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As much as people want to believe the saying, “Every little bit helps,” sometimes, in all honesty, it really doesn’t. For, just as Lena Dunham’s “landmark” series Girls did little to help put a cork in the overflowing gentrification that came to roost in the North Brooklyn of 2012, nor will her offer of painting a mural as a means to support The Union Solidarity Coalition (TUSC) during the ongoing WGA strike do much apart from inspire shock and horror (see: the accompanying photos that are meant to somehow attest to her brilliance as a muralist). Nevertheless, Dunham apparently has so little to occupy herself that whiling the day away painting a shitty mural she brands as the “stuff six-year-olds talk about” seems, to her, a worthy use of her time. And sure, there are other “quirky” celebrities, including Natasha Lyonne and Bob Odenkirk, who are also offering their lesser-known services (the former: help with the New York Times crossword puzzle; the latter: an offer to have dinner with the winning bidder, accompanied by his real-life Mr. Show bestie, David Cross). All in the spirit of raising funds for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) and other various crew members whose healthcare has been affected during the latest dust-up between studios and unions.
For someone congenitally wealthy like Dunham, doing “her part” to assist is, of course, part and parcel of noblesse oblige. And perhaps all the caveats thrown into the auction description infer that she’s hoping to be able to dip out early from her supposed day’s work. For example, “Inappropriate behavior or solicitation for personal gain by the winner could result in the immediate conclusion of the experience with no refund. The talent has the right to end the experience at any time, for any reason, with no refund.” Taking into account how uppity someone like Dunham can be, the odds of her arbitrarily ending the “experience” seem highly likely. Nonetheless, the bid on the as-of-yet-unmade mural hovers over five thousand dollars as of September 17th…though that hardly usurps the amount Odenkirk and Cross have already been able to secure (a whopping 10K). Sadly, seeing other, more worthwhile “items” go for far less (e.g., going on a bar crawl with Triangle of Sadness’ Dolly De Leon or “starting your story journey” with Insecure’s Amy Aniobi) on The Union Solidarity Coalition’s auction block is yet a further indication that not enough people have “woken up” vis-à-vis the faux woke Dunham.
And perhaps it is a sign of how desperate the times are (money raising-wise) that unions and their backers have decided to gloss over Dunham’s fraught history of problematic statements and behavior. Not least of which is that time in 2017 when she came to the defense of accused Girls writer Murray Miller. In the fresh wake of #MeToo, Aurora Perrineau came forward to describe being sexually assaulted by Miller in 2012 (the year Girls first aired)—though certain texts confirmed it would have been late 2011—when she was seventeen and he was thirty-five. Dunham was quick to swoop in and defend the Girls alum by making a public statement with her co-showrunner, Jenni Konner, that went:
…during every time of change there are also incidences of the culture, in its enthusiasm and zeal, taking down the wrong targets. We believe, having worked closely with him for more than half a decade, that this is the case with Murray Miller. While our first instinct is to listen to every woman’s story, our insider knowledge of Murray’s situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the three percent of assault cases that are misreported every year. It is a true shame to add to that number, as outside of Hollywood women still struggle to be believed. We stand by Murray and this is all we’ll be saying about this issue.
Naturally, that was not to be all Dunham would be saying about the issue. For, as is her usual pattern, whenever a public backlash arises, she’s quick to release a hollow apology that feigns self-flagellation before then immediately returning to her regularly-scheduled viewpoints and behavior.
Funnily enough, just months before invalidating Perrineau’s “claim,” Dunham had tweeted, “Things women do lie about: what they ate for lunch. Things women don’t lie about: rape.” Evidently, her true opinion was more aligned with most legal systems as, less than a year later, the Los Angeles County DA’s Office threw the case out on the basis that the mere three-year statute of limitations for a statutory rape case had passed and because there were too many “inconsistencies which cannot be overcome.” In other words, no one wanted to do the work. In response to the DA’s decision, Perrineau’s lawyer, Alan Jackson, stated, “There’s never been an inconsistency in regards to Aurora’s statements and her recitation of the facts about what happened. All I can maintain is what my client has maintained from the very beginning. There was no issue as to Aurora’s credibility.” That much was corroborated by a polygraph test Perrineau also had to take at the request of the LAPD.
No matter though—Dunham insisted Perrineau was “one of the three percent of assault cases that are misreported every year.” And it only took one “pick me” maneuver like that to give even more license for the patriarchy to dismiss Perrineau at a time when, theoretically, women were being more “listened to” than ever before. Just not women of color. A reality that writer Zinzi Clemmons was quick to point out when she urged fellow Black women to “divest from” Dunham after she recalled,
Jemima Kirke was in my year at RISD while I was at Brown. We had many mutual acquaintances and still do. Most of these acquaintances were like Lena—wealthy, with parents who are influential in the art world. They had a lot of power and seemed to get off on simultaneously wielding it and denying it. Back in college, I avoided these people like the plague because of their well-known racism. I’d call their strain ‘hipster racism,’ which typically uses sarcasm as a cover, and in the end, it looks a lot like gaslighting—‘It’s just a joke. Why are you overreacting?’ is a common response to a lot of these statements. In Lena’s circle, there was a girl who was known to use the N-word in conversation in order to be provocative, and if she was ever called on it, she would say ‘it’s just a joke.’
Perhaps as bad of a joke as Dunham prostrating herself for charity with the promise of a mural. One wonders, however, what she would do if the winning bidder tried to give her some direction for the piece by instructing her to deliver her own artistic rendering of a rape. Would she oblige? Or determine this constituted the type of “inappropriate behavior” that warrants “immediate conclusion of the experience with no refund”? Yet what’s more inappropriate? Asking her to illustrate something she seemingly tolerates or The Union Solidarity Coalition allowing her to get anywhere near their fundraising efforts? Especially since the real kicker is the fact that “all net proceeds will support Free the Work… a global community of underrepresented creators changing the lens through which we look at Diversity & Inclusion and production.”
Considering the aforementioned assessment of Dunham’s “well-known”/“hipster racism,” her involvement doesn’t exactly come across as “on-brand” with such an organization. What’s more, when taking into account the recent backlash against Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis’ vocal support for an accused rapist, it feels like Dunham sidestepped her own loud-and-proud support of one altogether. Perhaps proving that the public always forgets (even with the internet) once they’ve moved on to the next celebrity to cancel. That said, Kutcher is currently enduring more vitriol than perhaps even Danny Masterson, resulting in the decision to step down from his role as the head of Thorn, the anti-human trafficking organization he co-founded that is supposed to believe all victims rather than, as Kutcher said, “question victims who are brave enough to share their experiences.” Kunis, too, has also agreed to stand down from her post as “an observer” on the board.
But, who knows, maybe in a few more years, they’ll be free to paint murals for people at an auction created to assist the marginalized and disenfranchised.
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Genna Rivieccio
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