Lena Dunham – Bitch Flicks

Women Directors Week: The Roundup

Check out all of the posts from our Women Directors Theme Week here.

Women with a Camera: How Women Directors Can Change the Cinematic Landscape by Emanuela Betti

What I saw… was the problem women have faced for centuries: the popularity of woman as art subject, not as creator. What critics and award judges seem to love are not so much women’s stories, but women’s stories told by men. Stories in which women’s agency is strictly and safely in the hands of a male auteurs. … We need more women filmmakers — not as a way to fill quotas, but because women’s stories are different, unique, and need to be told.

Why Eve’s Bayou Is a Great American Art Film by Amirah Mercer

The story of a family burdened by salacious and supernatural secrets in 1962 Louisiana, the movie has become one of the finer American films in the Southern gothic tradition; but with a Black director and an all-Black cast, Eve’s Bayou has been unceremoniously booted from its deserving recognition as the fantastic, moody art film it is.

Leigh Janiak’s Honeymoon as Feminist Horror by Dawn Keetley

The film thus brilliantly puts the everyday (marriage) on a continuum with the horrifying (possession?), connecting the problem of Bea’s troubled self-expression and containment, now that she’s married, to the later seemingly supernatural plot. … Are the seemingly supernatural elements of the plot symbolic of Bea’s struggles with intimacy and the weighty expectations of married domestic life (sex, cooking, and reproduction)? Janiak’s expert writing and directing definitely leaves open this possible subtext of the film…

When Love Looks Like Me: How Gina Prince-Bythewood Brought Real Love to the Big Screen by Shannon Miller

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s choice to center these themes around a young Black couple shouldn’t feel as revolutionary as it does. But when you consider that “universal” is too often conflated with “white,” Love & Basketball feels like such a turning point in the romance genre. It was certainly a turning point for me because, for a moment, Black love and romance, as told by Hollywood, weren’t mutually exclusive.

Sofia Coppola as Auteur: Historical Femininity and Agency in Marie Antoinette by Marlana Eck

Sofia Coppola’s film conveys, to me, a range of feminist concerns through history. Concerns of how much agency, even in a culture of affluence, women can wield given that so much of women’s lives are dictated by the structures of patriarchy.

The Gender Trap and Women Directors by Jenna Ricker

But, when was the last time ANYONE sat down to write a story, or direct a project and asked themselves — Is this story masculine or feminine? Exactly none, I suspect. … Storytellers tell stories, audiences engage, the formula is quite simple. But, it only works one way — male filmmakers are able to make any film they want without biased-loaded gender questions, whereas women filmmakers always face more scrutiny and criticism.

Individuality in Lucia Puenzo’s XXY, The Fish Child, and The German Doctor by Sara Century

In the end, it is this focus on individuality that is the most striking common theme of Lucia Puenzo’s works. Each of her characters undergoes intense scrutiny from outside forces, be it Alex in ‘XXY’ for their gender, Lala in ‘The Fish Child’ for her infatuation with Ailin, or Lilith from ‘The German Doctor,’ who is quite literally forced into a physical transformation by a Nazi.

Andrea Arnold: A Voice for the Working Class Women of Britain by Sophie Hall

British director/screenwriter Andrea Arnold has three short films and three feature films under her belt, and four out of six of those center on working class people. … [The characters in Fish Tank, Wasp, Red Road, and Wuthering Heights] venture off away from the preconceived notions they have been given, away from the stereotypes forced upon them, and the boxes society has trapped them in.

Susanne Bier’s Living, Breathing Body of Work by Sonia Lupher

Women consistently make good films around the world, even if we have to look outside Hollywood to find them. Susanne Bier is one powerful example. Her vivid, probing explorations into family dynamics and tenuous relationships are fiercely suggestive marks of a female auteur that deserves recognition.

No Apologies: The Ambition of Gillian Armstrong and My Brilliant Career by Rebecca Hirsch Garcia

However, Armstrong also doesn’t mock Sybylla’s ambition or treat it as a joke. In Armstrong’s world, the fact that Sybylla has desires and wants outside of marriage and men is treated seriously because Sybylla takes it seriously. She never needs to prove herself worthy enough for her desires. … [She is] a woman who bravely acts according to her own desires, someone willing to risk everything in order to have what she wants and who recognizes that men and romance are not the sum total of her world.

OMG a Vagina: The Struggle for Artistic The Struggle for Feminine Artistic Integrity in Kimberly Peirce’s Carrie by Horrorella

Carrie is a terrifying and compelling story, but there is certainly something to be gained and perhaps a certain truth to be found in watching the pain of her journey into womanhood as told by a woman director. … But even in the face of these small victories, we have to wonder how the film would have been different had Peirce been allowed to tell this story without being inhibited by the fear and discomfort of the male voices around her.

Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark: Busting Stereotypes and Drawing Blood by Lee Jutton

Both brutally violent and shockingly sexy, Near Dark’s influence can be felt nearly thirty years later on a new crop of unusual vampire dramas that simultaneously embrace and reject the conventions of the genre. … Yet among all these films about outsiders, Near Dark will always have a special place in my heart for being the one to show me that as a filmmaker, I was not alone in the world after all.

Fangirls, It’s Time to #AskForMore by Alyssa Franke

In the battle to address the staggering gender gap in women directing for film and television, there is one huge untapped resource — the passion and organizing power of fangirls.

Euzhan Palcy’s A Dry White Season: Black Lives in a White Season by Shara D. Taylor

It is doubtful that anyone else could have made A Dry White Season as poignantly relevant as Euzhan Palcy did. Her eye for the upending effects of apartheid on Black families brings their grievances to bear. … The meaning behind Palcy’s work resounds clearly: Black lives matter in 1976 South Africa as they do in 2016 America.

Why Desperately Seeking Susan Is One of My Favorite Films by Alex Kittle

The character was created to be an icon, a model for Roberta and other women like her, an image to hold in our heads of what life could be like if we just unleashed our inner pop star. But she’s also real enough that it feels like you might spot her in a hip nightclub, dancing uninhibited and having more fun than anyone else there just because she’s being herself.

Movie You Need to Be Talking About: Advantageous by Candice Frederick

Directed and co-written by Jennifer Phang, Advantageous is a surprisingly touching and purposeful film that revitalizes certain elements of the sci-fi genre while presenting two powerful voices in women filmmakers: Jennifer Phang and Jacqueline Kim.

Concussion: When Queer Marriage in the Suburbs Isn’t Enough by Ren Jender

The queer women we see in sexual situations in Concussion are not cut from the same Playboy-ready cloth as the two women in Blue is the Warmest Color: one client is fat, another is an obvious real-life survivor of breast cancer and some of her clients, like Eleanor herself, are nowhere near their 20s anymore.

I’m a Lilly – And You’re Probably One Too: All Women Face Gender Discrimination by Rachel Feldman

Another obstacle to getting Ledbetter made is the industry’s perception of my value as the film’s director. There are certainly a handful of women directors whose identities are well known, but generally, even colleagues in our industry, when asked, can only name a handful of female directors. Of course, there are thousands of amazingly talented women directing; in fact there are 1,350 experienced women directors in our Guild, but for the vast majority of us our credits are devalued and we struggle to be seen and heard – just like Lilly.

Making a Murderer, Fantastic Lies, and the Uneasy Exculpation Narratives by Women Directors by Eva Phillips

What is most remarkable and perhaps most subversively compelling about both ‘Making a Murderer’ and ‘Fantastic Lies,’ and about the intentions and directorial choices of their respective creators, is that neither documentary endeavor chronicles the sagas of particularly defensible — or even, to some, at all likable — men.

Lena Dunham and the Creator’s “Less-Than-Perfect” Body On-Screen by Sarah Halle Corey

Every time someone calls to question the fact that Lena Dunham parades her rolls of fat in front of her audience, we need to examine why they’re questioning it. Is it because they’re wondering how it serves the narrative of ‘Girls’? Or is it because they’re balking at “less-than-perfection” (according to normative societal conventions) in the female form?

Female Becomingness Through Maya Deren’s Lens in Meshes of the Afternoon by Allie Gemmill

Her most famous work, Meshes of the Afternoon becomes, in this way, a reading of a woman working with and against herself through splitting into multiple iterations of herself. Most importantly, the film unpacks the notion that not only is the dream-landscape of a woman complex, it is bound tightly to her, defining who she is and guiding her constantly through the world like a compass.

Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy: Heartbreak in a Panning Shot by ThoughtPusher

Through the course of the film, Kelly Reichardt’s pacing is so deliberate that even the most ordinary moments seem intensely significant. Reichardt’s framing traps Wendy in shots as much as her broken-down car and lack of money trap her in the town.

Sofia Coppola and The Silent Woman by Paulette Reynolds

Many films touch upon the theme of female isolation, but I remain fascinated with Sofia Coppola’s three major cinematic creations that explore the world of The Silent Woman: The Virgin Suicides, Lost in Translation, and Marie Antoinette (2006). Each film delves into this enigma, forming a multifaceted frame of reference for a shared understanding.

The Anti-Celebrity Cinema of Mary Harron: I Shot Andy Warhol, The Notorious Bettie Page, and The Anna Nicole Story by Elizabeth Kiy

I’ve always thought Mary Harron’s work was the perfect example of why we need female directors. I think the films she produces provide a perspective we would never see in a world unilaterally controlled by male filmmakers. Harron appears to specialize in off-beat character studies of the types of people a male director may not gravitate towards, nor treat with appropriate gravitas. She treats us to humanizing takes on sex workers and sex symbols, angry lesbians and radical feminism and makes them hard to turn away from.

How Women Directors Turn Narrative on Its Head by Laura Power

Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl), Miranda July (Me and You and Everyone We Know), and the women directors of Jane the Virgin are infusing elements of whimsy into their work in strikingly different ways, but to similar effect. The styles they’re using affect the audience’s relationship with their stories and with the characters themselves by giving the viewer an insight that traditional narratives don’t provide.

Wadjda: Empowering Voices and Challenging Patriarchy by Sarah Mason

Haifaa al-Mansour casts an eye onto the complexity of navigating an autocratic patriarchal society in Wadjda. This bold voice from Saudi Arabia continues to empower voices globally.

Mary Harron’s American Psycho: Rogue Feminism by Dr. Stefan Sereda

American Psycho fails the Bechdel Test. … The script, co-written by Guinevere Turner and Mary Harron, eschews any appeal to women’s empowerment. … When the leading man isn’t laughing at remarks from serial killers about decapitating girls, he’s coming after sex workers with chainsaws (at least in his head). Yet American Psycho espouses a feminist perspective that fillets the values held by capitalist men.

21 Short Films by Women Directors by Film School Shorts

For Women’s History Month, we’ve put together a playlist of 21 of those films for your viewing pleasure. As you’ll see, no two of these shorts are alike. They deal with topics like autism, racism, sexism, losing a loved one and trying to fit in and find yourself at any age.

Evolution in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis and Chicken With Plums by Colleen Clemens

In a similar way to Marji (Persepolis), Nasser (Chicken with Plums) must be sent far away to have his journey of becoming. There is something in him — talent — that requires he must go beyond his home. But whereas in Marji’s case she must go away to protect herself, Nasser must go away so he can grow, get bigger and fuller and richer.

Vintage Viewing: Alice Guy-Blaché, Gender-Bending Pioneer by Brigit McCone

When was the last time we watched vintage female-authored films and discussed their art or meaning? Bitch Flicks presents Vintage Viewing — a monthly feature for viewing and discussing the films of cinema’s female pioneers. Where better to start than history’s first film director, Alice Guy-Blaché?

Lena Dunham and the Creator’s “Less-Than-Perfect” Body On-Screen

This guest post written by Sarah Halle Corey appears as part of our theme week on Women Directors.

A lot has been said about Lena Dunham’s body. So much has been said, in fact, that upon a simple Google search of “lena dunham body,” I was overwhelmed with viable links to embed in this post. There are articles praising her positive body image and sharing of TMI, and other articles disparaging her for showing so much flabby skin, and even more articles questioning if we should even be talking about her body at all.

Dunham created and stars in the series Girls, a show on which she often presents her own naked body. She’s appeared naked on-screen countless times throughout the series’ five season run, and often in hyper-realistic situations: awkward sex, rolling out of bed in the morning, etc. And every time, Dunham’s “less-than-perfect” (according to normative societal conventions) body is showcased. It’s not uncommon for nudity to be a hot topic among media pundits and amateur critics alike. How much is too much? How much is too little? How does it serve the story? So when a supposed “less-than-perfect” naked body like Dunham’s is presented, it’s outside the norm and people rush to comment all the more because of that.

It makes sense that people love to discuss the bodies of actors: their bodies are displayed in front of us, something to observe and interpret just like the the sets and camera angles that are also presented on screen. Each frame of a movie or TV show is filled with choices that the director made, choices that the director wants the audience to see and connect to some meaning or vision. But what happens when the director makes herself – her body, specifically – one of those on-screen choices?

Every time someone calls to question the fact that Dunham parades her rolls of fat in front of her audience, we need to examine why they’re questioning it. Is it because they’re wondering how it serves the narrative of Girls? Or is it because they’re balking at “less-than-perfection” in the female form? These two issues often get conflated.

And then, when Dunham goes to defend her choice, she often needs to approach it from both perspectives. Dunham is both the creator and the creation itself, the sculptor and the slab of marble. So, not only must she defend the creative choice as a director, but also the existence of her own “less-than-perfect” body as a woman. Her defense is both an artistic one and a personal one.

In a way, Dunham’s predicament is representative of a lot of defenses that women creators find themselves being forced to make. Often times, female creators are seen as women first, creators second. The fact that Dunham puts her body, and thus a part of her womanhood, at the forefront of her art, just makes the defense all the more blatant for her. Women directors often need to take a stand to justify their art, and for Dunham that includes her body too.

By combining the director and her work into one, Dunham simply crystallizes the power of the creator in connection to her creation. Art is personal, and no one exemplifies that more than Lena Dunham.

Sarah Halle Corey is a writer, filmmaker, and digital content creator who produces work about pop culture, feminism, feelings, and everything in between. You can find her work at sarahhallecorey.com. Sarah is usually drinking way too much coffee and/or tweeting @SarahHalleCorey.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

10 Movies by Black Women to Stream on Netflix This Weekend by Alexis Jackson at Shine at For Harriet

Our Favorite Funny Women Call Out Sexism in Hollywood at Ms. blog

Lena Dunham, Amy Schumer and Comedy Actress A-List in Raunchy, R-Rated Roundtable by Stacey Wilson Hunt, Michael O’Connell at The Hollywood Reporter

A History Of The Term ‘Chick Flick’ And How It Marginalizes Female Filmmakers by Tess Barker at MTV

7 Queer Female Filmmakers to Watch for in 2015 by Dorothy Snarker at Women and Hollywood

Childbirth is finally getting the cultural treatment it deserves by Elissa Strauss at The Week

New Short Exposes Unique Experience of ‘Brown’ Ballerinas by Qimmah Saafir at Colorlines

Jeffrey Wright and Jennifer Hudson Join Cast of HBO’s Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas Project by Tambay A. Obenson at Shadow and Act

‘Gemma Bovery’ Review: Literary Comedy Puts a Feminist Spin on an Old Classic by Alonso Duralde at The Wrap

On Mad Max and The Avengers by Margarita at Plain-Flavoured-English.tumbler.com

The Ecofeminism of Mad Max by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

What have you been reading/writing this week? Tell us in the comments!

In ‘Appropriate Behavior’: What Does It Take for a Woman to Author Herself?

What’s more, to understand ‘Appropriate Behavior’ as the bisexual Iranian version of someone else’s work would be to miss the point of the film entirely. While on the surface, the film is about a bisexual Iranian American coming to terms with a breakup and with the messiness of her sexuality, it’s really a film about identity, about what it means not to take the easy way out by shaving off or hiding the parts of yourself that don’t fit into a neat package. By failing, spectacularly, to fit, the film, like its main character, becomes something more than the sum of its seemingly discordant parts, something entirely of its own.

This is a guest post by Dena Afrasiabi.

It’s tempting to try to fit Desiree Akhavan’s unique and hilarious first feature, Appropriate Behavior, into the appropriate box. In the age of tagging and buzzwords, a film of its kind lends itself to a plethora of catchy categories: Iranian, Brooklynite, lesbian, coming of age, categories that have never all been represented on the same screen at the same time. Add to that some awkward (i.e. realistic) sex scenes and it’s no wonder that so many reviewers have described Akhavan as the bisexual Iranian version of Lena Dunham. Or is it? Upon reading other articles on the film, as well as interviews with Akhavan, on the topic, it becomes glaringly apparent that the comparisons say a lot less about the film or about Akhavan as an artist than they do about the relationship between the media and women artists of color. Granted, Akhavan and Dunham do share some surface similarities: both filmmakers are young women, both make work set in Brooklyn that features flawed (i.e. real), intelligent female characters, characters who harbor real desires, make real mistakes and find themselves in real, awkward, often cringe-worthy sexual encounters. And in all fairness, the comparison is certainly a flattering one, as Akahavan herself has acknowledged.

Nor is Akhavan the first filmmaker or writer to be compared to Dunham. Both Greta Gerwig, writer and star of Frances Ha and Gillian Robespierre, the director of Obvious Child, have also held the somewhat dubious honor, one that’s apparently granted to any talented young female filmmaker who makes a funny film about a smart woman who lives in Brooklyn and doesn’t have her life all figured out by her mid-20s. Indeed, linking filmmakers to one another seems to be a favored pastime of film critics. Dunham herself has oft been dubbed the new Woody Allen. And the interwebs does yield its share of comparisons between male filmmakers as well (Paul Thomas Anderson has been compared to Quentin Tarantino, Tarantino to Scorcese, Judd Appatow and Ed Burns to Woody Allen). But these linkages occur much less frequently and carry less weight than comparisons between female filmmakers, and especially the ubiquitous comparisons between Akhavan and Dunham.

Great artists locate themselves in a tradition. Most filmmakers, including Allen himself, are quick to name their biggest influences. But the above-mentioned comparisons point to something more than just the creation of a genealogy. They reek of a tokenism that only makes room for one successful woman at a time and that fosters acceptance for women of color by linking them to their white counterparts. This tokenism diminishes or even erases the nuances of these filmmakers’ distinct voices and minimizes the range and complexity of experiences they convey.

What’s more, to understand Appropriate Behavior as the bisexual Iranian version of someone else’s work would be to miss the point of the film entirely. While on the surface, the film is about a bisexual Iranian American coming to terms with a breakup and with the messiness of her sexuality, it’s really a film about identity, about what it means not to take the easy way out by shaving off or hiding the parts of yourself that don’t fit into a neat package. By failing, spectacularly, to fit, the film, like its main character, becomes something more than the sum of its seemingly discordant parts, something entirely of its own.

The film’s narrative follows Shirin (Desiree Akahavan), a 20-something bisexual Iranian American living in Park Slope whose barely held together life is coming apart at the seams. She and her girlfriend, Maxine (Rebecca Henderson), have just broken up, sending Shireen out of Park Slope domestic bliss and into a self-destructive spiral inside a dark and cluttered apartment in Bushwick that she shares with a hipster artist couple who look like they just walked off the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She quits her job at the Brooklyn Paper, where she has been replaced as the token Middle Easterner by a Syrian woman whose Syrianness is more exciting to her coworkers than Shirin’s more understated Iranianness and goes to work as a teacher for an after-school filmmaking class full of Park Slope toddlers more interested in eating their cameras than shooting precocious art films she imagines them making. As Shirin deals with her grief over the breakup, we learn of the relationship through a series of bittersweet flashbacks—that’s right, Annie Hall style. In one scene, Shirin and Maxine meet on a stoop just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, where they bond over their mutual disdain (“I hate so many things, too” Shirin tells her, just before their first kiss). In another, they make the romantic discovery while smoking pot together for the first time that they’re “the same type of high person.” The romance quickly unravels, however, as Shirin and Maxine repeatedly butt heads over Shirin’s unwillingness to come out to her socially conservative Iranian parents (Hooman Majd and Anh Duong).

Throughout the film, we watch Shirin repeatedly fail to fulfill the expectations of those around her. She doesn’t embody Maxine’s idea of the right kind of lesbian, one who reads queer studies classics like Stone Butch Blues, embraces gay activism with earnest enthusiasm and wears her sexuality as a badge. Nor does she fit her family’s definition of the right kind of Iranian offspring, by contrast to her successful doctor brother (Arian Moayed) or his polished Iranian fiancée (Justine Cotsonas), who performs reconstructive surgery on pediatric burn victims. She also fails to be the right kind of Iranian in the eyes of Park Slope’s upper middle class liberals, who expect her to be one of the hip young Tehranis they read about in the Times. When asked by her new boss (Scott Adsit) if she’s part of the underground hip-hop scene in Tehran, she answers, “I spend most of time in Iran watching Disney videos with my grandmother while she untangles jewelry.” The slapstick film she makes with her class also clashes hilariously with Park Slope’s collective Disney-like fantasy of a harmonious multicultural world, epitomized by her bohemian coworker, Tibet (Rosalie Lowe), who attends West African dance classes religiously and makes a film featuring white and African American children poetically climbing trees. Shirin’s eventual coming out to her mother, too, defies expectations of the genre with its quiet ambiguity. “Mom, I’m a little bit gay,” Shirin tells her mother one night at her parents’ New Jersey home. And rather than set off a show of hysterics or threats to ship her off to Iran or to straight camp, her mother meets this confession with a simple dismissal, the tip of a cultural iceberg that alludes to beliefs and attitudes that will not melt overnight. It’s such moments of ambiguity that set Akhavan apart as a filmmaker, moments that can’t be separated from her unique vantage point and that get lost in the Dunham comparisons and the branding.

What makes the story so resonant is that Shirin doesn’t ever tie up her identity’s loose ends. A lesser film may have shown the protagonist reaching an epiphany of self-acceptance or end with a celebration of her sexuality or of her identity as an immigrant. Instead, the film vividly details Shirin’s loneliness and discomfort (albeit with much hilarity) as she stumbles from one awkward discovery to another and eventually into a more honest self while also acknowledging, in its own subtle way, the empowerment that comes with resisting the pressure to wrap your identity around any one thing, be it your sexuality or your ethnicity or the neighborhood where you live. This isn’t to say the film is a Song of Myself celebration of American individualism. She doesn’t receive a trophy at the end for “being herself.” Shirin doesn’t defy categorization to make a point or prove herself; she does so because it’s ultimately the only way she knows how to be, a way of being that comes at its own price but whose benefits far outweigh the cost of self-erasure.

Like Shirin, who finally comes into her own by the film’s end through her inability to meet other’s expectations of her identity, it’s Akhavan’s deft and nuanced, not to mention hysterically funny, chronicling of this journey that makes her a filmmaker bound to defy and surpass the already high expectations of her future work—and perhaps in this one sense, it is fair to say she does have something in common with Lena Dunham, a.k.a the straight white Desiree Akhavan.

Dena Afrasiabi is the co-editor of the literary magazine Elsewhere Lit. Her fiction has appeared in Kartika Review, JMWW and Prick of the Spindle. She resides in Austin, Texas and sometimes vents or raves about films here.

Lena Dunham, Slenderman, and the Terror of ‘Girls’

This is a guest post by Scarlett Harris.

An episode of Law & Order: SVU from earlier this month fictionalized yet another “ripped from the headlines” story–this time the Slenderman murders in which two pre-teen girls stabbed their friend in an attempt to summon the mythic Slenderman.

For those not familiar with Slenderman, he is a tall, thin character in a black suit with a featureless face spawned from a “creepypasta” (online, easily shareable fiction) meme from 2009, making him one of the first urban legends of the modern age. In the May 2014 attempted murder, the perpetrators gave the reason for their attack as wanting to become “proxies” or “acolytes” for Slenderman.

Many a think piece (this one by Rebecca Traister is perhaps the most tempered) and news story were spawned in the wake of the crime, puzzled by young women being so obsessively violent toward one another. You’ll notice that similar arguments are rarely made when boys behave badly toward other boys.

Also in the news of late are the allegations that Lena Dunham molested her younger sister Grace after writing in her recently released memoir Not That Kind of Girl that she would bribe her sister for her affections—“anything a sexual predator might do to woo a suburban girl”—masturbate in the bed she shared with her, and inspected her infant vagina (it later turned out Grace had stuffed pebbles up there) because that was “within the spectrum of things I did.”

I don’t really have a strong opinion about these allegations; I think it’s clear that Lena didn’t molest her sister, who doesn’t identify as a victim. I also think, as Roxane Gay, amongst others, wrote, that Dunham has boundary issues and isn’t always the best at acknowledging her white privilege and where she may have fucked up.

But I think what scared people the most about Dunham’s unabashed confessions is that it prescribes a curiosity and sexuality to children that adults would like to forget. Radhika Sanghani, writing in Daily Life, interviewed child psychologist Dr. Rachel Andrews, about the wider reaction to possible sexual experimentation by young girls. Andrews says, “It’s ‘just one of those things that boys do.’ But you might see a lot of girls who might have their hands down their pants and that be more questioned as to whether it’s normal. In fact it’s quite common. You might notice girls in a high chair rhythmically rubbing against the front of it.”

I remember as a 5-year-old I would mash the smooth plastic between my Barbies and Kens’ legs together and incessantly sing the song “Let’s Talk About Sex” (OK, the chorus; I wasn’t as adept as remembering rap lyrics as I am now!) with my male bestie during quiet time at school. And as many a female writer, tweeter and Tumblr(er?) has pointed out in the wake of all this, exploring our own and others’ bodies is a natural part of childhood. Doctors and nurses or mommies and daddies, anyone?

As we grow older, we start to understand social codes that tell us we should nip this curiosity in the bud and instead be ashamed of our bodies and hide them away. Even in the presence of a monogamous significant other (because sharing it with more than one person is also frowned upon), our bodies should be shrouded by bras, strategically placed sheets and minimal lighting, as Hollywood teaches us. Even in the scarily progressive (for the time) Sex & the City, which showed women frankly talking to each other about sex, Carrie and Charlotte shielded their bodies much of the time with underwear and bedding. In Dunham’s Girls, some of the characters show frightening sides of their sexualities whilst the actresses who chose to remain clothed mirror this by showing equally frightening sides of their personalities. Whilst, like Not That Kind of Girl, the show has some privilege problems to work through, Girls has been revolutionary because it’s not afraid to portray young women as many of them are: people that can sometimes be scary in their cluelessness, narcissism and humanity.

By contrast, we all know there’s nothing more terrifying than women who’ve got their shit together, especially those who don’t fit the conventional mold like the Dunhams. For example, Dunham’s mother’s reaction to Lena finding pebbles in Grace’s vagina was a rational one. She didn’t freak out or get angry or shame her daughters, which no doubt contributed to Dunham’s unabashed comfort in sharing her body and her thoughts with the world. As Dr. Andrews continues, “To have a big reaction about [children exploring their bodies], certainly a child could then go on to think there’s something wrong with them and what they’re doing… It can have an adverse effect.”

In order to keep producing these girls that terrify the status quo, more adults need to take that position and not freak out when they catch their children—and particularly their girls—doing things they apparently shouldn’t. It’s only once we start adding adult meaning to children’s actions that they couldn’t possibly fathom that they start to take a sinister shape. It’s more likely that Dunham’s childhood actions were ones of curiosity than predation. And in today’s internet age, satisfying that curiosity has never been easier, as seen with the Slenderman attempted murder. In addition to understanding that children will start to search for things online that’d make your grandma blush, we also need to discuss them rationally, without shame and guide them to make informed decisions. Otherwise we keep producing literally terrifying girls to match our literally terrifying boys.

Scarlett Harris is a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance writer and blogger at The Scarlett Woman, where she muses about feminism, social issues, and pop culture. You can follow her on Twitter.

Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

One Feminist Critic’s Battle With Gaming’s Darker Side at NPR

The tyranny of maternity on TV by Mary McNamara at Los Angeles Times

Lena Dunham Adapting YA Novel ‘Catherine, Called Birdy’ Into Movie by Julia Zdrojewski at BUST

Wonder Woman’s Kinky Feminist Roots by Katha Pollitt at The Atlantic

Elizabeth Peña paved the way for Latinas in Hollywood at PRI’s The World

Frances McDormand is much more than the role in Fargo that made her famous at PRI

How Gail Simone changed the way we think about female superheroes by Alex Abad-Santos at VOX

How One Casting Director Made Television More Diverse by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong at Fast Company

Director Justin Simien on Dear White People and Black Stories in Hollywood by Jesse David Fox at Vulture

“Pride” is a Joyful Film About the Need for Unlikely Allies by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

Jane Campion’s ‘Top of the Lake’ to Return for Season 2 by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

5 Things to Know About Jane the Virgin by Nolan Feeney at TIME

London Film Festival Review: ‘Honeytrap’ – Engaging Story of a Young Woman Who Lets Yearning for Acceptance Spiral Out of Control by Wendy Okoi-Obuli at Shadow and Act

Working with Laverne Cox, Standing in Solidarity with Trans Women of Color by Mitch Kellaway at The Advocate

Everything We Know About ‘XX,’ The All-Female Horror Anthology You’ve Been Waiting For by Kate Erbland at Film School Rejects

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Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

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Watch online: MAKERS – Women in Comedy

Siskel and Ebert made their own ‘tropes vs. women’ video in 1980 by Ben Kuchera at Polygon

8 Incredible Female Directed films at VIFF

What Country’s Film Industry Has the Best Gender Equity? by Sarah Mirk at Bitch Media

Issa Rae’s Color Creative Calls for TV Diversity by Margeaux Johnson at Ebony

12 Times Leslie Knope Totally Nailed Being a Feminist by Isis Madrid at GOOD

Does Television Spanglish Need A Rewrite? by Jasmine Garsd at NPR

So, What Kind of Girl Is She? The Critics’ Appraisal of Lena Dunham by Maggie Lange at Vulture

The NFL’s Domestic Violence Problem and Our Race Problem by Jessica Luther at Vice Sports

Another day, another incongruous casting choice: Catherine Zeta-Jones to play Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco by Soraya Nadia McDonald at The Washington Post

Three New Sci-Fi Epics With Female Protagonists in Development by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

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Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

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Watch Shonda Rhimes Talk About ‘Scandal’s’ Season Finale by Jamilah King at Colorlines

Megan Ellison to Develop TV Show about Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

When Women Take to the Sea to Provide Safe Abortions by Jessica Luther at Bitch Magazine

Heroines of Cinema: Mimi Leder and the Impossible Standard for Women Directors in Hollywood by Matthew Hammett Knott at Indiewire

Interview: Nadine Patterson’s Talks Her Reimagining Of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ Which Screens 4/23 In Harlem by Sergio at Shadow and Act

An Ode to My Four Favorite Women on Mad Men by Emilly Prado at Bitch Magazine

DreamWorks’ Latest Movie Will Have Something No Pixar Film Has Ever Tried by Zak Cheney-Rice at PolicyMic

How Many Of These Movies By Female Directors Have You Seen? by Alison Willmore at BuzzFeed

VIDEO: The “Orange Is The New Black” Season Two Trailer Is Here, Lovely, Amazing by Riese at Autostraddle

Naked if I want to: Lena Dunham’s body politic by Soraya Roberts at Salon

10 Women Directors to Watch in 2014 by Shannon M. Houston at Paste

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Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

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Veronica Mars is Back–And She’s Still Everything You Love. by Kerensa Cadenas at Bitch Media

Hollywood’s Problem With Women of Color Is Even Worse Than You Realize by Amirah Mercer at PolicyMic

Oscars 2014: ‘Frozen’s’ Jennifer Lee on being a female director by Jennifer Lee at the Los Angeles Times

SXSW: Lena Dunham Calls For Industry to Change Its Attitude Toward Women in Keynote Speech by Ben Travers at IndieWire

Whoa! Nigerian Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Discusses Lupita Nyong’o’s Interest in Adapting Her Novel ‘Americanah’ by Jai Tiggett at Shadow and Act

In Their Own Terms The Growing Transgender Presence in Pop Culture by Jacob Bernstein at The New York Times

Tyler Perry And The Faux Empowerment of Black Women by Preston Mitchum at Role Reboot

#SheDocs Online Film Festival

Despite Katniss Everdeen, the Odds Are Not in Favor of Hollywood Heroines by Solvej Schou at TakePart

Women-Directed Films Win Top Prizes at SXSW by Inkoo Kang at Women and Hollywood

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Bitch Flicks’ Weekly Picks

Check out what we’ve been reading this week–and let us know what you’ve been reading/writing in the comments!

‘Suffragette’: How Many Firsts For Women in Film Can One Movie Achieve? by Alice Lytton at /bent

Lena Dunham’s Stint on SNL Was a Feminist Extravaganza by Isha Aran at Jezebel

The Respectability Politics of Lupita Nyong’o by Zeba Blay at Shadow and Act

Celebrating the Oscar Win for “12 Years a Slave”—While Noting Films that Were Left Out by Nijla Mu’min at Bitch Media

The feminist film-maker who’s taking on Hollywood by Emine Saner at The Guardian

Why Lupita Nyong’o’s Win Matters to Black Women & Girls by Britni Danielle at Clutch Magazine

“Strength” of Character: How the Silver Screen Perpetuates Gender Stereotypes by Emily Layden at Feministe

When Will the Women of the Documentary World Get Their Due? by Tom Roston at POV

It’s time for Hollywood to take advice from Octavia Butler and stretch its imagination by Syreeta at Feministing

The Oscars 2014 Tribute to Wieners, I Mean, Heroes by Roz Y. at The Plot Bunnies

‘Female Films Earn Money’: Cate Blanchett’s Awards-Season Crusade by Ashley Fetters at The Atlantic

100 Ideas That Changed Film by Maria Popova at Brain Pickings

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‘Girls’ Season 3: Recap and Roundup

There’s been some uproar, some talk, some criticism, and a lot of excitement about the return of ‘Girls.’ Lena Dunham’s insanely successful show (which for a show about a unsuccessful 20-something girl, strangely leaves me feeling even more unsuccessful as a 20-something girl who doesn’t have my own HBO show), while receiving fairly universal acclaim, has also been the recipient of some harsh criticism: where is the show’s diversity? And why is Dunham always naked?

Written by Rachel Redfern

*Spoiler Alert

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/wnU13ZHxjGk”]

There’s been some uproar, some talk, some criticism, and a lot of excitement about the return of Girls. Lena Dunham’s insanely successful show (which for a show about a unsuccessful 20-something girl, strangely leaves me feeling even more unsuccessful as a 20-something girl who doesn’t have my own HBO show), while receiving fairly universal acclaim, has also been the recipient of some harsh criticism: where is the show’s diversity? And why is Dunham always naked?

To be fair, both are valuable observations of the darkly comedic show; if you’re going to spend a lot of time naked on screen, what are the reasons? And, for a show about the millennial experience in New York City, why does the show only have white people?

First, for the commentators on the amount of nudity in Girls, I disagree; Dunham’s instances of sex (much like Masters of Sex) appear as way to further the character development, rather than give the audience “sexy times.” Jessa going down on another woman in the second episode, “Truth or Dare,” didn’t feel pandering or exploiting like most “girl on girl” sex scenes are; instead, if felt like an exposure of Jessa using sexuality, along with another person, in order to fulfill her own interest. Or as the Los Angeles Times said, “Dunham is forcing us to reconsider what bodies we value and why. It isn’t just nudity. It’s revolutionary.”

Second, there have been a lot of shows about white women in New York City, so yes, I think it’s time for change. Hopefully in the near future HBO and other prominent networks will expand into more varied character territory. Also, I think Dunham’s been fairly aware of the criticism leveled at the popular show and in her words, “We need to talk about diversifying the world of television. We are trying to continue to do it in ways that are genuine, natural, intelligent, but we heard all of that and really felt it deeply.” I feel it’s too Dunham’s credit as a writer that she “diversify” Girls in a way that flows naturally from the story.

More importantly though, Jessica Williams of The Daily Show glory will have a few spots in Girls season 3 (there’s no way this can turn out badly), and had some amazing thoughts on the situation: “It’s her art and it’s her voice. It’s not her responsibility to write from my experience.” I suggest you read it for yourself, since she says it so much better than I ever could.

nepotism girls — “A little nepotiz” noticed by internet meme people.

There’s also been that nepotism controversy with Dunham, which could be true, but oh well. So Dunham made a TV show with her friends, does it make it any less well-done? Are the children of famous people destined to live a life away from ambition just because their parents were famous? No, (but to be fair, let’s be honest, the saying “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is a thing for a reason).

Now, on to the show.

Girls has a more sitcom feeling this year, moving past a lot of the darkness that characterized season two: Hannah’s OCD behavior, Marnie’s failure at everything, and Jessa’s inexplicable disappearance. Season three wraps all those issues up nicely and quickly picks the show up and runs along (though whether a good choice to keep the show moving, or losing key plot and character moments remains to be seen).

Surprisingly, Adam and Hannah’s relationship seems to have mellowed and Adam is by turns deeply disturbing and charming, though more charming than disturbing; which is good since I found his odd rape references in season one really problematic.

But the first few episodes raise some good questions for the audience: what seem to be the most prominent themes of season three? Jessa’s storyline seems to have been built up this year, which I hope for more of as Jessa’s bluntness is, hands down, one of the best things on the show.

As to Marnie, will she find her way out of the wilderness? I especially liked the quick scene of Marnie waiting for the bus in the ‘burbs, a quick moment to show us the alienation that she feels from the city and her former life.

Also, since when was Adam a love guru? Giving impossibly bad advice about making immediate connections with people and “Just knowing that they’re right for you” seems a little off, cause, you know, love at first sight and overwhelming feelings of immediate love were never a bad idea.

One thing to note this season though, is how Dunham has changed as a director. Three years of experience in directing with a first-rate network (HBO) have obviously enhanced the ways that she’s expressing scenes. Dunham and the Girls crew seem much more willing to invest in longer shots and monologue, interjected with quicker moments of character exposition, i.e.: Marnie waiting for the bus, Jessa on her older friend’s bed with a disarmingly sincere smile, Hannah curled up in the leaves listening to This American Life.

Everyone is either bored or geekin' out. Sort of like real life. — Everyone is either bored or geekin’ out. Sort of like real life.

This season seem to be picking up quickly in the arena of gender commentary, most notably in the way that women interact with each other, and the way that women are seen as interacting with each other. Early on Adam voices his opinion on how women behave, saying, “Women get stuck in this vortex of guilt and jealousy with each other that keep them from seeing situations clearly.”

Also, Amy Schumer was there with a weird bit about pregnancy that was terrifying, awkward, hilarious, and probably everything you’ve ever wanted to say to an ex.

Unexpectedly, people seem to be over the Marnie storyline and are instead focusing on Shoshanna, a character viewed as sort of trivial, but who is growing up and into herself by exploring her sexuality after losing her virginity (raise your hand if you’ve been there), while also juggling school and remaining inordinately optimistic about her post-graduation options (oh my god, it’s me).

I can’t wait to see Shoshanna next season when she’s looking for a job.

But, hands down, the best line of the two-episode premier, proving that the show has a few laughs ahead, comes from the indomitable Hannah Horvath: “This rocking chair is so pointed it’s just not giving me any room to express myself.”

Yes Hannah, me too.

See also at Bitch Flicks: Let’s All Take a Deep Breath and Calm the Fuck Down About Lena Dunham, by Stephanie Rogers