Stop Dissing Lena Dunham's Boobs: Why I Will Fight You Over the Newest Episode of HBO's Girls

I realize it seems like I like just did a column on HBO’s Girls. But that was, like, before this season even started and I have a LOT of opinions and a lot of things I’m desperate to get across to you guys. So much so I was texting one of my girlfriends at like one in the morning because last night’s episode was so surreal and amazing that I will never not love this show, despite all the crap it’s put my mind through.

So it stands to reason that I loved the episode, therefore the media seems to be an uproar.

Go on any single IMDB topic for the show, and some Reddit obsessed nineteen-year-old dude is complaining about series creator and star Lena Dunham’s  weight and excessive nudity at any given moment. I don’t have the facts and figures of that in front of me, but like, if a misogynist  falls in the forest, do women still hear themselves being called sluts?

Okay, so, spoiler warning, I’m about to review last night’s episode “One Man’s Trash” and it will contain spoilers.  Look away now if this is an issue for you.

This week’s episode features three characters. Hannah (Lena Dunham), her boss and kind-of-friend Ray (Alec Karpovsky), and a mysterious neighbor named Joshua (Patrick Wilson.) That’s it. And Ray vanishes after the first few minutes. The episode opens with Joshua coming into Ray’s cafe and complaining that someone’s been leaving the trash from the shop in his trashcan. Ray gets incredibly rude with Joshua, and Joshua just leaves in a huff. Hannah, sympathetic and ashamed of Ray quits her job on the spot and follows Joshua. Who lives in a house in the middle of Brooklyn. He invites Hannah in, where she confesses that she had been placing the trash in Joshua’s can. She apologizes but before she leaves, she kisses him out of nowhere. They proceed to be entangled with each other for two days. During this time, she learns that Joshua is a doctor from San Diego who just separated from his wife. Joshua cooks for Hannah, plays games with her, and takes care of her when she passes out in the shower. After he does this, she breaks down and admits that despite her self-indulgent lifestyle all she ever really wants is a healthy relationship and relatively boring life.

“Please don’t tell anyone this,” she cries, “but I want to be happy.”

After she puts herself out there, Joshua begins to act a little distant and Hannah begins to realize that the fantasy is over. The next day, she wakes up alone in his house. She composes herself, takes out his trash, and walks on.

Now, this episode has a LOT of nudity in it, and it’s very odd. Even in the universe of Girls. The internet seems to have a problem with that, because Hannah is not size 0, but if she were someone — I’m sure, would be tacking on an eating disorder. Lena Dunham is not morbidly obese, she looks normal. She looks incredibly average. The fact that people are bothered by seeing her boobs on the grounds of the way she looks, in my opinion, deserve to see her for extended periods of time totally nude. Because she’s fine with it, and I’m sure the critics are sitting there saying yeah– we get it. Stop it.

Well, no. If you’re still complaining you don’t get it. So she won’t stop it.

Hannah’s weird life is often beaten to death by critics, her issues are judged and in turn the shows team gets judged. Despite the very intelligent and articulate responses to the criticisms involved. So, let’s break this down. The self-indulgence has been confronted time-and-again. It was the moral of the season finale, and it lead to a generally much more likable Hannah this season. If you didn’t laugh at her “nothing-bunt-trouble” joke or at the image of her singing the infamously most hated song of all time last week (Wonderwall) I question your emotional processing abilities. Granted, this season she also snorted cocaine and has had numerous hook-ups. Though I don’t judge her for doing what she wants, she admits in this episode that she only does it so she can say she’s felt it all.

From idolator,com

Dangerously, I’m starting to find the prospect of feeling it all attractive, so long as I also get to feel Patrick Wilson. Speaking of which, WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM. So, basically, the idea of her hooking up with him is impossible? Apparently Donald Glover was out of the question too. You think Lena Dunham doesn’t realize what she’s doing when she plays naked ping pong with the gorgeous Patrick Wilson? My God. Of course she does. Look, there’s a chance to break the imagery of being pencil thin, of oversexualizing a topless woman, of defining beauty in regard to a certain template. There’s a lot of talk about wishing there’d be a broader representation of the female form in media. Well, here’s a start.

This episode is another step of Hannah changing little-by-little. It’s a break from reality, a look at the internal and the representation of a dream come true. Something that doesn’t happen to real people, and something that just doesn’t happen to Hannah. The second season shows that these people are the worst aspects of ourselves, and they’ve made crappy choices and they will pay the price for it. In fact, they already have. Adam and Hannah are no longer speaking, Hannah was called on her racism, Marnie’s lost her job and her boyfriend and now her best friend, Jessa is miserable and married to an idiot, and Shosh…Shosh isn’t so bad off. Living with Ray can’t be ideal, but she’ll figure it out.

Everyone will.