Dunham’s naked talk

last updated 8 January 2015

Lena Dunham refuses to be ashamed of her body, said Caitlin Moran in The Times (U.K.). The 26-year-old often appears naked or barely clothed in the hit HBO series Girls, which she also writes and directs. Some viewers and critics have complained about Dunham exposing her size 10 figure. “There is hostility—people saying, ‘Why do you think I want to see you naked?’” she sighs. “It’s like, you put on the television and watched it!” So why does Dunham continue to strip, knowing she’ll only be bombarded with criticism? “I think my motives are varied. There’s a part of me that goes, ‘You think I’m chubby? Well, LOOK AT ME NAKED.’ Then there’s also sometimes some feeling of rage. Like fat girls should know to keep their clothes on.” Dunham thinks it’s absurd that American women are taught to hate their bodies, irrespective of their shape, from an early age. “There’s one day, in 7th grade—when you’re, like, 12—when it stops being okay to say nice things about yourself,” she says. “When you’re little you can be, ‘I love my dress! I’m beautiful!’ Then a day comes where all your friends are like, ‘Don’t you know that’s not okay?’ When you get a compliment now, you must be like, ‘No! I’m so fat and hideous!’”