Trigger warning: This article has mentions of body image and language referencing sexual violence.Â
Before she had even reached her 30th birthday, Lena Dunham had written and starred in the critically acclaimed HBO series “Girls.” The show became an immediate success, and shortly after its release, Dunham was nominated for multiple Emmys and won a Golden Globe.Â
the public reaction
As “Girls” was viewed by millions, Dunham’s influence grew, and she became a cultural figure representing young, millennial women. But her rapid rise to stardom was accompanied by a darker side, as her role as a public figure caused her to be a subject of intense scrutiny and harassment regarding her body.Â
“[She’s] a little fat girl,” Howard Stern said about Dunham on his radio show in 2013. “[She] keeps taking her clothes off, and it kinda feels like a rape… I don’t want to see that.” Although Stern later apologized, his comments reflected a broader, misogynistic culture that allows the public to feel entitled to criticize female artists’ bodies.Â
It seemed almost criminal, to the public sphere, that Dunham could so unabashedly display a body that they did not deem attractive. Her case is just one of many representing the way in which female celebrities receive routine bashing for their appearance, rather than criticism for their creations.Â
Sure, maybe it comes along with being in the public eye. Criticism is par for the course, especially when you choose to broadcast your body to millions of viewers. It’s normal. But, is it? Or, is it emblematic of a society that sees the female body as public domain?Â
It’s shocking that female bodies can be the cause of such controversy, yet it’s so normalized in our culture that there is rarely a distinction made between run-of-the-mill hate comments and comments steeped in misogynistic undertones.Â
Impacts of policing women’s bodies
When female bodies are not being heavily debated in political spheres, they are sources of comedy and distress in pop culture spheres. The phenomenon is so familiar. These comments, whether they’re the ones Howard Stern made in 2013 or the ones comedian Shane Gillis made a couple of weeks ago, illustrate the way in which the female body is a popular punchline. Something so inherently natural, nothing more than a physical vessel, has become so polarizing and inflammatory in our world’s cultural climate.Â
The freedom to exist, free of expectations of being digestible to the general public, has been fundamentally denied to women everywhere. What would art look like if this freedom were granted? The fact that female creators anticipate hateful criticism is not only alarming, but also poses a large risk of intimidating women out of publishing their art at all. Art should be a space that allows for a sense of radical discomfort.Â
For Dunham, that was done through her realistic, unglamorous depictions of sex. It was done through her choice to portray flawed female characters with unlikable aspects. It was done through her decision to display her naked body on television with no pretense or apology. It was done through her bravery to publicly exist in an environment that aims to shame women into submission. Â
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