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greenguideTHURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

8 Craig Mathieson on the fi rst great drama of 2013 9 Australia Day for sale? Ten’s advertorial gambitf

We meet Lena Dunham in New York and fi nd out why Girls is the most exciting (and frank) show on television right now.

Voice of a generation

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10 greenguide THE AGE Thursday, January 17, 2013

Nothing’s sacred for girls on filmLike it or not, Lena Dunham has become the voice of the Twitter generation, writes Tiffany Bakker.

I’m . . . playing someonewho’s doing a standardamount of nakedness.

coverstory

IN THE first episode of the firstseason of runaway hit HBOseries Girls, Lena Dunhamdelivers a line that, for good or

bad, will follow her to the end oftime. Dunham’s Hannah, a strug-gling writer, high on opium teaand begging her parents not to cuther off financially, declares boldlythat she is ‘‘the voice of a genera-tion ... or a voice of a generation’’.

Given the autobiographicalnature of Dunham’s work, mostcritics thought she wasn’t joking.‘‘I thought people would know itwas a joke,’’ the effervescentDunham says when we meet inHBO’s New York offices.

‘‘I assumed that because thecharacter was on drugs, peoplewould understand. But apparently,no, people did not get the joke.’’

In a way, Dunham has becomea voice of her generation whethershe wanted to or not. Girls is aboutthe hapless romantic and profes-sional lives of the erratic Hannah,the responsible Marnie (AllisonWilliams), the irresponsible Jessa(Jemima Kirke) and the innocentShosanna (Zosia Mamet), fourBrooklyn women in their 20s whodate inappropriate men, live incramped apartments and face thedaunting possibility that, as collegegraduates, they won’t get anywherenear the sorts of jobs they thoughtthey would.

This is the opposite of the aspir-ational world of Sex and the City –Girls is so gritty and emotionallyraw, it can be difficult viewing. ‘‘IfI can enlighten anybody aboutwhat it’s like to be a young person,

part of the first generation raisedon instant messaging and graduat-ing in a recession,’’ declaresDunham, a Twitter and Instagramenthusiast, ‘‘then I’ll be happy ifthat experience is illuminated bywhat I’m doing.’’

Unsurprisingly, Dunham isverbose, engaging and whip-smartin person. And, with her more put-together clothes and precise make-up, she’s a more polished versionof her alter ego.

‘‘I tend to think of Hannah as aversion of me that has no sense of

when to shut up, and exists abouttwo or three years behind whereI’m at emotionally,’’ Dunham says.

‘‘It’s actually fun and cathartic toplay that person and re-enact thosehumiliations, and sometimes shecan be really evolved. I hate to talkabout her like I didn’t invent her,but sometimes she can sort of sur-prise me with her wisdom.’’

Much about the character ofHannah polarises: her propensityto overshare; her inability to stoptalking long after she probablyshould have stopped – the scene inseason one in which she sabotagesa promising job interview with arape joke is particularly cringeful;her initially degrading and emo-tionally abusive relationship withAdam (the magnetic Adam Driver).But, ultimately, Hannah is smart,

funny and endearing, and youreally want her to win.

Much has been made of the factthat Dunham, as Hannah, spendsa lot of time naked. That a ‘‘nor-mal’’ woman is showing her bodyonscreen shouldn’t be revolution-ary, but it is. This, Dunhamdeclares, is what a woman lookslike. For her, the nudity is not gra-tuitous, but important.

‘‘I’m just trying to play a girlwith an ambivalent, complicated,interesting relationship to her body.Some days I like doing it and somedays it’s harder, but I just keep atit because I think that it’s some-thing that’s important for us to doright now.’’

This remains the case in seasontwo. In the third episode, on in twoweeks, Dunham is virtually topless

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(Above, from left) Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, executive producer Jenni Konner, Allison Williams, Lena Dunham; (below) series co-creator Dunham. PICTURES: NEW YORK TIMES

almost half the time, in a sheer mesh top.Sometimes she feels ‘‘gross’’ and wants tocry when it’s time to shoot a nude scene;other days she’ll run around happily with nopants on. Still, she’s surprised by the con-tinuing public dialogue about her state ofundress.

‘‘Here’s the thing that’s interesting:Hannah is not that out-there with her body;Hannah’s naked just about as much as any-body is naked. I’m just playing her and I’mon TV doing it, so it seems like I’m nakedall the time, but I’m actually just playingsomeone who’s doing a standard amount ofnakedness. Just the moments they wouldusually cut out of a TV show – someone’schanging or someone’s having sex – we’rethere for.’’

Since her rapid rise, Dunham has beenunfairly maligned by critics and the public attimes. Indeed, much of the vitriol seems tobe a result of envy.

At 26, she already has an astonishingbody of work. There was her 2009 featurefilm Tiny Furniture, which featured heryounger sister, Grace, and mother, New Yorkartist Laurie Simmons, and containedDunham family conversations pretty muchverbatim.

After seeing Tiny Furniture, director-producer Judd Apatow contacted Dunhamabout creating a series for HBO.

Then there is the fact she grew up in aprivileged New York world – Tiny Furniturewas filmed at the family’s impressive Tribecaloft. Indeed, all the main cast members ofGirls happen to have parents who are prom-inent in the media-arts world.

Aside from Dunham (whose father is theartist Carroll Dunham) and Kirke, the showalso stars Zosia Mamet, daughter of play-wright David Mamet, and Allison Williams,the daughter of respected NBC news anchorBrian Williams.

The perception that family connectionsmay have influenced Dunham’s ascendancyand the show’s casting choices rankles exec-utive producer and co-writer Jenni Konner.

‘‘The funny thing about the nepotismissue is that none of them is in a positionto get jobs in television except for maybeAllison, but it’s not like you – as the daugh-

ter of two artists – immediately get handeda pilot at HBO.’’

There have been other, more valid criti-cisms, of course. They include that the showlacks diversity, and that the first season hadno prominent characters of colour. Dunhamhas gone some way to addressing this in thefirst episode of the second series, in whichHannah hooks up with Sandy (Community’sDonald Glover), a black guy who happens tobe a hipster and a Republican.

‘‘Race was a topic we were always goingto get to because we’re trying to talk aboutall of the big issues that you deal with as ayoung person in America right now, andobviously race is a huge part of our socialdynamic, no matter how much PC liberal-arts students don’t want to talk about it,’’Dunham says. ‘‘It’s there, and it won’t stopbeing there.’’

Dunham, herself a former ‘‘PC liberal-arts student’’ who went to the arts-focusedOberlin College, also attended the very artySaint Ann’s high school, in Brooklyn, whichwas hardly a barrel of laughs. At the schoolshe felt isolated, saying she was the ‘‘chubbykid’’ with ‘‘no friends’’. Still, it didn’t stop

her seeking out classmate Jemima Kirke(daughter of Bad Company drummer SimonKirke), who was apparently deemed a coolkid, at a school dance and asking to befriends. When I meet Kirke in Soho the dayafter my interview with Dunham, she says:‘‘[Dunham] came up to me and said, ‘You’recool, I like your top, we should be friends.’’Kirke, an artist who appeared in TinyFurniture as ‘‘a favour’’ and ended up inGirls as the free-spirited Jessa (‘‘still as afavour’’ and in a part that was based entirelyon her), says she’s at once surprised, andthen not surprised, by Dunham’s success.

‘‘I really can’t believe it, but at the sametime it makes a lot of sense, knowing herfrom school,’’ Kirke says. ‘‘She’s just astrange girl. She did the most ridiculous,nerdy things, but she was so confident. Ialways thought she was going to be somesort of writer, but I didn’t think it would bethis mainstream, put it that way.’’ Things,however, are about to get entirely moremainstream for Dunham. She recentlysigned a $3.5 million book deal – much tothe chagrin of the Gawker gossip blog,which leaked her book proposal online – towrite Nora Ephron-esque essays about, yes,being a young woman in 2013.

So can she, with all her success, stillrelate to the struggles of the types of youngwomen she’s writing about?

‘‘I’ve gotten that question quite a bit,including from my dad, and the fact is, Ifeel as though there are certain emotions –lostness, not knowing what your place is inthe world, feeling a little bit disconnectedfrom yourself and the people around you –that it would be great if a book deal or a TVshow could solve those things, but theydon’t,’’ she says. ‘‘No matter what, I am a 26year old trying to figure out what my nextmove is – ‘Am I responsible enough to havea dog?’; ‘Why didn’t I take my trash out forthree days?’; ‘Who am I?’ All of those thingsare still completely a part of me, and I feellike I’m able to tap into that enough thathopefully it won’t become an issue.

‘‘But I am sure that if it is, people will letme know on Twitter.’’

Girls is on Mondays on Foxtel’s Showcase channel.

11THE AGE Thursday, January 17, 2013 greenguide