Despite heavy criticism in the media, Dunham gracefully accepts Golden Globe for “Girls”
Lena Dunham has consistently gotten a more than healthy dose of criticism sprinkled in with her well-deserved fame, a phenomenon that culminated in last week’s Golden Globe Awards. Several reporters remarked on the barely concealed disappointment and lackluster applause fromDunham’s peers as her HBO show Girls won Best Comedy and Best Actress, over shows Big Bang Theory, Episodes, Modern Family and Smash.
The crowd’s chilly reception of Dunham’s gold mirrors negative opinion and criticism of the young actress/writer from all corners of the web. A simple Google search of “I hate Lena Dunham,” for example, yields a shocking 3,800,000 results. Acerbic radio host Howard Stern has also let fly some scalding remarks, calling Dunham “a little fat girl who kind of looks like Jonah Hill and she keeps taking her clothes off.” More recently, Stern has admittedly padded his insults, remarking post-Golden Globes, “Good for her, it’s hard for little fat chicks to get anything going.”
While the reasons for Dunham hate represent another much discussed and debated topic in the writing world, Dunham herself seems to brush off the negative attention with grace and acceptance of the ways of the writing world. While accepting her Globe, Dunham almost immediately addressed the issue, remarking, “I think that when you get criticism, you have to be elegant about it and appreciate it,” she said. “It’s part of the gift of getting to put your work out there in the world. I’m sure people don’t like the show for a lot of reasons.”
Controversy on the merits and shortcomings of Dunham’s career is so extensive that it’s discussion, which started back in April with the debut of Girls, is seemingly endless. In this respect, we have to applaud Dunham for accepting media response for what it is, and continuing to just do her, in the only way she knows, rather than retaliating to the whimsical and fast-fading opinions of Gawker and other internet gossipmongers. In some ways, Dunham’s smooth drive on the high road embodies one of the most commendable characteristics of her Girls character, Hannah– an unabashed presentation to the public of her, in all her weaknesses and all of her many successes, coupled with an informed disregard for the haters and unstoppable zeal for achieving what she set out to achieve.
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