Lena Dunham

Career

While a student at Oberlin College, Dunham produced several independent short films and uploaded them to YouTube. Many of her early films dealt with themes of sexual enlightenment and were produced in a mumblecore style. In 2006, she produced Pressure, in which a girl and two friends talk about experiencing an orgasm for the first time. Another early film, The Fountain, which depicted her in a bikini brushing her teeth in a public fountain at Oberlin College, went viral on YouTube.

Dunham was shocked by the backlash and took the video down. In 2007, she starred in a ten-episode web series for Nerve.com entitled Tight Shots. In 2009, Dunham created the Index Magazine web series Delusional Downtown Divas, which satirized the New York City art scene. Also in 2009, she premiered Creative Nonfiction at the South by Southwest Festival.

Dunham had a career breakthrough with her semi-autobiographical 2010 feature film Tiny Furniture, which won Best Narrative Feature at South by Southwest and later won her an Independent Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay.

In the media

Dunham has appeared on magazine covers including Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire, Popular Mechanics, and Rolling Stone. In 2015, she and Jenni Konner co-founded Lenny Letter, a feminist online newsletter initially supported by Hearst Corporation advertising and later by Condé Nast. The newsletter published essays by Jennifer Lawrence and Alicia Keys.

In November 2017, following a letter denouncing Aurora Perrineau's accusation of sexual assault, Zinzi Clemmons announced she would no longer contribute. Lenny Letter shut down in October 2018, reportedly due to a decline in subscribers. Dunham has also been criticized for her production of the film Orgasm Inc: The Story of OneTaste, with hundreds of people claiming their images were used without consent.

Controversies and criticism

In her 2014 memoir Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham wrote she had been sexually assaulted by a former Oberlin classmate she called 'Barry'. A former classmate hired an attorney, saying the description was detailed enough to identify him; Dunham apologized, and Random House reprinted the book with a disclaimer. Dunham also wrote about examining her one-year-old sibling Cyrus's vagina and using candy to bribe Cyrus to play with her, describing it in terms of a sexual predator.

This prompted allegations of child sexual abuse by right-wing journalists; media figures including Roxane Gay defended Dunham, calling the actions 'weird' but not abusive. Cyrus defended Dunham. She later apologized for her 'comic use of the term sexual predator'. The first season of Girls was critiqued for its all-white main cast.

In November 2017, Dunham and Konner defended Girls writer Murray Miller after Aurora Perrineau accused him of sexual assault, stating their insider knowledge made them confident the accusation was among the 3% of assault cases misreported each year.

Political activities

Dunham supports gun control, immigrant rights, and LGBT rights and has backed Democratic Party candidates. In 2012, she appeared in a video advertisement promoting President Barack Obama's reelection, comparing voting for the first time to having sex for the first time. Some conservative commentators called the ad tasteless; Dunham defended it, tweeting that the message was serious about voting for women's rights.

In 2014, she was named the Recipient of Horizon Award by Point Foundation for her support of the gay community. In April 2016, she published an essay supporting Hillary Clinton and pledged to move to Canada if Donald Trump won; after Trump's victory, she wrote on Instagram that she would stay to fight. In June 2017, she endorsed Jim Johnson for New Jersey governor and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK general election.

Did You Know?

• She entered rehab for benzodiazepine addiction in April 2018 and celebrated two years of sobriety in April 2020.
• In her 2026 memoir Famesick, she revealed she was molested as a child by a babysitter.