Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer Team Up For an Embarrassing Chat Between Friends
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On Friday, Lena Dunham’s Lenny newsletter published a conversational interview with Dunham’s friend, the actress and comedian Amy Schumer. It’s a cringeworthy read: Here mostly to promote Schumer’s new book, it exemplifies the self-involvement and frequent hypocrisy which has generally left me cold on Dunham’s projects.
Perhaps it’s the company—Schumer doesn’t come off as being particularly self-aware here, either—but the conversation feels like a corollary to the ongoing concept that personal self-empowerment is equal to feminism, that feeling good about oneself in a difficult and inequitable world is enough, and that doing so absolves one’s self of having to feel empathy or understanding of others. It also, very strangely, projects leering and potentially misogynist thoughts onto the mind of Odell Beckham Jr., a black football player for the New York Giants.
The interview begins fine enough, with Dunham writing that Schumer initially had auditioned for the role of Shoshanna in Girls, but that “it was clear Amy wasn’t meant to play an innocent Juicy Couture lover obsessed with emoji.” They chat about their own personal hustle and ambition, two things that have helped leverage their careers and afforded each the opportunity to attend the Met Ball (for Dunham, multiple times). And then we get this:
LD: You and I were literally sitting across from each other at the Met Ball, and it was like a crazy countdown to when we could escape. You were like, “We’re honored to be here. We’re honored to be here.”
AS: I left so early. When did you leave?
LD: I attempted to grind my ass on Michael B. Jordan for an additional twenty minutes and then left right after you.
I was sitting next to Odell Beckham Jr., and it was so amazing because it was like he looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards. He was like, “That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.” It wasn’t mean — he just seemed confused.
The vibe was very much like, “Do I want to fuck it? Is it wearing a … yep, it’s wearing a tuxedo. I’m going to go back to my cell phone.” It was like we were forced to be together, and he literally was scrolling Instagram rather than have to look at a woman in a bow tie. I was like, “This should be called the Metropolitan Museum of Getting Rejected by Athletes.”
AS: You were dressed like a boy, and you looked sexy, and I really appreciated you showing me your tits several times.
Dunham’s deployment of two black men here as both object— “I attempted to grind my ass on Michael B. Jordan”—and misogynist—“Do I want to fuck it?”—is telling, and deeply infuriating, particularly in her projection of an idea about black male athletes and their sexual prowess, all done to overemphasize how much she does not fit into a certain beauty or fashion ideal. (Never mind that Odell Beckham Jr. is as progressive a fashion plate as anyone, or that he simply may have been uninterested in talking to her.) Far as I can tell, Beckham was not given the chance to respond to her interpretation. (We’ve reached out to his representatives and will update if we hear back.)
Dunham then brings up Kurt Metzger, a writer for Inside Amy Schumer who recently took to Facebook to mock and belittle women who accused a fellow comedian of sexual assault, in the interest of “trolling.” They discuss how it’s unfair that Schumer would have to be held responsible for his actions—which is true in the sense that women are held responsible for the idiocy of men far too often, but is not true in the sense that Schumer employed and paid Metzger, a relationship that reasonably warranted a response from her. But she does say:
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