this feeling of I could do that, too,” she tells the magazine. “People don’t feel rabidly jealous of Larry David or Salman Rushdie because they don’t think, I could do that. And with what I’ve done, I think a lot of people think, I could do that in my sleep. If I’d just met one person along my path, I would have that TV show.” It’s a compelling theory, albeit one that doesn’t exactly address many of the particular criticisms that have been leveled at Dunham. Visit Esquire to read the entire interview, perhaps the only conversation we’ve ever read that mentions both Andrea Dworkin and Louis CK.