It's been a few days since Lisa Lampanelli tweeted out a photo of herself and Lena Dunham with the moronic caption, "Me and my nigga @LenaDunham of @HBOGirls — I love this beyotch!!" and, while Lampanelli gave an interview to XO Jane explaining her reasoning behind it (spoiler alert: her reasoning is stupid and unapologetic), Lena Dunham has, up until today, remained silent. On one hand, fair enough. Dunham had no control over what Lampanelli was writing and it's doubtful that she was clued into it ahead of time. But, on the other hand, as pointed out today on Twitter by writer Shayla Pierce, Dunham's lack of response or willingness to publicly decry Lampanelli's actions is almost as damning as being openly complicit.
Surprisingly, Dunham then responded to Pierce directly.
Dunham sounds sincerely regretful and, frankly, it would be ridiculous to hold Lampanelli's tweet against her. But what of Twitter not being the best place to address the issue? Dunham is right in some respects — 140 characters is not adequate space to address the horribleness that is a white person senselessly using the n-word (though I agree with Pierce — a "Not cool, Lisa" out of Dunham would have gone a long way), but the fact is that Dunham has access to much larger platforms. While it's not her responsibility to address it — again, she didn't do anything — her choice to pick up the mantle by publicly pointing out the idiocy of this kind of ironic racism would have been awesome and influential. A lot of us are already big fans of Lena Dunham's work as an artist. This would have just given us a chance to admire her as even more of a role model than she already is.
Lena Dunham responds to Lisa Lampanelli controversy on Twitter [EW]
DISCUSSION
Why should Lena be held responsible for someone else's words? Am I the only one who is perplexed by this? If my friend chooses to text me while driving and then gets in an accident, is that my fucking fault? No. That's my friends fault for being stupid.