Speaker 1: Just a quick heads up. Today's episode talks about sexual violence.
Speaker 1: We're also recording on fourth of July evening, and I
Speaker 1: happened to live in a neighborhood that is very festive,
Speaker 1: where folks really enjoy their illegal fireworks. So we will
Speaker 1: do our best to have the sound not sound like
Speaker 1: I'm recording in a place where fireworks are going off
Speaker 1: every couple of seconds. But I am recording in a
Speaker 1: place where fireworks are going off every few seconds, So
Speaker 1: just keep that in mind. There are No Girls on
Speaker 1: the Internet. As a production of My Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget Todd, and this is there are
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet. Today's episode is going to
Speaker 1: be a little bit different. I wanted to talk to
Speaker 1: a topic that I've been dying to cover for a
Speaker 1: very long time. It's also a little bit controversial. You know.
Speaker 1: I have made episodes about everything involving white supremacists, quan
Speaker 1: O cultists, big name companies who have asked me to
Speaker 1: cease and desist talking about them, you name it. However,
Speaker 1: this is still one of the only topics that I've
Speaker 1: been a little bit worried about diving into because I
Speaker 1: know folks have really strong opinions about it. So to
Speaker 1: help me talk through today's topic, I am joined by
Speaker 1: There Are No Goes on the Internet producer and chief
Speaker 1: Science Officer, Mike. Producer, Mike, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being here. Thank you for having me. I'm glad I
Speaker 1: can be here to help make this episode. Me too,
Speaker 1: Me too. Did you do anything fun for Fourth of July?
Speaker 1: It doesn't too exciting, just hanging out in my apartment
Speaker 1: listening to the constant fireworks outside. I feel it's like
Speaker 1: a new thing the past couple of years that fireworks
Speaker 1: just start around nude and then go until midnight, and uh,
Speaker 1: and I'm here for it. It's pretty exciting. Yeah, pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: Not the best conditions for recording a podcast, but we'll
Speaker 1: make it work. So I know that you are a
Speaker 1: fan of podcasts where the hosts kind of revisit a
Speaker 1: story about a public figure, usually a woman like Mondaklinsky
Speaker 1: or Courtney Love, and point out all of the unfair
Speaker 1: ways that this person has been maligned by society and
Speaker 1: the media, and we all kind of have this public
Speaker 1: recomming about the ways that the media can be unfair
Speaker 1: or sexist or all around harmful. I love podcasts like that,
Speaker 1: and Mike, I know that you do as well. It's true.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great format. I think, uh it
Speaker 1: really works well with the classic podcast dynamic of like
Speaker 1: one person explaining, one person listening. And I also thinks
Speaker 1: that it's uh a format for which there's many great
Speaker 1: examples because uh, you know, society just loves to smear
Speaker 1: and orch a woman. So I love podcasts like that
Speaker 1: as well. But I want to be very clear this
Speaker 1: episode is not going to be one of those podcast episodes,
Speaker 1: even though I am the person who's did all the
Speaker 1: research and I will be explaining the situation to you, Mike.
Speaker 1: So it's a little bit like those, But today we
Speaker 1: are not trying to sort of demonstrate the way that
Speaker 1: the media unfairly maligned somebody. We are zeroing in on
Speaker 1: one specific misleading claim about none other than Lena Dunham.
Speaker 1: I am in no way making a larger point about
Speaker 1: the way that the media and society has portrayed her broadly,
Speaker 1: but I do want to zero in on this one
Speaker 1: specific claim and analyze how it became to be this
Speaker 1: very sticky, persistent lie that still endures online today and
Speaker 1: what that lie says about our culture? Yes, So why
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham, Why this one specific thing? Great question. So
Speaker 1: a little bit of background about how I came to
Speaker 1: be making this episode. I used to work on the
Speaker 1: social media team at m s NBC dot com and
Speaker 1: one of our kind of tried and true digital engagement
Speaker 1: tricks was to post about someone, a public figure that
Speaker 1: we knew our audience would engage with, positive or negative.
Speaker 1: This is back In, and our audience used to love
Speaker 1: to hate on Putin, and so whenever we posted something
Speaker 1: about Putin that posted that cast him in a negative light,
Speaker 1: we could always expect that people would really engage. Without
Speaker 1: a lot they'd be leaving like mean comments like yeah
Speaker 1: we hate him. They they love to hate on Putin.
Speaker 1: But hands down, no question, the public figure that got
Speaker 1: the most hate on out all of our social media
Speaker 1: pages was Lena Dunham. I think, if I'm recalling correctly,
Speaker 1: I think people disliked Lena Dunham more than they disliked Putin,
Speaker 1: which is really saying something. And I used I worked
Speaker 1: on this podcast project where Lena Dunham was one of
Speaker 1: our guests. And again, you know, we had posted episodes
Speaker 1: with all different types of public figures and celebrities, but
Speaker 1: when we posted our Lenda Dunham episode, it was instant
Speaker 1: unanimous negative feedback. And so I noticed whenever we would
Speaker 1: publish about her, or post about her or feature her online,
Speaker 1: commenters would always repeat, like a laundry list of reasons
Speaker 1: they don't like her. You know. Sometimes they would be
Speaker 1: the garden variety of things that you would expect, like oh,
Speaker 1: she's a spoiled brad, I hate her, or you know,
Speaker 1: oh she's gross, which is pretty much just kind of
Speaker 1: fat phobia. But by far the most common thing I
Speaker 1: would see commenters say about Lenda Dunam online was this
Speaker 1: particularly persistent claim that she's a quote sexual predator who
Speaker 1: admitted to molesting her younger sibling. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: always very interested in what I referred to as sticky
Speaker 1: pieces of disinformation or misinformation or lies, you know, things
Speaker 1: that really just seemed to cut through and persist. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in why these things stick and to
Speaker 1: what end, and what their stickiness tells us about our culture.
Speaker 1: And in that regard, you know, this misleading claim about
Speaker 1: Lenda Dunham is fast it into me because I think
Speaker 1: It tells us a lot about the ways that are
Speaker 1: political and social climates intersect, which is particularly important in
Speaker 1: today's climate. And I just want to make it super
Speaker 1: super clear because I can already hear people who are
Speaker 1: listening thinking, why are you defending Lena Dunham. She's awful?
Speaker 1: You know, what are you doing? Let me be very clear,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of valid reasons to not rock with
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham, some of which will be talking about in
Speaker 1: this episode. So this is not me trying to get
Speaker 1: anyone to think that Lynda Dunham is good, or it
Speaker 1: is not me saying that every single claim about her
Speaker 1: is unfair or untrue. But the claim that she sexually
Speaker 1: abused her sibling, I believe is a pretty nasty thing
Speaker 1: to repeat about somebody. And I don't know that people
Speaker 1: who repeat this particularly nasty lie know that it initially
Speaker 1: started as a right wing attack on a prominent liberal voice,
Speaker 1: but because of Lena Dunham's overall I guess we'll say vibe,
Speaker 1: this claim has really taken route, not just in right
Speaker 1: wing circles but more generally too. Like people who I
Speaker 1: believe probably have would never read a right wing blog,
Speaker 1: you know, for any legitimate reason should probably be aware
Speaker 1: that they are repeating a lie that was really cooked
Speaker 1: up in the right wing blog is sphere, And I
Speaker 1: think that should be really concerning. I think the ways
Speaker 1: that this claim has sort of become true, that's scare
Speaker 1: quotes around that, and has persisted for so long, should
Speaker 1: really be concerning for all of us. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about how and why that happened and what it means.
Speaker 1: So for people like me who don't really know anything
Speaker 1: about this, who is Lena Dunham? So if you don't
Speaker 1: know who Lena Dunham is, I will give you kind
Speaker 1: of a quick and dirty summary of her background. Lena
Speaker 1: Dunham is an actor, producer, and writer. She's the daughter
Speaker 1: of visual artist Laurie Simmons, who is a very big
Speaker 1: deal in the art world because her art is incredible.
Speaker 1: Lena rose to fame after making a really strong film
Speaker 1: debut called Tiny Furniture, which is basically a semi autobiographical
Speaker 1: movie about a young woman portrayed by Lena, who disgraduated
Speaker 1: from college and is trying to navigate adulthood. Laurie Simmons,
Speaker 1: her real life mom, plays her mom in the movie
Speaker 1: and in the movie, her mom is also a visual
Speaker 1: artist and photographer who stages these uh stages or pieces
Speaker 1: with tiny dollhouse furniture, just like her mom does in
Speaker 1: real life. And Lena's real life sibling, Cyrus Grace, plays
Speaker 1: Lena's character sibling in the movie too, so it's very
Speaker 1: semi autobiographical. In twelve, she created and started HBO's Girls,
Speaker 1: which also explores kind of similar themes young white women
Speaker 1: trying to navigate young adulthood post college in Brooklyn, New York.
Speaker 1: Lena was born in nine six, so she is what
Speaker 1: you would call a millennial, and when Girls was debuting,
Speaker 1: it was kind of peak like what are the millennials
Speaker 1: up to content time? Right? And so Girls was this
Speaker 1: huge success. Pretty early on, it got a lot of
Speaker 1: criticism for how white the show was, because just like
Speaker 1: shows like Sex in the City and Friends before it,
Speaker 1: it's just for white people who are not really encountering
Speaker 1: a lot of diversity that I know that you would
Speaker 1: find in a city like Brooklyn, New York. But regardless positive, negative,
Speaker 1: whatever you thought, it was the kind of show that
Speaker 1: people were talking about a lot like it was in
Speaker 1: the discourse, which I think creates a certain kind of
Speaker 1: gravitas around anything. And just as a side note, in
Speaker 1: case you're curious, I actually watched and enjoyed the show.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit here and act like I have
Speaker 1: not seen every episode, or I am not going to
Speaker 1: sit here and act like I did not immediately go
Speaker 1: to a v club to read reviews immediately after watching episodes, because,
Speaker 1: like I said, it was part of a discourse. You know,
Speaker 1: the show created discourse, and I will never deprive myself
Speaker 1: of discourse. Okay, if people are talking about something, if
Speaker 1: there's articles and reviews to be read, I'm reading them.
Speaker 1: I'm engaging. So Girls explore themes of sexuality, gender, and
Speaker 1: female friendship, and it's highly anticipated third season comes out
Speaker 1: in January. Now. In September of that same year, Lena
Speaker 1: releases a memoir essay collection calls not that kind of girl.
Speaker 1: Lena was having a really hot moment, and so the
Speaker 1: book was a highly anticipated one. Random House purchased the
Speaker 1: rights in October after a big bidding war, and bidding
Speaker 1: was reported to have risen past three point five million dollars.
Speaker 1: So it's one of those very hot, very big deal
Speaker 1: book publishing projects. This was all happening against the backdrop
Speaker 1: of a particular climate politically, culturally, and socially in the
Speaker 1: mid twenty tins uh. If I had the ability to
Speaker 1: clear music rights on this podcast, which my producer Tari
Speaker 1: can tell you I bug her about pretty much every day,
Speaker 1: this is where we'd be playing, like maybe Katie Perry's
Speaker 1: Roar or Shake It Off by Taylor Swift, you know,
Speaker 1: some other twenty hit to really set the scene. Might
Speaker 1: do what were some other twenty hits, like hits of
Speaker 1: the ts Rihanna? Maybe Rihanna was in there, like came
Speaker 1: and Paula was in there. Maybe I'm getting a little
Speaker 1: like late twenty tens. So just imagine that some some
Speaker 1: kind of music from that era is playing as I
Speaker 1: paint a portrait of what it was like in the
Speaker 1: mid twenty tens. So in popular culture, the film Twelve
Speaker 1: Years of Slave won Best Picture at the Oscars, in
Speaker 1: which was hosted by openly gay Ellen DeGeneres and was
Speaker 1: the most watched Oscars since the year two thousand. Waves
Speaker 1: of states are passing marriage equality legislation. The Supreme Court
Speaker 1: decides not to hear cases on marriage equality appeals, thus
Speaker 1: immediately legalizing marriage equality in Virginia, Utah, Indiana, Oklahoma, and
Speaker 1: Wisconsin before it sent back to the courts and ultimately
Speaker 1: legalized nationwide. A year later, the Black Lives Matter movement
Speaker 1: started and was really picking up. You have the shooting
Speaker 1: deaths of Trayvon Martin and Florida, Mike Brown in Missouri,
Speaker 1: and Eric Garner in New York, and the subsequent uprisings
Speaker 1: all over the country shows that this movement has real
Speaker 1: momentum and really it creates a national conversation that is
Speaker 1: basically impossible to ignore. You'll remember that when President Obama
Speaker 1: was asked about Trayvon Martin, he answered, if I had
Speaker 1: a son, he would look a lot like Trayvon Martin.
Speaker 1: Obama gave a televised speech announcing his plans to use
Speaker 1: executive action to grant citizenship to about four point four
Speaker 1: million immigrants. So I have my own feelings about Obama's
Speaker 1: immigration policies, which is a podcast for another day. But
Speaker 1: the point is Republicans and right wingers absolutely fucking hated this.
Speaker 1: We also get Obamacare in two ten, and for the
Speaker 1: next few years Republicans were fighting it tooth and nail,
Speaker 1: including Obamacare's birth control coverage. Mandate. Mike, do you remember
Speaker 1: that Georgetown law student and feminist activist Sandra Fluke? Had forgotten?
Speaker 1: But now it's coming back to me. What was the
Speaker 1: deal with Sandra Fluke? What do we know her name?
Speaker 1: So in twelve, Sandra Fluke was barred from testifying about
Speaker 1: birth can control during a hearing, and instead the only
Speaker 1: people who testified about birth control was an all male
Speaker 1: planel of clergy, and then Rush Limball called Sandra Fluke
Speaker 1: a slut basically just for advocating for birth control. You know,
Speaker 1: these were the times where the phrase we were using,
Speaker 1: the phrase quote war on women a lot like that
Speaker 1: was a phrase that we were using, which I think
Speaker 1: captured something about what it was like to live through
Speaker 1: that era in but in a way kind of almost
Speaker 1: seems quaint. Now when you look at everything else that
Speaker 1: this would have going on, it does seem quaint. Now.
Speaker 1: I remember that war on women phrase and boys, uh,
Speaker 1: we thought that was a war on women. Buck. It's
Speaker 1: funny because I wanted to do this episode because I
Speaker 1: thought it was like a little bit of a departure
Speaker 1: from everything happening in the news. But it's so funny
Speaker 1: how it all. It always comes back to this. You know,
Speaker 1: I feel like every time I look backwards to the
Speaker 1: period like five fifteen years ago, I'm confronted with how
Speaker 1: quaint my concerns felt, and how the things I was
Speaker 1: alarmed about it seems so much smaller than the things
Speaker 1: that are just like normal ship in the news today.
Speaker 1: Oh my God, tell me about it. Let's say a
Speaker 1: quick break out are back, so we're talking about this
Speaker 1: war on women, but back in you also have Beyonce
Speaker 1: performing in front of the word feminist in giant letters
Speaker 1: like decked out in life at the MTV v M
Speaker 1: as paired with a sample of Chimamanda and good speech
Speaker 1: on feminism and expectations for women and girls. We'd seech
Speaker 1: ghosts themselves to make themselves smaller. We see some girls
Speaker 1: you can have ambition, but not so much. And this
Speaker 1: I remember this. I remember coming into work the next
Speaker 1: day after this aired, and it felt like a big
Speaker 1: cultural moment for women and feminism. You know, I think
Speaker 1: I've been a f I've identified like vocally as a
Speaker 1: feminist for most of my life since I was a child.
Speaker 1: But I think for a lot of people, when you
Speaker 1: were asked like are you a feminist? It was something
Speaker 1: you had to be a little bit wishy washy about it.
Speaker 1: I feel like this moment with Beyonce, it felt like
Speaker 1: a cultural moment where people wanted to say it with
Speaker 1: their whole chests. Country pop sensation Taylor Swift famously came
Speaker 1: out as a feminist in fourteen in an interview with
Speaker 1: The Guardian where she credits her friend none other than
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham with her feminist awakening. And I guess my
Speaker 1: point is this, this era really feels like a time
Speaker 1: where things like progressivism and diversity and feminism are coming
Speaker 1: increasingly mainstream, and that they're becoming attached with a kind
Speaker 1: of social currency. You know, it's not cool to be
Speaker 1: aligned with old men dragging their feet and blocking marriage equality,
Speaker 1: or calling college girls sluts for wanting to be on
Speaker 1: birth control. None of that is cool. But what is
Speaker 1: cool is being a feminist. It's cool to be a feminist,
Speaker 1: it's cool to be an ally and in Lena Dunham
Speaker 1: was a huge part of this climate. So culturally, Lena
Speaker 1: Dunham's hit show Girls and her writing explores, you know,
Speaker 1: themes of sexuality and gender and these really frank ways.
Speaker 1: So that alone you know, creating work deposits that young
Speaker 1: women have an interiority that is worthy of serious exploration
Speaker 1: and respect is the thing that is really taking off
Speaker 1: in the culture. You know, Lena Dunham is not a
Speaker 1: size four and yet she is nude on screen and
Speaker 1: has these sex scenes. She doesn't really great job of
Speaker 1: highlighting that sort of humor and awkwardness, that kind of
Speaker 1: company exploring your sexuality when you're young. You know what
Speaker 1: she's doing on screen. It feels a little bit daring.
Speaker 1: After the success of Girls, Lena starts Lenny Letter, a
Speaker 1: feminist newsletter where you know, you have celebrities getting really
Speaker 1: really raw but also talking about feminist issues. You know,
Speaker 1: you have Jennifer Lawrence writing about the gender pay gap
Speaker 1: in Hollywood and Kesha writing about her abuse at the
Speaker 1: hands of her producer Dr Luke. This also translates politically.
Speaker 1: Lena positions herself as a vocal feminist and a champion
Speaker 1: for feminist causes. Another familiar trip down memory lane. Back around,
Speaker 1: Planned Parenthood was facing a lot of b S political attacks.
Speaker 1: Mike Pence was not just someone who was being threatened
Speaker 1: with hanging and a gallows by his own constituents. Back
Speaker 1: then he was the governor of Indiana, and he made
Speaker 1: attacking planned parenthood and threatening to defund planned parenthood part
Speaker 1: a big part of his whole overall thing. And we
Speaker 1: also had these deceptively edited sting videos from anti abortion extremists.
Speaker 1: You know, they would do things like have somebody dress
Speaker 1: up like a pimp and then go in with women
Speaker 1: to a planned parenthood and try to get services. Basically,
Speaker 1: right wing types were really trying to make planned parenthood
Speaker 1: and abortion and the kinds of exploration of sexuality and
Speaker 1: gender that Lee never really does in her work. They
Speaker 1: were really trying to brand that as something toxic that
Speaker 1: nobody would want to be affiliated with. Only it wasn't
Speaker 1: really working. Isn't it funny how Mike Penn's built his
Speaker 1: whole career on like attacking people and making people seem
Speaker 1: like evil villains, and then he arguably rode out his
Speaker 1: career with members of his own party chanting to hang him. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, isn't that funny that you reap what you sow?
Speaker 1: You know, you live by the stord, you die by
Speaker 1: the sword. What can I say? Yeah, exactly, You live
Speaker 1: by the jinn up outrage. You die by the Gallows.
Speaker 1: So in the wake of all these attacks on planned parenthood,
Speaker 1: Lena becomes the face of a campaign to fight back
Speaker 1: called Women Are Watching. She designs a hot pink shirt
Speaker 1: that says Lena loves planned parenthood in supported planned Parenthood,
Speaker 1: and she gets other a list celebrities like America Vera
Speaker 1: and Gabrielle Union to join in. Lena made this kind
Speaker 1: of cheeky, kind of wink wink ad for the DNC
Speaker 1: in supportive Obama. In your first time shouldn't be with
Speaker 1: just anybody. You want to do it with a great guy.
Speaker 1: It should be with a guy with beautiful someone who
Speaker 1: really cares about and understands women, a guy who cares
Speaker 1: whether you get health insurance and specifically whether you get
Speaker 1: birth control. It was funny, Yeah, so it's playful. It's
Speaker 1: kind of funny. It's a little edgy. Uh so. Probably unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: right wing types did not like this ad. Ben Shapiro,
Speaker 1: who remember that name because he will be important, later
Speaker 1: said that the ad mocked versions. His whole screed about
Speaker 1: the ad is pretty amazing, so he writes in bright
Speaker 1: bart So Lena chose to do it for the first
Speaker 1: time with Barack Obama since he quote cares about and
Speaker 1: understands women. In fact, he understands them so well that
Speaker 1: he exploits them for insane commercials, comparing losing your virginity
Speaker 1: with voting. Obama has a young daughter's, but that didn't
Speaker 1: stop him from releasing this commercial because this is what
Speaker 1: Obama thinks of your daughters. This is Obama's official campaign ad,
Speaker 1: paid for with his campaign money distributed by his campaign.
Speaker 1: If this ad were any more demeaning to women who
Speaker 1: apparently care only about having sex, if you listen to
Speaker 1: Lena you wanna do it, done him? It should be
Speaker 1: produced by Bill Maher and star Bill Clinton. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: that's Obama's actual campaign. According to Barack Obama, this campaign
Speaker 1: isn't about the economy or foreign policy. It's about three
Speaker 1: birth control as advocated by unbelievably wealthy celebrities. If Obama
Speaker 1: goes any smaller in this campaign, we're gonna need a
Speaker 1: microscope to find him. It's so in the top. I
Speaker 1: just need a minute to choke down this moment. It
Speaker 1: comes up at any time. Ben Shapiro's words up here,
Speaker 1: it's you mentioned that he's going to be important later.
Speaker 1: When is that? Like, when will he be important. We're
Speaker 1: still waiting. I'm sure he's still waiting. I'm sure he's
Speaker 1: been waiting his whole life to feel important. So they
Speaker 1: did not like Lena's Obama at And actually I find
Speaker 1: it so interesting how Shapiro uses Lena's involvement to really
Speaker 1: shrink the issue of birth control coverage, like it is
Speaker 1: simultaneously a small issue that is so small that it's
Speaker 1: unbecoming of Obama to align himself with, and it is
Speaker 1: also an issue that the right wing was actively exploding at,
Speaker 1: elting down over, you know, holding hearings about it and
Speaker 1: making it a huge deal. So you know, the math
Speaker 1: isn't really math thing on that one, Like which one
Speaker 1: is it? Is it so inconsequential that nobody should ever
Speaker 1: care about it? Or is it this huge issue that
Speaker 1: you need to hold a million hearings about, you know
Speaker 1: which one? That's such a good observation. I ever thought
Speaker 1: about it like that. But you're absolutely right. It's like
Speaker 1: so consistent with their whole hypocrisy thing around the one hand,
Speaker 1: when they're on the attack, like, oh, it's so inconsequential,
Speaker 1: it's insulting to even bring up the concept of birth control.
Speaker 1: And then you know, flip the screen and the only
Speaker 1: thing that matters is abortion restrictions and preventing women from
Speaker 1: having abortions. It's like two sides of the same coin,
Speaker 1: but like one side is life or death for society,
Speaker 1: on the other side is like trivial and brass. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's almost like some of these folks are not genuine actors.
Speaker 1: It sounds like some of them are completely disingenuous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does. She almost like that. I mean, like that
Speaker 1: can't be it. There's gotta be something more. I'll keep
Speaker 1: thinking about it, keep thinking about it more. After a
Speaker 1: quick break, let's get right back into it. Anyway. So
Speaker 1: at this point, Lena is really proving herself to be
Speaker 1: somebody with a certain kind of cultural cachet with millennial
Speaker 1: young women, and somebody who seems to really know how
Speaker 1: to leverage it for you know, big d democratic causes
Speaker 1: in a way that actually cuts through. Like even though
Speaker 1: right wingers did not like that ad, people talked about it,
Speaker 1: people wrote about it. So lover her or hater, Lena
Speaker 1: Dunham knows how to wield her own specific kind of political, social,
Speaker 1: and cultural power. And the vibe around that is that
Speaker 1: it's cool to care about politics, and it's cool to
Speaker 1: care about feminism. Importantly, this is actually largely a phenomenon
Speaker 1: on the left. There aren't really a lot of cool, young,
Speaker 1: culturally relevant political celebrities on the right in the same
Speaker 1: kind of way. Not to go on too much of
Speaker 1: a tangent, but for a long time, people myself included,
Speaker 1: assumed that Taylor Swift was a silent right winger because
Speaker 1: she pretty much never spoke up about politics in interviews.
Speaker 1: When she was asked if she was a feminist, she
Speaker 1: would say things like, oh, I don't call myself a
Speaker 1: feminist because I never believed in men versus women. But
Speaker 1: her friendship with Lena Dunham gets Taylor to be this
Speaker 1: loud and proud feminist who actually speaks up about politics
Speaker 1: after a decade of staying quiet. And it's basically almost
Speaker 1: like a right wing bogeyman come to life. You know,
Speaker 1: you're sweet, blonde, conservative, country loving young woman will become
Speaker 1: corrupted by a tattooed feminist with green hair and will
Speaker 1: be pulled into identifying as a liberal feminist, So you know,
Speaker 1: say what you will about Lena Dunham. That is a
Speaker 1: certain type of cultural power and homegirld knows how to
Speaker 1: use it. And you know, when it comes to the culture,
Speaker 1: it was people like Lena Dunham who had the relevance.
Speaker 1: And I can see how this would be really threatening
Speaker 1: to right wing types who historically have had a lot
Speaker 1: of political power. But they aren't cool, They're not young
Speaker 1: or hip, and that is a problem for them. So
Speaker 1: all of this is the backdrop on which a website
Speaker 1: called Truth Revolt comes to exist. And to understand this
Speaker 1: misleading claim that Lena Dunham sexually abused her sibling and
Speaker 1: where it comes from, we have to first start by
Speaker 1: talking about Truth Revolt. Wait, so I was following along
Speaker 1: the whole way, but all of a sudden, now we're
Speaker 1: talking about a website called truth Revolt. What is truth Rebolt?
Speaker 1: Truth Revolt is a right wing website that was launched
Speaker 1: on October seven. According to c SPAN, Truth Revolt is
Speaker 1: a politically concerned bit of media watchdog and activist group
Speaker 1: founded by conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and David Horowitz of
Speaker 1: the David Horowitz Freedom Center as a counterpoint to the
Speaker 1: politically progressive media Matters for America. Yes, Ben Shapiro is
Speaker 1: the same person who wrote that breathless piece about lena'welve
Speaker 1: ad for Obama, and so I note a lot of
Speaker 1: y'all probably know Ben Shapiro. He is pretty famous for
Speaker 1: being you know, he's young, I think he's thirty eight now.
Speaker 1: He's pretty famous for being this right wing media figure,
Speaker 1: and he's been at it since he was seventeen. I
Speaker 1: personally just find him awful. Like the fact that I'm
Speaker 1: even talking about him on this show is slightly annoying
Speaker 1: to me, because I just don't like talking about him.
Speaker 1: You know. I think one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: dislike him so much is because his whole thing is
Speaker 1: culture war stuff, right, And so he's the guy with
Speaker 1: a huge platform complaining about Disney making a woke remake
Speaker 1: or something like that, or you know, he is the
Speaker 1: person who's always complaining about culture because culture tends to
Speaker 1: be a space where, you know, people who are traditionally
Speaker 1: marginalized can have a little power and have a little
Speaker 1: bit of a voice, and so he's constantly complaining about culture.
Speaker 1: The thing that always comes to mind when I think
Speaker 1: about Ben Shapiro, I will always associate him with trying
Speaker 1: to lead a moral crusade against Megan the Stallion and
Speaker 1: Cardi Bi's song of the Summer Wet as Pussy and
Speaker 1: kind of self owning himself by saying that the only
Speaker 1: reason so he says, oh, I I'm married to a doctor.
Speaker 1: I talked to my doctor wife and she assures me
Speaker 1: that the only reason that a woman would have a
Speaker 1: w A P is if she had a vaginal infection,
Speaker 1: which is just hysterical. I think about it all the
Speaker 1: time and laugh. Yeah, it's the funniest thing about him,
Speaker 1: is the only thing I think about when I think
Speaker 1: about him. It's like perfectly summarizes his whole culture war
Speaker 1: thing where there was like a video I don't even
Speaker 1: think it was really edited of him like doing spoken
Speaker 1: word of the lyrics of that w AP song. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then him like commenting about yeah, exactly who said
Speaker 1: his wife, who apparently is a medical doctor, saying that
Speaker 1: the only reason it might happen is because of an affection.
Speaker 1: It was sad and shocking, and I almost feel like
Speaker 1: like he was setting us up, but like it's just
Speaker 1: too much humility. I think it's it just truly is
Speaker 1: that embarrassing for him? Yeah? I if folks have not
Speaker 1: seen so the video that you're talking about. I definitely
Speaker 1: watched it a hundred of times. He is reading the
Speaker 1: lyrics on his show in disgust and so he's reading
Speaker 1: the lyrics to Wet s Pussy. But then somebody and
Speaker 1: I think he's trying to demonstrate like this song is
Speaker 1: so immoral and like this is what our girls are
Speaker 1: listening to, and YadA, YadA, YadA. But then somebody to
Speaker 1: a beat. Somebody puts it to the w A p
Speaker 1: bet and it kind of slaps not gonna It's hilarious,
Speaker 1: Like look it up. I I'll link it. I'll link
Speaker 1: it in the show notes because I I watch it,
Speaker 1: It's given me great joy. I'll put it that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think it's the best way to really understand
Speaker 1: Benjapiro as a person and as a man exactly. And
Speaker 1: obviously this is it sounds so silly, and it is silly,
Speaker 1: but it's also really important to this particular story because
Speaker 1: turning culture into a political battleground is a big part
Speaker 1: of how we got here with this one persistent claim
Speaker 1: about Lena Dunham, so Truth Revots mission page states that
Speaker 1: its goals are to quote unmasked leftist in the media
Speaker 1: for who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public,
Speaker 1: and devastate their funding basis. So essentially, truth Revote was
Speaker 1: created per the co creator David Horbitt's own mission statement,
Speaker 1: to manipulate media for political means. Here's what he wrote
Speaker 1: on the site. The media win elections for the left.
Speaker 1: It's not the competence in office. Leftists have demonstrated none.
Speaker 1: It's not the left ideas. Leftist ideas have failed everywhere
Speaker 1: they've been tried. The left winds for one simple reason.
Speaker 1: Leftists control the information distribution system in the United States,
Speaker 1: and they use that system to pillary conservatives, heartless bigots
Speaker 1: intent on harming the poor and targeting minorities. The media
Speaker 1: must be destroyed where they stand. That is our mission
Speaker 1: at truth Revolt. The goal of truth Revolt is simple.
Speaker 1: Unmasked leftists in the media for who they are, destroy
Speaker 1: their credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding basis.
Speaker 1: Truth Revolt focuses on high profile media members and holding
Speaker 1: them accountable. Truth Revolt also steaks to stop the left
Speaker 1: dead in its tracks when it comes to training the
Speaker 1: next generation on our college campuses. Truth Revolt works to
Speaker 1: make advertisers and funders aware of the leftist propaganda they
Speaker 1: sponsor and bringing social consequences to bear to create pressure
Speaker 1: on such advertisers and funders. So pretty obviously from their
Speaker 1: own state meant Truth Revolt specifically is looking to quote
Speaker 1: unmasked leftist and target specific leftist public figures in the
Speaker 1: media to make them toxic for brands and funders to
Speaker 1: be associated with. And they're kind of modeling themselves after
Speaker 1: places like Media Matters for America, who monitor disinformers and
Speaker 1: bad actors and extremists like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: to pressure advertisers to drop them. Um. They're also specifically
Speaker 1: focused around winning over young people like college students, who
Speaker 1: we know are Lena Dunham's biggest audience demographic. So obviously,
Speaker 1: I think it goes without saying that Truth Revolt is
Speaker 1: not just some you know, run of the mill media
Speaker 1: outlet reporting the facts from their own statement, they are
Speaker 1: a right wing outlet with a political acts to grind.
Speaker 1: They are out for vengeance, they are out to dismantle
Speaker 1: people take them down. By their own admission, this idea
Speaker 1: that like leftists are supported by is great funding. HAP
Speaker 1: reads I know so many broke gass leftists she's talking
Speaker 1: about me separating from their funding is like not even
Speaker 1: the thing, like so many of them are broke, you know,
Speaker 1: Like where what is this like big leftist funding the
Speaker 1: media that they're talking about. I mean, nothing that they
Speaker 1: say is accurate, you know, they say that like, oh,
Speaker 1: the media is a tool. Like the media like that
Speaker 1: the idea that that that the that mainstream media is
Speaker 1: a tool propping up leftist agendas. It's just I mean,
Speaker 1: it's such an un serious claim. I don't find it
Speaker 1: worth they have a retort. It's just it's just like
Speaker 1: you can just read the newspaper in the wake of
Speaker 1: the fall of Row, read the newspaper in the New
Speaker 1: York Times today they I mean, I don't even want
Speaker 1: to get into it. But yes, it's it's such an
Speaker 1: un serious claim that it's not even worthy of a response. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's like ludicrous. It's like who who owns the media?
Speaker 1: We've got you know, NBC, you know, Jeff Bezos owns
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. Like these are not leftist people, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's horship. Okay, so you might be wondering this
Speaker 1: website sounds sketchy as hell. But what does it have
Speaker 1: to do with Lena Dunham. Well, the claim that Lena
Speaker 1: Dunham admitting to molesting her younger sibling was initially started
Speaker 1: on Truth Revolt. Oh shit, so that's the connection here.
Speaker 1: This truth ruble started this claim about Lena Dunham. I
Speaker 1: should have seen it coming, but somehow they snuck it
Speaker 1: in on me. It's true, and I should probably say
Speaker 1: that something that we know about disinformation and the way
Speaker 1: that it spreads oftentimes it contains some element or nugget
Speaker 1: of truth that can be easily manipulated or taken out
Speaker 1: of context, and that is definitely what's happening here. So
Speaker 1: let's look at the facts. In September, Lena Dunham released
Speaker 1: her memoir Not That Kind of Girl. Now, I have
Speaker 1: read the memoir a couple of times, so, like, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty well versed on what it says and what it
Speaker 1: doesn't say. And it does include passages of Lena describing
Speaker 1: sexual situations around her younger sibling. I should say right now,
Speaker 1: Lena's sibling is called Cyrus Grace Dunham and uses they
Speaker 1: them pronouns. But that was not the case when this
Speaker 1: memoir was published, but as I read some quotes from
Speaker 1: the memoir, I'm going to amend the quotes to reflect that.
Speaker 1: So Lena writes about trying to get her younger sibling
Speaker 1: to kiss her on the mouth and lay on top
Speaker 1: of her. As Cyrus Grace grew, I took to bribing
Speaker 1: them for time and affection. One dollar in quarters, if
Speaker 1: I could do their makeup like a motorcycle check, three
Speaker 1: pieces of candy. If I could kiss them on the
Speaker 1: lips for five seconds, whatever they wanted to watch on TV.
Speaker 1: If they would just relax on me, basically anything a
Speaker 1: sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl
Speaker 1: I was trying. The memoir also includes this passage Do
Speaker 1: we all have uterus? Is? I asked my mother when
Speaker 1: I was seven. Yes, she told me. We're born with
Speaker 1: them and with all of our eggs, but they start
Speaker 1: out very small, and they aren't ready to make babies
Speaker 1: until we're older. I look at I look at my
Speaker 1: Cyrus Grace, now a slim, tough one year old, and
Speaker 1: at their tiny belly. I imagine eggs inside of them,
Speaker 1: like the sack of spider eggs in Charlotte's Web, and
Speaker 1: their uterus the size of a thimble. Does their vagina
Speaker 1: look like mine? I guess so, my mother said, just smaller.
Speaker 1: One day, as I sat out on our driveway in
Speaker 1: Long Island, playing with blocks and buckets, my curiosity got
Speaker 1: the best of me. Cyrus Grace was sitting up, babbling
Speaker 1: and smiling, and I leaned down between them. And I
Speaker 1: leaned down between their legs and carefully spread open their vagina.
Speaker 1: They didn't resist, and when I saw what was inside,
Speaker 1: I shrieked. My mother came running, Mama, Mama, Cyrus Grace
Speaker 1: has something in there. My mother didn't bother asking why
Speaker 1: I had opened cyrus graces vagina. This was within the
Speaker 1: spectrum of things that I did. She just got on
Speaker 1: her knees and looked for herself. It quickly became apparent
Speaker 1: that Cyrus Grace had stopped six or seven pebbles in there.
Speaker 1: My mother removed them patiently, while Cyrus Grace cackled, thrilled
Speaker 1: that their prank had been a success. So the book
Speaker 1: actually does contain content that involves her describing these sexual
Speaker 1: situations with their with their sibling. That is true, but
Speaker 1: she writes about doing this at age seven with her
Speaker 1: sibling who was aged one. On October, about a month
Speaker 1: after her book could come out, Truth Revolt published the
Speaker 1: passage that I just read about the Pebbles and the
Speaker 1: Vagina under the headline Lena Dunham described sexually abusing her
Speaker 1: little sibling. Now, as Box points out, Truth Revolt did
Speaker 1: two very misleading things in their post, calling Donham a
Speaker 1: sexual abuser. One, they really keyed in on this phrase
Speaker 1: they didn't resist, which obviously becomes a lot more loaded
Speaker 1: when paired with the headline about sexually abusing her sibling. Two,
Speaker 1: and this is really important. Truth Revolt article originally stated
Speaker 1: that Dunham was seventeen at the time, when Dunham and
Speaker 1: Actuality said that she was seven. So obviously, if you
Speaker 1: have a seventeen year old describing these kinds of interactions
Speaker 1: with a one year old, it is a very different
Speaker 1: situation than if you have a seven year old, which
Speaker 1: she actually says was her age doing them with someone
Speaker 1: who is one. Yes, and seven are pretty different there,
Speaker 1: pretty different. So Truth Revolt eventually does say that it
Speaker 1: was a typo. I guess that that's fine. Uh. The
Speaker 1: story is then linked to by the Drudge Report, which
Speaker 1: if you don't know what that is because you're not
Speaker 1: older like myself. Uh. It's basically a right wing news
Speaker 1: aggregator that can really blow up stories. It was the
Speaker 1: first place to publish the Bill Clinton scandal involving intern
Speaker 1: Monica Lewinsky. Back. Once it's picked up by the Drudge Report,
Speaker 1: the story gets a one more traction. It makes the
Speaker 1: rounds on you know, truth for both it's kind of
Speaker 1: a niche site. It makes the rounds on the wider
Speaker 1: right wing blog and info sphere, and much bigger right
Speaker 1: wing outlets begin to pick it up. The National Reviews
Speaker 1: Kevin Williamston, for instance, declared there is no non horrific
Speaker 1: interpretation of this episode, and The Daily Caller, another conservative outlet,
Speaker 1: rites Dunham had admitted to the quote gleeful sexual abuse
Speaker 1: of her infant sibling. Now that is initially really what
Speaker 1: seated the whole Lena Dunham sexually abused her sibling narrative.
Speaker 1: And now it's out in the wider right wing blogosphere infosphere,
Speaker 1: and now it is a thing. It's so selacious it
Speaker 1: almost feels like Taylor made for these kind of right
Speaker 1: wing outrage aggregators. I mean, that is such a commonality
Speaker 1: of disinformation, and it's something that I have to remember
Speaker 1: myself quite a it. It's not just folks on the right.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking about everybody. Myself very much included that when
Speaker 1: you have these stories that seem almost tailor made to
Speaker 1: trigger certain things inside you or or outrage you in
Speaker 1: a certain kind of way, those are always stories that
Speaker 1: you should be a little bit wary of because it's
Speaker 1: no not a coincidence that they are hitting you in
Speaker 1: this particular way. Yeah, right, And you've mentioned that, guests
Speaker 1: have mentioned that on the show, talking about ways that
Speaker 1: combat is information, Like when you're feeling that emotional reaction,
Speaker 1: that should almost be a signal to like step back
Speaker 1: and evaluate, like who is writing this? Where am I
Speaker 1: reading this? Is this something that I want to share exactly?
Speaker 1: And that's one of the elements about this that I
Speaker 1: find so fascinating is how obviously, if you are Ben
Speaker 1: Shapiro or a right winger who has endured the last
Speaker 1: few years where it seems like progressivism and diversity and
Speaker 1: feminism and sexuality, you're all things that are becoming more
Speaker 1: and more salient, and you're feeling less and less in
Speaker 1: control and less and less relevant and these things are
Speaker 1: becoming more and more relevant. I can see why that
Speaker 1: would prime somebody who is a right winger who feels
Speaker 1: kind of threatened by this. I could see how that
Speaker 1: would prime them to believe and amplify and spread this
Speaker 1: particularly damaging lie about Lena Dunham. However, what I find
Speaker 1: so fascinating about this is the way that didn't just
Speaker 1: stay in right wing circles. It made the rounds and
Speaker 1: it's still persists today. And so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: this might be a good place to take a little
Speaker 1: break and will continue this conversation in the next episode.
Speaker 1: So next week we'll get into lena inter siblings response
Speaker 1: and why this particular claim got such traction and was
Speaker 1: so sticky with so many people, not just the right
Speaker 1: wing online spaces where it started. Got a story about
Speaker 1: an interesting thing in tech. Just want to say Hi.
Speaker 1: You can reach us at Hello at tang godi dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tang
Speaker 1: godi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet
Speaker 1: was created by me Bridget tod It's a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato
Speaker 1: is our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Todd. If
Speaker 1: you want to help us grow, rate and review us
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