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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Bridget and I'm doing a live Ask

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Speaker 1: Me Anything over on Patreon in just a few weeks,

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Speaker 1: and I need your help to prepare. Just go to

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Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash tangoty and submit your burning questions

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Speaker 1: and I will do my very best to answer them.

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Speaker 1: You do not need to be a paying Patreon member

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Speaker 1: to submit a question. So, got a burning tech or

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Speaker 1: social media question, I'll do my very best to answer it.

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Speaker 1: Or find somebody who can. Always wanted to know something

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Speaker 1: about me or my life or my work, I will

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Speaker 1: answer that too. Got questions about the business of podcasting

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Speaker 1: or how the sausage gets made, let's hear it. Have

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Speaker 1: a social media etiquette question? Oh these are my favorite?

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Speaker 1: Want to know which podcasters I'm secretly jealous of? Well,

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Speaker 1: if I've had a few lessons of wine, maybe I'll

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Speaker 1: answer that too. So just go to patreon dot com

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Speaker 1: slash tangoty and ask your burning question, and keep a

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Speaker 1: lookout for the official date announcement of my very first

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Speaker 1: ever live Patreon Ask Me Anything. I can't wait. There

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Speaker 1: are no girls on the Internet. As a production of

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm bridgeitat and this is there

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Speaker 1: are no girls on the Internet. The movie Barbie has

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Speaker 1: already racked in a very impressive one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: five million dollars at the domestic box office on opening

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Speaker 1: weekend alone, and based on that success, there are even

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Speaker 1: more toy franchises being turned into live action films, one

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Speaker 1: of which is a live action movie version of my

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Speaker 1: personal favorite toy growing up, Polypocket. You know that whole

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Speaker 1: little miniature doll universe housed inside a cute little plastic compact.

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Speaker 1: I loved it, and the movie Polypocket is set to

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Speaker 1: be directed by none other than Lena Dunham of HBO's Girls.

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Speaker 1: So Lena Dunham was trending all this week after the

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Speaker 1: Polypocket movie was announced, which also means that a particularly

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Speaker 1: sticky piece of misleading content about her did too. Now

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Speaker 1: I have to give a little bit of a heads

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Speaker 1: up here. This claim is a particularly ugly one involving

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Speaker 1: sexual abuse. Last year, I did a deep dive into

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Speaker 1: this particular claim, where it originated and why it's stuck

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Speaker 1: around for so long. Now, I know people have a

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Speaker 1: lot of strong opinions and feelings about Lena Dunham, so

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Speaker 1: take a listen and let me know what you think,

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Speaker 1: and we'll be back with our regular Friday newscast next week. Today,

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Speaker 1: we are not trying to sort of demonstrate the way

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Speaker 1: that the media unfairly maligned somebody. We are zeroing in

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Speaker 1: on one specific misleading claim about none other than Lena Dunham.

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Speaker 1: I am in no way making a larger point about

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Speaker 1: the way that the media and society has portrayed her broadly,

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Speaker 1: but I do want to zero in on this one

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Speaker 1: specific claim and analyze how it became to be this

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Speaker 1: very sticky, persistent lie that still endures online today and

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Speaker 1: what that lies has about our culture.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so why why this one specific thing?

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Speaker 1: Great question. So a little bit of background about how

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Speaker 1: I came to be making this episode. I used to

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Speaker 1: work on the social media team at MSNBC dot com,

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Speaker 1: and one of our kind of tried and true digital

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Speaker 1: engagement tricks was to post about someone, a public figure

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Speaker 1: that we knew our audience would engage with, positive or negative.

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Speaker 1: This is back in twenty fifteen, and our audience used

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Speaker 1: to love to hate on Putin, and so whenever we

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Speaker 1: posted something about Putin that posted that cast him in

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Speaker 1: a negative light, we could always expect that people would

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Speaker 1: really engage with that a lot. They'd be leaving like

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Speaker 1: mean comments like yeah, we hate him. They love to

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Speaker 1: hate on Putin. But hands down, no question, the public

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Speaker 1: figure that got the most hate on all of our

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Speaker 1: social media pages was Lena Dunham. I think, if I'm

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Speaker 1: recalling correctly, I think people disliked Lena Dunham more than

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Speaker 1: they disliked Putin, which is really saying something. And I

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Speaker 1: used to I worked on this podcast project where Lena

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Speaker 1: Dunham was one of our guests. And again, you know,

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Speaker 1: we had posted episodes with all different types of public

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Speaker 1: figures and celebrities, but when we posted our Lena Dunnam episode,

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Speaker 1: it was instant unanimous negative feedback. And so I noticed

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Speaker 1: whenever we would publish about her or post about her

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Speaker 1: or feature her online, commenters would always repeat like a

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Speaker 1: laundry list of reasons they don't like her. You know.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes it would be the garden variety things that you

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Speaker 1: would expect, like oh, she's a spoiled brad, I hate her,

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Speaker 1: or you know, oh she's gross, which is pretty much

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Speaker 1: just kind of fat phobia, but by far the most

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Speaker 1: common thing I would see commenters say about Lena Dunham

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Speaker 1: online was this particularly persistent claim that she's a quote

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Speaker 1: sexual predator who admitted to molesting her younger sibling. And

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm always very interested in what I referred

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Speaker 1: to as sticky pieces of disinformation or misinformation or lies,

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Speaker 1: you know, things that really just seem to cut through

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Speaker 1: and persist. You know, I'm very interested in why these

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Speaker 1: things stick and to what end, and what their stickiness

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Speaker 1: tells us about our culture. And in that regard, you know,

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Speaker 1: this misleading claim about Lena Dunham is fascinating to me

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Speaker 1: because I think it tells us a lot about the

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Speaker 1: ways that our political and social climates intersect, which is

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Speaker 1: particularly important in today's climate. And I just want to

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Speaker 1: make it super super clear, because I can already hear

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Speaker 1: people who are listening thinking, why are you defending Lena Dunham.

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Speaker 1: She's awful? You know, what are you doing? Let me

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Speaker 1: be very clear, there are plenty of valid reasons to

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Speaker 1: not rock with Lena Dunham, some of which will be

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Speaker 1: talking about in this episode. So this is not me

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Speaker 1: trying to get anyone to think that Lena Dunham is good,

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Speaker 1: or it is not me saying that every single claim

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Speaker 1: about her is unfair or untrue, but the claim that

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Speaker 1: she sexually abused her sibling, I believe is a pretty

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Speaker 1: nasty thing to repeat about somebody. And I don't know

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Speaker 1: that people who repeat this particularly nasty lie know that

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Speaker 1: it initially started as a right wing attack on a

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Speaker 1: prominent liberal voice, But because of Lena Dunham's overall I

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Speaker 1: guess we'll say vibe, this claim has really taken root,

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Speaker 1: not just in right wing circles, but more generally too.

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Speaker 1: Like people who I believe probably have would never read

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Speaker 1: a right wing blog, you know, for any legitimate reason,

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Speaker 1: should probably be aware that they are repeating a lie

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Speaker 1: that was really cooked up in the right wing blog

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Speaker 1: a sphere. And I think that should be really concerning.

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Speaker 1: I think the ways that this claim has sort of

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Speaker 1: become true, that's scare quotes around that, and has persisted

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Speaker 1: for so long, should really be concerning for all of us.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about how and why that happened and

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Speaker 1: what it means.

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Speaker 2: So for people like me who don't really know anything

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Speaker 2: about this, who is Lena Dunham?

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Speaker 1: So if you don't know who Lena Dunham is, I

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Speaker 1: will give you kind of a quick and dirty summary

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Speaker 1: of her background. Lena Dunham is an actor, producer, and writer.

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Speaker 1: She's the daughter of visual art Lori Simmons, who is

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Speaker 1: a very big deal in the art world because her

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Speaker 1: art is incredible. Lena rose to fame after making a

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Speaker 1: really strong film debut called Tiny Furniture, which is basically

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Speaker 1: a semi auto biographical movie about a young woman portrayed

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Speaker 1: by Lena, who disgraduated from college and is trying to

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Speaker 1: navigate adulthood. Laurie Simmons, her real life mom, plays her

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Speaker 1: mom in the movie, and in the movie, her mom

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Speaker 1: is also a visual artist and photographer who stages these

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Speaker 1: stages or pieces with tiny dollhouse furniture, just like her

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Speaker 1: mom does in real life. And Lena's real life sibling,

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Speaker 1: Cyrus Grace, plays Lena's character sibling in the movie too,

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Speaker 1: so it's very semi auto biographical. In twenty twelve, she

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Speaker 1: created and starred in HBO's Girls, which also explores kind

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Speaker 1: of similar themes young white women trying to navigate young

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Speaker 1: adulthood post college in Brooklyn, New York. Lena was born

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Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six, so she is what you would

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Speaker 1: call a millennial and when Girls was debuting, it was

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Speaker 1: kind of peak like what are the millennials up to

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Speaker 1: content time? Right? And so Girls was this huge success.

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Speaker 1: Pretty early on, it got a lot of criticism for

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Speaker 1: how white the show was, because just like shows like

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Speaker 1: Sex and the City and Friends before it, it's just

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Speaker 1: for white people who are not really encountering a lot

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Speaker 1: of diversity that I know that you would find in

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Speaker 1: a city like Brooklyn, New York. But regardless, positive, negative,

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Speaker 1: whatever you thought, it was the kind of show that

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Speaker 1: people were talking about a lot like it was in

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Speaker 1: the discourse, which I think creates a certain kind of

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Speaker 1: gravy toss around anything. And just as a side note,

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Speaker 1: in case you're curious, I actually watched and enjoyed the show.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and act like I

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Speaker 1: have not seen every episode or I am not going

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Speaker 1: to sit here and act like I did not immediately

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Speaker 1: go to a V club to read reviews immediately after

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Speaker 1: watching episodes, because, like I said, it was part of

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Speaker 1: a discourse. You know, the show created discourse, and I

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Speaker 1: will never deprive myself of discourse. Okay, if people are

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Speaker 1: talking about something, if there's articles and reviews to be

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Speaker 1: read I'm reading them, I'm engaging. So Girls explores themes

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Speaker 1: of sexuality, gender, and female friendship, and its highly anticipated

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Speaker 1: third season comes out in January twenty fourteen. Now, in

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Speaker 1: September of that same year, Lena releases a memoir essay

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Speaker 1: collection calls not that kind of girl. Lena was having

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Speaker 1: a really hot moment, and so the book was a

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Speaker 1: highly anticipated one. Random House purchased the rights in October

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Speaker 1: twenty twelve after a big bidding war, and bidding was

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Speaker 1: reported to have risen past three point five million dollars.

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Speaker 1: So it's one of those very hot, very big deal

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Speaker 1: book publishing projects. This was all happening against the backdrop

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Speaker 1: of a particular climate politically, culturally, and socially in the

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Speaker 1: mid twenty tens. If I had the ability to clear

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Speaker 1: music rights on this podcast, which my producer Tari can

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Speaker 1: tell you I bug her about pretty much every day,

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Speaker 1: this is where we'd be playing like maybe Katie Perry's

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Speaker 1: Roar or Shake It Off by Taylor Swift. You know,

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Speaker 1: some other twenty ten hit to really set the scene, Mikey,

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Speaker 1: what were some other like twenty ten hits, like hits

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Speaker 1: of the twenty tens, Oh, Rihanna.

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Speaker 2: Maybe Rihanna was in there. I feel like Tam and

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Speaker 2: Paula was in there. Maybe I'm getting a little like

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Speaker 2: late twenty tens.

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Speaker 1: So just imagine that some kind of music from that

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Speaker 1: era is playing as I paint a portrait of what

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Speaker 1: it was like in the mid twenty tens. So in

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Speaker 1: popular culture, the film Twelve Years of Slave won Best

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Speaker 1: Picture at the Oscars in twenty fourteen, which was hosted

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Speaker 1: by openly gay Ellen DeGeneres and was the most watched

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Speaker 1: Oscars since the year two thousand. By twenty fourteen, waves

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Speaker 1: of states are passing marriage equality legislation. The Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: decides not to hear cases on marriage equality appeals, thus

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Speaker 1: immediately legalizing marriage equality in Virginia, Utah, Indiana, Oklahoma, and

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Speaker 1: Wisconsin before it sent back to the courts and ultimately

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Speaker 1: legalized nationwide a year later. The Black Lives Matter movement

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Speaker 1: started in twenty thirteen and was really picking up. You

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Speaker 1: have the shooting deaths of Trayvon Martin and Florida, Mike

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Speaker 1: Brown and Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York and

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Speaker 1: the subsequent uprisings all over the country shows that this

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Speaker 1: movement has real momentum, and really it creates a national

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Speaker 1: conversation that is basically impossible to ignore. You'll remember that

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Speaker 1: when President Obama was asked about trayvon Martin, he answered,

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Speaker 1: if I had a son, he would look a lot

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Speaker 1: like treyvon Martin. Obama gave a televised speech announcing his

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Speaker 1: plans to use executive action to grant citizenship to about

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Speaker 1: four point four million immigrants. So I have my own

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Speaker 1: feelings about Obama's immigration policies, which is a podcast for

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Speaker 1: another day. But the point is Republicans and right wingers

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Speaker 1: absolutely fucking hated this. We also get Obamacare in twenty ten,

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Speaker 1: and for the next few years, Republicans were fighting it

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Speaker 1: tooth and nail, including Obamacare's birth control coverage mandate. Mike,

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Speaker 1: do you remember that Georgetown law student and feminist activist

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Speaker 1: Sondra Fluke?

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Speaker 2: Boy, I'd forgotten, but now it's coming back to me.

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Speaker 2: What was the deal with Sandra Fluke? Why do we

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Speaker 2: know her name?

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Speaker 1: So in twenty twelve, Sandra Fluke was barred from testifying

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Speaker 1: about birth control during a hearing, and instead the only

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Speaker 1: people who testified about birth control was an all male

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Speaker 1: planel of clergy and then Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke

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Speaker 1: a slut basically just per advocating for birth control. You know,

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Speaker 1: these were the times where the phrase we were using,

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Speaker 1: the phrase quote war on women a lot like that

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Speaker 1: was a phrase that we were using, which I think

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Speaker 1: captured something about what it was like to live through

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Speaker 1: that era. But in a way, it kind of almost

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Speaker 1: seems quaint now when you look at everything else that

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Speaker 1: is would have going on.

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Speaker 2: It does seem quaint now. I remember that war on

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Speaker 2: women phrase, and boy, if we thought that was a

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Speaker 2: war on women, buckle up for twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 1: This is a soul. It's funny because I wanted to

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Speaker 1: do this episode because I thought it was like a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a departure from everything happening in the news.

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Speaker 1: But it's so funny how it always comes back to this,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 2: I feel like every time I look backwards to the

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Speaker 2: period like five, ten, fifteen years ago, I'm confronted with

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Speaker 2: how quaint my concerns felt, and how the things I

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Speaker 2: was alarmed about seems so much smaller than the things

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Speaker 2: that are just like normal shit in the news today.

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Speaker 1: Oh my god, tell me about it.

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Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break.

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Speaker 1: At our back. So we're talking about this war on women.

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Speaker 1: But back in twenty fourteen, you also have Beyonce performing

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Speaker 1: in front of the word feminist in giant letters like

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Speaker 1: decked out in Life at the Empty vvma's paired with

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Speaker 1: a sample of Chimamanda ngozio Adicia speech on feminism and

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Speaker 1: expectations for women and girls. We'd teach girls to shrink themselves,

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Speaker 1: to make themselves smaller.

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Speaker 3: We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not

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Speaker 3: too much.

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Speaker 1: And this I remember this. I remember coming into work

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Speaker 1: the next day after this aired, and it felt like

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Speaker 1: a big cultural moment for women and feminism. You know,

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Speaker 1: I think I've been I've identified like vocally as a

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Speaker 1: feminist for most of my life since I was a child.

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Speaker 1: But I think for a lot of people, when you

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Speaker 1: were asked like are you a feminist, it was something

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Speaker 1: you had to be a little bit wishy washy about.

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Speaker 1: And I feel like this moment with Beyonce, it felt

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Speaker 1: like a cultural moment where people wanted to say it

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Speaker 1: with their whole chests. Country pop sensation Taylor Swift famously

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Speaker 1: came out as a feminist in twenty fourteen in an

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Speaker 1: interview with The Guardian where she credits her friend none

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Speaker 1: other than Lena Dunham with her feminist awakening. And I

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Speaker 1: guess my point is this, this era really feels at

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Speaker 1: a time where things like progressivism and diversity and feminism

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Speaker 1: are becoming increasingly mainstream, and that they're becoming attached with

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Speaker 1: a kind of social currency. You know, it's not cool

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Speaker 1: to be aligned with old men dragging their feet and

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Speaker 1: blocking marriage equality, or calling college girls sluts for wanting

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Speaker 1: to be on birth control. None of that is cool.

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Speaker 1: But what is cool is being a feminist. It's cool

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Speaker 1: to be a feminist, it's cool to be an ally

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Speaker 1: and in twenty fourteen, Lena Dunham was a huge part

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Speaker 1: of this climate. So culturally, Lena Dunham's hit show Girls

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Speaker 1: and her writing explores, you know, themes of sexuality and

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Speaker 1: gender in these really frank ways. So that alone, you know,

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Speaker 1: creating work deposits that young women have an interiority that

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Speaker 1: is worthy of serious exploration and respect, is a thing

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Speaker 1: that is really taking off in the culture. You know,

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Speaker 1: Lena Dunham is not a size four, and yet she

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Speaker 1: is nude on screen and has these sex scenes. She

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Speaker 1: does a really great job of highlight the sort of

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Speaker 1: humor and awkwardness that kind a company exploring your sexuality

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Speaker 1: when you're young, you know what she's doing on screen.

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Speaker 1: It feels a little bit daring. After the success of Girls,

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Speaker 1: Lena starts Lenny Letter, a feminist newsletter where you know,

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Speaker 1: you have celebrities getting really, really raw but also talking

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Speaker 1: about feminist issues. You know, you have Jennifer Lawrence writing

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Speaker 1: about the gender pay gap in Hollywood and Kesha writing

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Speaker 1: about her abuse at the hands of her producer, doctor Luke.

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Speaker 1: This also translates politically. Lena positions herself as a vocal

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Speaker 1: feminist and a champion for feminist causes another familiar trip

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Speaker 1: down memory lane. Back around twenty fourteen, Planned Parenthood was

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Speaker 1: facing a lot of bs political attacks. Mike Pence was

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Speaker 1: not just someone who was being threatened with hanging and

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Speaker 1: a gallows by his own constituents. Back then, he was

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Speaker 1: the governor of Indiana, and he made attacking Planned Parenthood

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Speaker 1: and threatening to defund Planned Parenthood part a big part

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Speaker 1: of his whole overall thing. And we also had these

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Speaker 1: deceptively edited sting videos anti abortion extremists. You know, they

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Speaker 1: would do things like have somebody dress up like a

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Speaker 1: pimp and then go in with women to a planned

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Speaker 1: parenthood and try to get services. Basically, right wing types

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Speaker 1: were really trying to make planned parenthood and abortion and

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Speaker 1: the kinds of exploration of sexuality and gender that Lena

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Speaker 1: really does in her work. They were really trying to

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Speaker 1: brand that as something toxic that nobody would want to

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Speaker 1: be affiliated with. Only it wasn't really working.

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Speaker 2: Isn't it funny how Mike Tens built his whole career

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Speaker 2: on like attacking people and making people seem like evil villains,

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Speaker 2: and then he arguably rode out his career with members

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Speaker 2: of his own party chanting to hang him. You know,

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Speaker 2: isn't that funny that you reap what you sew?

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Speaker 1: You know, you live by the sword, you die by

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Speaker 1: the sword. What can I say?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Exactly. You live by the jigged up outrage, you

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Speaker 2: die by the gallows.

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Speaker 1: So, in the wake of all these attacks on planned parenthood,

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Speaker 1: Lena becomes the face of a campaign to fight back

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Speaker 1: called Women Are Watching. She designs a hot pink shirt

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Speaker 1: that says Lena loves Planned Parenthood in supportive planned parenthood,

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Speaker 1: and she gets other aless celebrities like America, Frera and

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Speaker 1: Gabrielle Union to join in. Lena made this kind of cheeky,

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Speaker 1: kind of wink wink ad for the DNC in supportive

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Speaker 1: Obama in twenty twelve.

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Speaker 4: Your first time shouldn't be with just anybody you want

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Speaker 4: to do it with a great guy. It should be

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Speaker 4: with a guy with beautiful someone who really cares about

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Speaker 4: and understands women, a guy who cares whether you get

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Speaker 4: health insurance and specifically whether you get birth control.

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Speaker 1: It was funny, yeah, so it's playful, it's kind of funny,

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Speaker 1: it's a little edgy. So probably unsurprisingly, right wing types

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Speaker 1: did not like this ad. Ben Shapiro, who remember that

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Speaker 1: name because he will be important, later said that the

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Speaker 1: ad mocked versions. His whole screed about the ad is

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Speaker 1: pretty amazing, so he writes in Breibert. So Lena chose

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Speaker 1: to do it for the first time with Barack Obama

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Speaker 1: since he quote cares about and understands women. In fact,

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Speaker 1: he understands them so well that he exploits them for

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Speaker 1: insane commercials, comparing losing your virginity with voting. Obama has

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Speaker 1: young daughters, but that didn't stop him from releasing this

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Speaker 1: commercial because This is what Obama thinks of your daughters.

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Speaker 1: This is Obama's official campaign ad, paid for with his

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Speaker 1: campaign money, distributed by his campaign. If this ad were

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Speaker 1: any more demeaning to women who apparently care only about

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Speaker 1: having sex, if you listen to Lena you want to

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Speaker 1: do it, Dunham, it should be produced by Bill Maher

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Speaker 1: and star Bill Clinton. Oh wait, that's Obama's actual care campaign.

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Speaker 1: According to Barack Obama, this campaign isn't about the economy

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Speaker 1: or foreign policy. It's about free birth control as advocated

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Speaker 1: by unbelievably wealthy celebrities. If Obama goes any smaller in

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Speaker 1: this campaign, we're gonna need a microscope to find him.

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Speaker 2: Ugh, it's so over the top. I just need a

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Speaker 2: minute to choke down this vomit. It comes up at

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Speaker 2: any time Ben Shapiro's words appear. It's you mentioned that

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Speaker 2: he's going to be important later. When is that, like,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, twenty thirty, When will he be important?

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Speaker 1: We're still waiting. I'm sure he's still waiting. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: he's been waiting his whole life to feel important. So

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Speaker 1: they did not like Lina's Obama ad in twenty twelve

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Speaker 1: and it. Actually, I find it so interesting how Shapiro

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Speaker 1: uses Lina's involvement to really shrink the issue of birth

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Speaker 1: control coverage, Like it is simultaneously a small issue that

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Speaker 1: is so small that it's unbecoming Obama to align himself with,

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Speaker 1: and it is also an issue that the right wing

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Speaker 1: was actively exploding and melting down over, you know, holding

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Speaker 1: hearings about it and making it a huge deal. So

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Speaker 1: you know, the math isn't really mathing on that one,

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Speaker 1: Like which one is Is it so inconsequential that nobody

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Speaker 1: should ever care about it? Or is it this huge

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Speaker 1: issue that you need to hold a million hearings about,

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Speaker 1: you know which one?

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Speaker 2: That's such a good observation. I ever thought about it

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Speaker 2: like that. But you're absolutely right. It's like so consistent

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Speaker 2: with their whole hypocrisy thing. We're on the one hand

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Speaker 2: when they're on the attack, like, oh, it's so inconsequential,

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Speaker 2: it's insulting to even bring up the concept of birth control.

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Speaker 2: And then you know, flip the screen and the only

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Speaker 2: thing that matters is abortion restrictions and preventing women from

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Speaker 2: having abortions. It's like two sides of the same coin,

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Speaker 2: but like one side is life or death for society,

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Speaker 2: and the other side is like trivial and brass.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost like some of these folks are not

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Speaker 1: genuine actors. It sounds like some of them are completely disingenuous.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it does seem almost like that. I mean, like

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Speaker 2: that can't be it. There's got to be something more.

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Speaker 2: I'll keep thinking about it.

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Speaker 1: Keep thinking on it. Anyway. So at this point, Lena

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Speaker 1: is really proving herself to be somebody with a certain

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Speaker 1: kind of cultural cachet with millennial young women, and somebody

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Speaker 1: who seems to really know how to leverage it for

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Speaker 1: you know, big d democratic causes in a way that

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Speaker 1: actually cuts through. Like even though right wingers did not

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Speaker 1: like that ad, people talked about it, people wrote about it.

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Speaker 1: So lover or hater, Lena Dunham knows how to wield

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Speaker 1: her own specific kind of political, social, and cultural power.

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Speaker 1: And the vibe around that is that it's cool to

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Speaker 1: care about politics and it's cool to care about feminism. Importantly,

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Speaker 1: this is actually largely a phenomenon on the left. There

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Speaker 1: aren't really a lot of cool, young, culturally relevant political

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Speaker 1: celebrities on the right in the same kind of way.

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Speaker 1: Not to go on too much of a tangent. But

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Speaker 1: for a long time, people myself included, assumed that Taylor

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Speaker 1: Swift was a silent right winger because she pretty much

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Speaker 1: never spoke up about politics in interviews. When she was

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Speaker 1: asked if she was a feminist, she would say things like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I don't call myself a feminist because I never believed

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Speaker 1: in men versus women. But her friendship with Lena Dunham

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Speaker 1: gets tailored to be this loud and proud feminist who

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Speaker 1: actually speaks up about politics after a decade of staying quiet.

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Speaker 1: And it's basically almost like a right wing bogeyman come

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Speaker 1: to life. You know, your sweet blonde, conservative, country loving

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Speaker 1: young woman will become corrupted by a tattooed feminist with

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Speaker 1: green hair and will be pulled into identifying as a

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Speaker 1: liberal feminist. So you know, say what you will about

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Speaker 1: Lena Dunham. That is a certain type of cultural power,

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Speaker 1: and Homegirld knows how to use it. And you know,

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Speaker 1: when it comes to the culture, it was people like

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Speaker 1: Lena Dunham who had the relevance. And I can see

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Speaker 1: how this would be really threatening to write wing types

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Speaker 1: who historically have had a lot of political power. But

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Speaker 1: they aren't cool, They're not young or hip, and that

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Speaker 1: is a problem for them. So all of this is

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Speaker 1: the backdrop on which a website called Truth Revolt comes

432
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:30,720
Speaker 1: to exist. And to understand this misleading claim that Lena

433
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,440
Speaker 1: Dunham sexually abused her sibling and where it comes from,

434
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:37,000
Speaker 1: we have to first start by talking about Truth Revolt.

435
00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:39,600
Speaker 2: Wait, so I was following along the whole way, but

436
00:24:39,720 --> 00:24:41,960
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, now we're talking about a website

437
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:44,840
Speaker 2: called truth Revolt. What is truth Revolt?

438
00:24:45,200 --> 00:24:47,679
Speaker 1: Truth Revolt is a right wing website that was launched

439
00:24:47,680 --> 00:24:51,119
Speaker 1: on October seventh, twenty thirteen. According to c SPAN, Truth

440
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,680
Speaker 1: Revolt is a politically conservative media watchdog and activist group

441
00:24:54,760 --> 00:24:59,359
Speaker 1: founded by conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and David Horowitz of

442
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,439
Speaker 1: the d Horror Its Freedom Center as a counterpoint to

443
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:07,160
Speaker 1: the politically progressive media Matters for America. Yes, Ben Shapiro

444
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: is the same person who wrote that breathless piece about

445
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:14,159
Speaker 1: Lena's twenty twelve ad for Obama. And side note, a

446
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,479
Speaker 1: lot of y'all probably know Ben Shapiro. He is pretty

447
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,160
Speaker 1: famous for being you know, he's young. I think he's

448
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,880
Speaker 1: thirty eight now. He's pretty famous for being this right

449
00:25:22,920 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 1: wing media figure, and he's been at it since he

450
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:29,560
Speaker 1: was seventeen. I personally just find him awful. Like the

451
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:31,440
Speaker 1: fact that I'm even talking about him on this show

452
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: is slightly annoying to me, because I just like don't

453
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: like talking about him. You know. I think one of

454
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,159
Speaker 1: the reasons why I dislike him so much is because

455
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:43,119
Speaker 1: his whole thing is culture war stuff, right, And so

456
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: he's the guy with a huge platform complaining about Disney

457
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:51,399
Speaker 1: making a woke remake or something like that, or you know,

458
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: he's the person who's always complaining about culture because culture

459
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:01,679
Speaker 1: tends to be a space where, you know, people who

460
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,199
Speaker 1: are traditionally marginalized can have a little power and have

461
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:07,399
Speaker 1: a little bit of a voice. And so he's constantly

462
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: complaining about culture. The thing that always comes to mind

463
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:14,480
Speaker 1: when I think about Ben Shapiro, I will always associate

464
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: him with trying to lead a moral crusade against Megan

465
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:21,400
Speaker 1: thee Stallion and Cardi B's song of the Summer Wet

466
00:26:21,440 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 1: Ass Pussy, and kind of self owning himself by saying

467
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: that the only reason so he says, Oh, I'm married

468
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 1: to a doctor I talked to my doctor wife, and

469
00:26:31,240 --> 00:26:33,680
Speaker 1: she assures me that the only reason that a woman

470
00:26:33,720 --> 00:26:37,400
Speaker 1: would have a WAP is if she had a vaginal infection,

471
00:26:38,119 --> 00:26:40,879
Speaker 1: which is just hysterical. I think about it all the

472
00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:41,560
Speaker 1: time and laugh.

473
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the funniest thing about him. It's the only

474
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:46,600
Speaker 2: thing I think about when I think about him. It's

475
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 2: like perfectly summarizes his whole culture war thing where there

476
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 2: was like a video I don't even think it was

477
00:26:55,400 --> 00:27:00,080
Speaker 2: really edited of him like doing spoken word of the

478
00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 2: lyrics of that WAP song and then him like commenting about, yeah, exactly,

479
00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,639
Speaker 2: you said to his wife, who apparently is a medical doctor,

480
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 2: saying that the only reason it might happen is because

481
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:18,199
Speaker 2: of an affection. It was sad and shocking, and I

482
00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: almost feel like like he was setting us up. But

483
00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 2: like it's just too much humility. I think it just

484
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:27,600
Speaker 2: truly is that embarrassing for him?

485
00:27:28,359 --> 00:27:30,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I if folks have not seen so the video

486
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 1: that you're talking about, I definitely watched it one hundred times.

487
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 1: He is reading the lyrics on his show in disgust,

488
00:27:38,040 --> 00:27:40,200
Speaker 1: and so he's reading the lyrics to wet Ass Pussy.

489
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: But then somebody and I think he's trying to demonstrate

490
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,199
Speaker 1: like this song is so immoral and like this is

491
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: what our girls are listening to, and YadA, YadA, YadA.

492
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:52,040
Speaker 1: But then to a beat, somebody puts it to the

493
00:27:52,119 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: WAP beat and it kind of slaps lie. It's hilarious,

494
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: Like look it up. I I'll link it in the

495
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 1: show notes because I watch it. It's given me great joy.

496
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:04,880
Speaker 1: I'll put it that way.

497
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:07,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's the best way to really

498
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:10,120
Speaker 2: understand Ben Shapiro as a person and as.

499
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:15,919
Speaker 1: A man exactly. And obviously this is it sounds so silly,

500
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:18,439
Speaker 1: and it is silly, but it's also really important to

501
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:22,920
Speaker 1: this particular story because turning culture into a political battleground

502
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: is a big part of how we got here With

503
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: this one persistent claim about Lena Dunham, so, Truth Revolt's

504
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: mission page states that its goals are to quote unmasked

505
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: leftists in the media for who they are, destroy their

506
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: credibility with the American public, and devastate their funding basis.

507
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: So essentially, truth Revolt was created, per the co creator

508
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 1: David Horbert's own mission statement, to manipulate media for political means.

509
00:28:47,720 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: Here's what he wrote on gon say the media win

510
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: elections for the left. It's not the left's competence in office.

511
00:28:54,160 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: Leftists have demonstrated none. It's not the left's ideas. Leftist

512
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 1: ideas have failed everywhere they've been tried. The left wins

513
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 1: for one simple reason. Leftists control the information distribution system

514
00:29:05,200 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: in the United States, and they use that system to

515
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: pillary conservatives, heartless bigots intent on harming the poor and

516
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: targeting minorities. The media must be destroyed where they stand.

517
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: That is our mission at Truth Revolt. The goal of

518
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: truth Revolt is simple, unmasked leftists in the media for

519
00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: who they are, destroy their credibility with the American public,

520
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 1: and devastate their funding basis, Truth Revolt focuses on high

521
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: profile media members and holding them accountable. Truth Revolt also

522
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: seeks to stop the left dead in its tracks when

523
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: it comes to training the next generation on our college campuses.

524
00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:43,080
Speaker 1: Truth Revolt works to make advertisers and funders aware of

525
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 1: the leftist propaganda they sponsor and bringing social consequences to

526
00:29:47,320 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 1: bear to create pressure on such advertisers and funders. So

527
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 1: pretty obviously from their own statement, Truth Revolt specifically is

528
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:59,400
Speaker 1: looking to quote unmasked leftists and target specific leftist public

529
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: figures in them media to make them toxic for brands

530
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: and funders to be associated with. And they're kind of

531
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,480
Speaker 1: modeling themselves after places like Media Matters for America, who

532
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 1: monitor disinformers and bad actors and extremists like Tucker Carlson

533
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: and Steve Bannon to pressure advertisers to drop them. They're

534
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 1: also specifically focused around winning over young people like college students,

535
00:30:21,440 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: who we know are Lena Dunham's biggest audience demographic. So obviously,

536
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,160
Speaker 1: I think it goes about saying that truth Revolt is

537
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:31,840
Speaker 1: not just some you know, run of the mill media

538
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: outlet reporting the facts from their own statement. They are

539
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: a right wing outlet with a political acts to grind.

540
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: They are out for vengeance, they are out to dismantle

541
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 1: people take them down by their own admission.

542
00:30:47,560 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 2: This idea that like leftists are supported by this great

543
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:58,480
Speaker 2: funding appreatus. I know so many broke ass leftists she.

544
00:30:58,600 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: Checking out of me.

545
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 2: Separating from their funding is like not even the thing,

546
00:31:03,360 --> 00:31:06,480
Speaker 2: like so many of them are broke, you know, Like

547
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 2: where what is this like big leftist funding in the

548
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 2: media that they're talking about.

549
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: Like, I mean, nothing that they say is accurate. You know,

550
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: they say that like, oh, the media is a tool.

551
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 1: Like the media, like the idea that that that that

552
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 1: mainstream media is a tool propping up leftist agendas. It's

553
00:31:29,200 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: just I gets such an unseerious claim. I don't find

554
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:33,680
Speaker 1: it worthy of a retort. It's just it's just like

555
00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: you can just read the newspaper in the wake of

556
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: the fall of Row, read the newspaper in the New

557
00:31:41,400 --> 00:31:43,360
Speaker 1: York Times today they I mean, I don't even want

558
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: to get into it, but yes, it's it's such an

559
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,400
Speaker 1: unseerious claim that it's not even worthy of a response.

560
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's like ludicrous. It's like who who owns

561
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 2: the media? We've got you know, NBC, you know, Jeff

562
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:03,040
Speaker 2: Bezos owns the Washington Post. Like, these are not leftist people.

563
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,480
Speaker 1: No, it's it's horseshit. Okay, So you might be wondering,

564
00:32:08,160 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: this website sounds sketchy as hell, But what does it

565
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: have to do with Lena Dunham. Well, the claim that

566
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:17,880
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham admitting to molesting her younger sibling was initially

567
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: started on Truth Revolt.

568
00:32:21,240 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 2: Oh shit, so that's the connection here. This Truth Revolt

569
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 2: started this claim about Lena Dunham. I should have seen

570
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,360
Speaker 2: it coming, but somehow they snuck it in on me.

571
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,719
Speaker 1: It's true, and I should probably say that something that

572
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: we know about disinformation and the way that it spreads

573
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: oftentimes it contains some element or nugget of truth that

574
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: can be easily manipulated or taken out of context. And

575
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: that is definitely what's happening here. So let's look at

576
00:32:52,000 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: the facts. In September twenty fourteen, Lena Dunham released her

577
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,520
Speaker 1: memoir Not That Kind of Girl. Now. I have read

578
00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: the memoir a couple of times, so like I'm pretty

579
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: well versed on what it says and what it doesn't say.

580
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: And it does include passages of Lena describing sexual situations

581
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: around her younger sibling. I should say right now, Lina's

582
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: sibling is called Cyrus Grace Dunham and uses they them pronouns.

583
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: According to a twenty nineteen Atlantic profile of Cyrus, Cyrus

584
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: uses they them pronouns in professional contexts, and he him

585
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:27,960
Speaker 1: pronouns with friends. But that was not the case when

586
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,400
Speaker 1: this memoir was published. But as I read some quotes

587
00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: from the memoir, I'm going to amend the quotes to

588
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,880
Speaker 1: reflect that, so Lena writes about trying to get her

589
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: younger sibling to kiss her on the mouth and lay

590
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:41,120
Speaker 1: on top of her. As Cyrus Grace grew, I took

591
00:33:41,160 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: to bribing them for time and affection. One dollar in quarters,

592
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 1: if I could do their makeup like a motorcycle chick,

593
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: three pieces of candy, if I could kiss them on

594
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: the lips for five seconds, whatever they wanted to watch

595
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:54,440
Speaker 1: on TV. If they would just relax on me, basically

596
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:57,680
Speaker 1: anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small

597
00:33:57,680 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 1: suburban girl I was trying. The memoir also includes this passage.

598
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: Do we all have uteruses? I asked my mother when

599
00:34:04,520 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: I was seven. Yes, she told me. We're born with

600
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: them and with all of our eggs, But they start

601
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,280
Speaker 1: out very small, and they aren't ready to make babies

602
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:16,359
Speaker 1: until we're older. I look at my Cyrus Grace, now

603
00:34:16,400 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: a slim, tough one year old, and at their tiny belly.

604
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:22,000
Speaker 1: I imagine eggs inside of them, like the sack of

605
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:25,160
Speaker 1: spider eggs and Charlotte's web, and their uterus the size

606
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,440
Speaker 1: of a thimble. Does their vagina look like mine? I

607
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,560
Speaker 1: guess so, my mother said, just smaller. One day as

608
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 1: I sat out on our driveway in Long Island, playing

609
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: with blocks and buckets, my curiosity got the best of me.

610
00:34:37,560 --> 00:34:40,480
Speaker 1: Cyrus Grace was sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I

611
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:43,440
Speaker 1: leaned down between them and I leaned down between their

612
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:46,760
Speaker 1: legs and carefully spread open their vagina. They didn't resist,

613
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:49,799
Speaker 1: and when I saw what was inside, I shrieked. My

614
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: mother came running, Mama, Mama, Cyrus Grace has something in there.

615
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 1: My mother didn't bother asking why I had opened cyrus

616
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: Grace's vagina. This was within the spectrum of things that

617
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:02,919
Speaker 1: I did. She just got on her knees and looked

618
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:06,239
Speaker 1: for herself. It quickly became apparent that Cyrus Grace had

619
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:09,440
Speaker 1: stuck six or seven pebbles in there. My mother removed

620
00:35:09,440 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: them patiently, while Cyrus Grace cackled thrilled that their prank

621
00:35:13,280 --> 00:35:17,640
Speaker 1: had been a success. So the book actually does contain

622
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:23,320
Speaker 1: content that involves her describing these sexual situations with their sibling.

623
00:35:23,480 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 1: That is true, but she writes about doing this at

624
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: age seven with her sibling who was age one. On

625
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:34,200
Speaker 1: October twenty ninth, twenty fourteen, about a month after her

626
00:35:34,239 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: book had come out, Truth Revolt published the passage that

627
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 1: I just read about the pebbles and the vagina under

628
00:35:40,719 --> 00:35:46,080
Speaker 1: the headline Lena Dunham described sexually abusing her little sibling. Now,

629
00:35:46,120 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: as Box points out, truth Revolt did two very misleading

630
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:53,240
Speaker 1: things in their post, calling Donham a sexual abuser. One,

631
00:35:53,560 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 1: they really keyed in on this phrase they didn't resist,

632
00:35:57,400 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: which obviously becomes a lot more loaded when paired with

633
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:04,799
Speaker 1: the headline about sexually abusing her sibling. Two, and this

634
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:09,280
Speaker 1: is really important. Truth Revolt article originally stated that Dunham

635
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 1: was seventeen at the time, when Dunham in actuality said

636
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,400
Speaker 1: that she was seven. So obviously, if you have a

637
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:19,360
Speaker 1: seventeen year old describing these kinds of interactions with a

638
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:22,879
Speaker 1: one year old, it is a very different situation than

639
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: if you have a seven year old, which she actually

640
00:36:25,680 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: says was her age doing them with someone who is one.

641
00:36:29,840 --> 00:36:33,160
Speaker 2: Yes, seventeen and seven are pretty different there.

642
00:36:33,200 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: Pretty different. So truth Revolt eventually does say that it

643
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: was a typo. I guess that's fine. The story is

644
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:44,880
Speaker 1: then linked to by the Drudge Report, which, if you

645
00:36:44,920 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: don't know what that is because you're not older like myself,

646
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,360
Speaker 1: it's basically a right wing news aggregator that can really

647
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 1: blow up stories. It was the first place to publish

648
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,320
Speaker 1: the Bill Clinton scandal involving interna Monica Lewinsky back in

649
00:36:57,360 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight. Once it's picked up by the drudge

650
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: the story gets a ton more traction. It makes the

651
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:05,640
Speaker 1: rounds on you know, Truth for Both is kind of

652
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: a niche site. It makes the rounds on the wider

653
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:12,319
Speaker 1: right wing blog and infosphere, and much bigger right wing

654
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 1: outlets begin to pick it up. The National Reviews Kevin Williamston,

655
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 1: for instance, declared there is no non horrific interpretation of

656
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 1: this episode, and The Daily Caller, another conservative outlet, rights

657
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 1: Dunham had admitted to the quote gleeful sexual abuse of

658
00:37:27,520 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: her infant sibling. Now that is initially really what seeded

659
00:37:32,480 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: the whole Lena Dunham sexually abused her sibling narrative. And

660
00:37:37,680 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: now it's out in the wider right wing blogosphere infosphere,

661
00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: and now it is a thing.

662
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:49,719
Speaker 2: It's so salacious it almost feels like Taylor made for

663
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 2: these kind of right wing outrage aggregators.

664
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:59,040
Speaker 1: I mean, that is such a commonality of disinformation, and

665
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: it's something that I have to remember myself quite a bit,

666
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:04,759
Speaker 1: it's not just folks on the right. I'm speaking about everybody.

667
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: Myself very much included that when you have these stories

668
00:38:09,560 --> 00:38:14,080
Speaker 1: that seem almost tailor made to trigger certain things inside

669
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:16,320
Speaker 1: you or outrage you in a certain kind of way,

670
00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: those are always stories that you should be a little

671
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 1: bit wary of because it's not a coincidence that they

672
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 1: are hitting you in this particular way.

673
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 4: Yeah.

674
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:27,560
Speaker 2: Right, And you've mentioned that. Guests have mentioned that on

675
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 2: the show talking about ways to combat disinformation, Like when

676
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:36,319
Speaker 2: you're feeling that emotional reaction, that should almost be a

677
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:42,279
Speaker 2: signal to step back and evaluate, like who is writing this?

678
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:44,960
Speaker 2: Where am I reading this? Is this something that I

679
00:38:45,040 --> 00:38:46,880
Speaker 2: want to share exactly?

680
00:38:46,960 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: And that's one of the elements about this that I

681
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:52,520
Speaker 1: find so fascinating is how, obviously, if you are Ben

682
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:56,480
Speaker 1: Shapiro or a right winger who has endured the last

683
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: few years where it seems like progressivism and diversity and

684
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,359
Speaker 1: feminism and sexuality are all things that are becoming more

685
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:06,279
Speaker 1: and more salient, and you're feeling less and less in

686
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:08,640
Speaker 1: control and less and less relevant, and these things are

687
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:11,520
Speaker 1: becoming more and more relevant. I could see why that

688
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 1: would prime somebody who is a right winger who feels

689
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:18,239
Speaker 1: kind of threatened by this. I could see how that

690
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:22,040
Speaker 1: would prime them to believe and amplify and spread this

691
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: particularly damaging lie about Lena Dunham. However, what I find

692
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 1: so fascinating about this is the way that didn't just

693
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: stay in right wing circles. It made the rounds, and

694
00:39:33,880 --> 00:39:35,240
Speaker 1: it still persists today.

695
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 3: More after a quick break.

696
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:53,640
Speaker 1: Let's get right back into it. So the day that

697
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 1: Truth published their misleading article about her memoir, Lena responded

698
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:01,200
Speaker 1: the following day, tweeting the right wing news story that

699
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 1: I molested my little sibling isn't just laugh out loud,

700
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 1: it's really fucking upsetting and disgusting. Her legal team sent

701
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:10,839
Speaker 1: a letter that was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter to

702
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 1: Bradford Thomas, the author of the Peace and a Truth Revolt,

703
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 1: threatening to take legal action if certain statements were not removed.

704
00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 1: The letter said, the story is false, fabricated, and has

705
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: the obvious tendency to subject my client to ridicule and

706
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: to injure her occupation. Now, the letter goes on to

707
00:40:26,800 --> 00:40:29,760
Speaker 1: say that the piece caused quote actual damage to Lena's

708
00:40:29,760 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: personal and professional reputation, which likely would be calculated in

709
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:35,719
Speaker 1: the millions of dollars, punitive damages which can be a

710
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:38,560
Speaker 1: multiple of up to ten times the actual damages, and

711
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 1: injunctive relief. The letter also says that the Truth Revolt

712
00:40:41,920 --> 00:40:45,600
Speaker 1: story contains quote outright falsified statements that are attributed to

713
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,360
Speaker 1: Lena and her book. The statements do not appear anywhere

714
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,840
Speaker 1: in the book, thus showing intent to harm, knowing falsity

715
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,759
Speaker 1: as well as reckless disregard for the truth, any one

716
00:40:54,800 --> 00:40:58,320
Speaker 1: of which meets the malice requirement. Her attorney, Charles Harder

717
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 1: wrote in his letter to Truth Revolt Now. Ben Shapiro,

718
00:41:01,719 --> 00:41:06,120
Speaker 1: on behalf of Truth Revolt responded, he said, we refuse

719
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:08,760
Speaker 1: to withdraw our story and apologize for running it, because

720
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 1: quoting a woman's book does not constitute a false story,

721
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:15,120
Speaker 1: even if she is a prominent actress and left wing activist.

722
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:18,160
Speaker 1: Lena Dunna might not like our interpretation of her book,

723
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 1: but unfortunately for her and her attorneys, she wrote that

724
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 1: book and the First Amendment covers a good deal of

725
00:41:23,640 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: material which she may not like. And I don't know.

726
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: I just find Ben Shapiro and Truth Revolt's response to

727
00:41:30,719 --> 00:41:35,080
Speaker 1: be so wild because Truth Revolt itself admitted that it

728
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:37,720
Speaker 1: was a typo, saying that she was seventeen and not seven.

729
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: They said it was a typo, and so by definition

730
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: what they printed was not correct and was a false story.

731
00:41:43,560 --> 00:41:47,000
Speaker 1: I feel like Ben Shapiro's kind of, you know, puffed

732
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 1: up response really flies in the face of like what

733
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:53,000
Speaker 1: the website actually said, which was that they printed something

734
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:53,840
Speaker 1: that was not correct.

735
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's not like I wouldn't call that a

736
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 2: typo even if it was uninten which seems pretty unlikely,

737
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 2: but who knows, you know, maybe it was. But even so,

738
00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:09,960
Speaker 2: it's like, so it so changes the character and the

739
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:14,319
Speaker 2: nature of the story that it's beyond a typo. It's

740
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 2: clearly creating a false impression that's absolutely true, and for

741
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 2: him to not even acknowledge that in part of his apology,

742
00:42:24,360 --> 00:42:25,879
Speaker 2: it just makes me wonder.

743
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,000
Speaker 1: You know what, Oh, he didn't apologize, Oh right.

744
00:42:27,920 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 2: Excuse me. Yeah, so not an apology actually, just like

745
00:42:31,160 --> 00:42:35,839
Speaker 2: a continued attack. Yeah, that's great, the kind of kind

746
00:42:35,840 --> 00:42:36,719
Speaker 2: of guy we're dealing with.

747
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 1: Your Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I'm not

748
00:42:40,120 --> 00:42:43,319
Speaker 1: going to speculate whether this was an intentional move or not.

749
00:42:44,040 --> 00:42:47,239
Speaker 1: I will say I have my suspicions, but they said

750
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:50,320
Speaker 1: it was a typo. I'm gonna take them at that word.

751
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: You're so right that even if that was just a typo,

752
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 1: somebody to slip the one in there, not acknowledging the

753
00:42:58,120 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 1: way that that really charges the what you've written, and like, really, yeah,

754
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 1: it's it's really stunning that he won't even like on

755
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:10,719
Speaker 1: the one hand that the website admits it, but on

756
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: the other hand it's like, well, we did nothing wrong.

757
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 1: It's like, well, can't really be both.

758
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:17,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, some omissions are more important than others. If,

759
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:21,759
Speaker 2: for example, hypothetically, somebody wrote somebody meant to write Ben

760
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:27,720
Speaker 2: Shapiro did not murder and eat his sister, but left

761
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:31,040
Speaker 2: out the word not, it would really change the meaning

762
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:31,720
Speaker 2: of the sentence.

763
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:33,840
Speaker 1: It would just be a typo. And how dare you

764
00:43:33,880 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 1: insinuate that I apologize and say it with anything?

765
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:39,120
Speaker 2: But yeah, right, it's just it's just a typo. And

766
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,840
Speaker 2: also he's a right wing activist anyway, so that's somehow

767
00:43:42,880 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 2: relevant exactly exactly.

768
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:47,799
Speaker 1: So an important question that I feel like is really

769
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: easy to get lost in all this is whether or

770
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: not what Lena actually wrote in the book not the

771
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:57,160
Speaker 1: way that Truth Revolt initially spun it actually describes sexual

772
00:43:57,160 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: abuse or not. So first, I believe that it's really

773
00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:04,440
Speaker 1: important to listen to and center Lena Dunham's siblings Cybris

774
00:44:04,440 --> 00:44:07,919
Speaker 1: Grace and their voice in this conversation and really listen

775
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:10,240
Speaker 1: to what they have to say about what this experience

776
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,680
Speaker 1: was like for them. Lena Dunham's siblings Cybris Grace responded

777
00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:18,920
Speaker 1: on Twitter saying heateronormativity deem certain behaviors harmful and others normal.

778
00:44:19,280 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: The state and media are always invested in maintaining that.

779
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,040
Speaker 1: As a queer person, I'm committed to people narrating their

780
00:44:25,080 --> 00:44:28,319
Speaker 1: own experiences determining for themselves what has it has not

781
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 1: been harmful. Today, like every other day, it's a good

782
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,120
Speaker 1: day to think about how we police the sexualities of

783
00:44:34,160 --> 00:44:37,719
Speaker 1: young women, queer and trans people. And so yeah, I

784
00:44:37,719 --> 00:44:40,960
Speaker 1: think it's important to ground, you know, the conversation of

785
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:44,719
Speaker 1: like what actually happened in how Cyrus Grace interprets it,

786
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: because it's their it's you know, it's their experience, and

787
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: I have to say, you know, I want to be clear,

788
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: I am no expert here. I am not a psychologist,

789
00:44:52,080 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 1: I am not a legal scholar. I'm a little bit

790
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 1: out of my depth when it comes to like whether

791
00:44:56,560 --> 00:44:59,560
Speaker 1: or not something could be categorized as sexual abuse. So

792
00:44:59,640 --> 00:45:02,120
Speaker 1: I wanted to summarize some people who actually know what

793
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: they're talking about. So first, according to the American Academy

794
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:08,719
Speaker 1: of Pediatrics, touching and looking at a siblings genitals is

795
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: a quote normal common behavior in kids ages two to six. Vox, Slate,

796
00:45:14,560 --> 00:45:17,360
Speaker 1: and Gawker all spoke to experts who generally seem to

797
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: conclude that little children being curious about the bodies of

798
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: their sibling is a normal part of childhood development. Here's

799
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,919
Speaker 1: a couple of those experts. Gawker spoke to Sam Rubinstein,

800
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 1: a psychotherapist who specializes in childhood abuse, who said, I

801
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:33,680
Speaker 1: think you have to take into consideration her age, her history,

802
00:45:33,960 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 1: and the idea that age, unless you've gone through severe

803
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 1: sexual trauma, there's really almost nothing sexual about it. The

804
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: same explanation could be used for grabbing a dog's tail.

805
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: It's the same type of coercion. Just because it's in

806
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: the sexual venue, people want to attach something to it,

807
00:45:48,760 --> 00:45:51,399
Speaker 1: but it's almost totally different. It's an innocent type thing.

808
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 1: Slate spoke to Rich Savin Williams developmental psychologist and the

809
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 1: director of the Sex and Gender Lab at Cornell University,

810
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:02,320
Speaker 1: who said, quote, this is clearly not a case of abuse.

811
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:04,879
Speaker 1: Children have been doing this stuff forever and ever and ever,

812
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 1: and they will do it forever and ever and ever.

813
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,880
Speaker 1: John V. Cafero, a professor at the California School of

814
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: Professional Psychology and an expert on sibling abuse, wrote in

815
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: a Washington Post column quote, to be clear, sexual curiosity

816
00:46:17,239 --> 00:46:20,759
Speaker 1: in children is normal. All children explore their bodies and

817
00:46:20,960 --> 00:46:23,920
Speaker 1: may engage in visual and even manual exploration of a

818
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: sibling at times. This is one of the ways that

819
00:46:26,239 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 1: children discover sexual differences between boys and girls, anatomies. Even

820
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:33,200
Speaker 1: siblings of the same gender become curious about variations in

821
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,640
Speaker 1: shapes and sizes of their sex organs. Two small children

822
00:46:36,680 --> 00:46:39,520
Speaker 1: exploring each other's bodies does not predestine them to a

823
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:43,880
Speaker 1: life of emotional suffering. So you know, that might all

824
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,520
Speaker 1: kind of sound like I am abssolving Lena of having

825
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 1: done anything wrong in this situation, right, But I actually

826
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:53,600
Speaker 1: think that this is where things get a little bit tricky,

827
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:56,840
Speaker 1: and this trickiness is exactly what drove me to wanting

828
00:46:56,880 --> 00:47:00,120
Speaker 1: to make an episode about this topic. So I should say,

829
00:47:00,000 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: I myself am a survivor of sexual abuse, and so

830
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:05,960
Speaker 1: I know that when something can be difficult to talk about,

831
00:47:06,160 --> 00:47:08,839
Speaker 1: like most sensitive issues are, but I also know that

832
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:12,799
Speaker 1: we really really do need to talk honestly and thoughtfully

833
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:16,920
Speaker 1: about it. And you know what doesn't help us to

834
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 1: have conversations about tough issues in a way that's honest

835
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:24,440
Speaker 1: and thoughtful and nuanced adding lies to the mix. This

836
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:27,760
Speaker 1: is a deliberate tactic that bad actors and disinformers employ,

837
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 1: seizing on hot button issues, adding lies to the mix,

838
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:35,799
Speaker 1: intentionally to derail those conversations. And honestly, this is what

839
00:47:36,000 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 1: really kind of gets me so upset about this issue,

840
00:47:39,160 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: is that we should not and cannot tolerate lies being

841
00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: added to conversations that are as sensitive and important as

842
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:50,320
Speaker 1: childhood sexual abuse, especially not as a way to score

843
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:53,759
Speaker 1: cheap political points the way that Shapiro and Truth Revolt did,

844
00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 1: because it really derails progress and are collective shared understanding.

845
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: There is no converse that is made better by the

846
00:48:02,120 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: injection of lies, and people deserve the truth like that

847
00:48:05,640 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: is a value that I will just like scream from

848
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 1: the rooftops over and over again. If you are adding

849
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: lies to a conversation, you are doing us all a disservice.

850
00:48:16,200 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 1: And so I also think that truth revolt really blowing

851
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 1: up what Lena did write on her memoir with inaccurate

852
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,560
Speaker 1: information really makes it difficult to address a what she

853
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:28,359
Speaker 1: actually did and b how she actually wrote about it.

854
00:48:28,560 --> 00:48:31,399
Speaker 1: And because of their lie, because of them starting off

855
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: this conversation with such an inflammatory, big, you know, you know,

856
00:48:36,160 --> 00:48:41,279
Speaker 1: defining piece of inaccurate content, Lena understandably is then put

857
00:48:41,320 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 1: in a position where she has to defend herself against

858
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 1: a claim that was not true that she sexually abused

859
00:48:46,520 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 1: her sibling when she was seventeen. So I think it

860
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:53,399
Speaker 1: really turns the situation into a binary where she did

861
00:48:53,440 --> 00:48:55,759
Speaker 1: it is on one side, and no, she didn't is

862
00:48:55,800 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: on the other. And that again is a classic disinformer

863
00:48:59,160 --> 00:49:03,239
Speaker 1: derailing tech, flattening out conversations and stripping them of any

864
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 1: context or nuance that are required to have a thoughtful,

865
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:09,879
Speaker 1: substantive conversation about something that is sensitive or a hot

866
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:12,839
Speaker 1: button topic. And so I would actually argue that this

867
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: prevents us from having a public conversation about what Lena

868
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:18,839
Speaker 1: actually did and how she wrote about it. We never

869
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 1: really got to have that conversation because of how much

870
00:49:21,280 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: oxygen truth revolts lie took up in the room, and

871
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:27,359
Speaker 1: that is by design. And further, I would argue that

872
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 1: their injection of inaccurate information into the conversation, you know,

873
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 1: really just adds this this sine of inaccuracy. I would

874
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:38,360
Speaker 1: be willing to bet that at least some people trying

875
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:42,240
Speaker 1: to engage in a conversation probably have a misunderstanding about

876
00:49:42,239 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 1: the basic facts of what happened. And so I guess

877
00:49:45,680 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: all of this is to say, like, this is the

878
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: conversation that I wish we would have gotten to have,

879
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: because if experts seem to suggest that what Lena described

880
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:55,799
Speaker 1: in her book is not abuse, I still don't think

881
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 1: it was great or good. And I still want to

882
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:01,560
Speaker 1: talk about what actually happened with out that inflammatory lie

883
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:02,839
Speaker 1: preventing us from doing that.

884
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Then, you know, the

885
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 2: injection of lies into any conversation degrades that conversation. It

886
00:50:10,520 --> 00:50:14,040
Speaker 2: makes it that much harder to have an honest conversation

887
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:18,240
Speaker 2: about whatever it is. And you know, usually when people

888
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 2: are making up lies, they're doing it for some kind

889
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 2: of agenda. To like you said, take all the oxygen

890
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:27,760
Speaker 2: out of the room to prevent discussion about something else,

891
00:50:28,000 --> 00:50:33,239
Speaker 2: or to discredit and smear and shame a woman who

892
00:50:33,239 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 2: they perceive as a leptist activists. And you know, I

893
00:50:37,160 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 2: don't have any strong feelings for or against Lena Dunham,

894
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:45,080
Speaker 2: and I've actually learned so much and just like making

895
00:50:45,080 --> 00:50:49,239
Speaker 2: these episodes with you. But it is just so familiar

896
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:54,640
Speaker 2: a trope of right wing shitheads making things up to

897
00:50:54,800 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 2: smear somebody who they perceive as an enemy and just

898
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 2: injecting lies into the conversation exactly.

899
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:04,800
Speaker 1: So let's take a look at what she actually wrote

900
00:51:04,840 --> 00:51:08,840
Speaker 1: and why you know it's still not good. First, I

901
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:12,880
Speaker 1: think it's definitely an issue with tone and framing. Childhood

902
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:15,440
Speaker 1: sexual abuse is not a joke, and I think dealing

903
00:51:15,440 --> 00:51:17,640
Speaker 1: with it in this way that sort of jokey was

904
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:21,080
Speaker 1: seriously bad on Lena Dunham's part. I would have never

905
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: written about my younger sibling the way that that Dunham

906
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:25,879
Speaker 1: did in her book, and I can really see how

907
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 1: people feel it raises some questions about boundaries. You know,

908
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,560
Speaker 1: did Lena see these experiences that involved her sibling as

909
00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:37,480
Speaker 1: hers and hers alone to freely share in a book

910
00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:40,880
Speaker 1: you know, why would she think that having a whole

911
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:43,319
Speaker 1: section of her book dedicated to the ways that she

912
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:48,520
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, foisted herself on her baby sibling, Like, like,

913
00:51:48,840 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: I guess like writing about that and as a way,

914
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:53,759
Speaker 1: that's a kind of cute and sort of like defining

915
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: her as like a quirky character or like a jokey

916
00:51:56,719 --> 00:52:00,759
Speaker 1: thing is really I think inappropriate, and I think it's

917
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,839
Speaker 1: fair to say that that raises some legitimate questions, you know,

918
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:07,640
Speaker 1: was that harmful to Lena's sibling. I actually heard from

919
00:52:07,640 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 1: a listener after the first part of this series aired

920
00:52:10,840 --> 00:52:14,400
Speaker 1: last week, and this person left an Instagram comment and

921
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: they felt very strongly that what Lena described in her

922
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:21,520
Speaker 1: book was actually child like childhood sexual abuse.

923
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 2: I remember you got that comment from that listener, and

924
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:29,879
Speaker 2: it was pretty emotional and legitimate, And so I hope

925
00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 2: that they're listening to this second part to get a

926
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 2: little bit more context for what we're trying to say.

927
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:39,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too. I'm really happy that they left that comment.

928
00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: And you know, I think it's one of those things

929
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:43,760
Speaker 1: where it's like, I think it's a completely valid question

930
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:48,080
Speaker 1: to ask about the behavior that Lena describes in the

931
00:52:48,080 --> 00:52:50,680
Speaker 1: book and the way that she wrote about and framed

932
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:51,400
Speaker 1: that behavior.

933
00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is curious to me. You know, I haven't

934
00:52:55,800 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 2: read the book, but you did. What do you think

935
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 2: was her intention of writing that in the book?

936
00:53:03,880 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a great question. The book. So for folks

937
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:08,880
Speaker 1: who have read the book, they know that a big

938
00:53:08,920 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 1: part of it is that Lena slowly reveals herself to

939
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 1: be a very unreliable narrator, one who is kind of

940
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:22,359
Speaker 1: like sardonically looking at and projecting commentary onto her her

941
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,960
Speaker 1: own experiences. And so her experiences are presented and you

942
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:28,400
Speaker 1: and you the reader sort of takes them at face value.

943
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 1: And then later in the book those many of those

944
00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:34,960
Speaker 1: experiences are revisited in ways that reveal her to be

945
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:38,719
Speaker 1: an unreliable narrator about her own experiences, and in ways

946
00:53:38,719 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: that sort of present her as this like, yeah, this sarcastic,

947
00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:47,800
Speaker 1: sardonic person who is kind of like critiquing and commenting

948
00:53:47,840 --> 00:53:50,839
Speaker 1: on the way that she described those things. Early on.

949
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 1: There's this piece for Vox by Alex abad Santos that

950
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:56,600
Speaker 1: I think perfectly summarizes what I'm trying to say. Alex

951
00:53:56,640 --> 00:54:00,400
Speaker 1: writes the way Dunham wrote the incident up in her book,

952
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:02,839
Speaker 1: and the degree to which the writing style that has

953
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 1: made her such a success may have also led her astray. Here,

954
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:10,240
Speaker 1: child molestation is an extremely sensitive topic. Kafaro, the sibling

955
00:54:10,280 --> 00:54:13,799
Speaker 1: abuse expert, wrote that sibling sexual abuse is far more

956
00:54:13,800 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: common than most people think, quote the most closely kept

957
00:54:17,239 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: secret in the field of family violence, but one study

958
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:22,360
Speaker 1: finding that at least two point three percent of children

959
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:25,800
Speaker 1: have been sexually victimized by a sibling. Dunham's treatment of

960
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:29,239
Speaker 1: this very serious topic was not exactly sensitive, something she

961
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,040
Speaker 1: herself has acknowledged to some degree. That is of a

962
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:34,880
Speaker 1: piece with Dunham's greatest strengths and weaknesses as a writer.

963
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: She has a reputation for leaning into weird, awkward situations

964
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 1: on her HBO show Girls, and she's a master at

965
00:54:41,120 --> 00:54:44,560
Speaker 1: creating scenes, sexual or not, that make viewers cringe. This

966
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:46,560
Speaker 1: is a book about Lena Dunham's coming of age and

967
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:49,120
Speaker 1: a society that does not normally tell stories of girls

968
00:54:49,160 --> 00:54:52,799
Speaker 1: becoming women, and it highlights quite well how uncomfortable and

969
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: difficult growing up as a girl can be. And so

970
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:57,319
Speaker 1: I think that piece really summarizes it. I think that

971
00:54:57,640 --> 00:55:00,600
Speaker 1: she was trying to lean into the fact the ways

972
00:55:00,640 --> 00:55:04,920
Speaker 1: that sexual experiences and physical experiences can be so cringey,

973
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 1: so awkward, so uncomfortable, And she does that really well

974
00:55:09,280 --> 00:55:11,520
Speaker 1: in other parts of her writing, but I think that

975
00:55:11,520 --> 00:55:16,839
Speaker 1: that same inclination I think really led her astray here

976
00:55:16,960 --> 00:55:20,360
Speaker 1: and I think it like it opens up such valid

977
00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:23,480
Speaker 1: criticisms of the way that she handled it. One of

978
00:55:23,560 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 1: my big questions as did that bit of the book

979
00:55:26,440 --> 00:55:30,760
Speaker 1: contribute to a culture where sexual abuse is further normalized. Again,

980
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:32,480
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert in this field, but I think

981
00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:35,520
Speaker 1: they're all valid questions, And I think that's the bottom line.

982
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: When we allow disinformers to flatten out entire conversations with

983
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 1: inaccurate information, we don't really get to have the real

984
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 1: conversation about what actually happens. And I think it creates

985
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:51,120
Speaker 1: the conditions that lead to Lena not really having to

986
00:55:51,160 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 1: be held accountable for what she actually wrote, because the

987
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 1: only thing anybody is really talking about is the lie

988
00:55:56,880 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: about what she wrote. And I think that Lena would

989
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:03,760
Speaker 1: probably agree that, you know, how she handled this incident

990
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 1: in her memoir wasn't great because she apologized. She wrote, quote,

991
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:11,359
Speaker 1: if the situation is described in my book have been

992
00:56:11,400 --> 00:56:14,200
Speaker 1: painful or triggering for people to read. I am sorry,

993
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:16,799
Speaker 1: that was never my intention. I am also aware that

994
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:19,839
Speaker 1: my comic use of the term sexual predator was insensitive,

995
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:22,160
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry for that as well. She also went

996
00:56:22,200 --> 00:56:24,280
Speaker 1: on to say that her sibling is her best friend

997
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:27,279
Speaker 1: and quote, anything I have ever written about has been

998
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:28,440
Speaker 1: published with approval.

999
00:56:28,960 --> 00:56:33,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I mean, it's hard to argue with that

1000
00:56:33,040 --> 00:56:37,319
Speaker 2: that it was not very sensitive. And you know, her

1001
00:56:37,320 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 2: apology is a reminder of how serious talking about sexual

1002
00:56:44,440 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 2: abuse is, you know, and so yeah, you probably shouldn't

1003
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:52,640
Speaker 2: have written that, But it is so notable that this

1004
00:56:53,000 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 2: whole controversy and apparently allegations that you know, people can

1005
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:02,520
Speaker 2: continue to hold against her of being a seventeen year

1006
00:57:02,600 --> 00:57:08,920
Speaker 2: old sexual predator did not come from the alleged victim

1007
00:57:09,160 --> 00:57:15,440
Speaker 2: her sibling, did not come from survivor justice advocates, but

1008
00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:19,520
Speaker 2: instead came from Ben Shapiro, like a vowed and an

1009
00:57:19,560 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 2: open right wing activist, you know, like you're not gonna

1010
00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:29,160
Speaker 2: convince me that he gives a shit about really anyone.

1011
00:57:29,680 --> 00:57:34,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, and a right wing activist who explicitly said that

1012
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:39,760
Speaker 1: the intention of his media outlet was to attack prominent

1013
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:43,720
Speaker 1: left wing folks, prominent liberal voices. Lena Dunnam is a

1014
00:57:43,720 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 1: prominent liberal voice that she certainly was when this all happened.

1015
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:49,880
Speaker 1: And so I think that I also want to really

1016
00:57:49,880 --> 00:57:54,040
Speaker 1: lift up what you just said about these allegations not

1017
00:57:54,080 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 1: coming from Lina's sibling. I think the thing that really

1018
00:57:57,760 --> 00:58:00,640
Speaker 1: sticks with me about this whole situation is the way

1019
00:58:00,720 --> 00:58:06,400
Speaker 1: that Lena Dunham's sibling, their voice is almost universally ignored.

1020
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:10,680
Speaker 1: You know, people often repeat this claim Lena Dunham's sexually

1021
00:58:10,720 --> 00:58:13,560
Speaker 1: abused her sibling, and when they do so, they often

1022
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 1: misgender Cyrus. And Cyrus has their own memoir called A

1023
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:19,680
Speaker 1: Year Without a Name, where they talk about this specific

1024
00:58:19,680 --> 00:58:22,320
Speaker 1: claim and how hurtful it is to them, yet it

1025
00:58:22,400 --> 00:58:25,720
Speaker 1: never goes away. So I have a hard time believing

1026
00:58:25,720 --> 00:58:29,560
Speaker 1: that these people online actually care about centering or listening

1027
00:58:29,640 --> 00:58:34,640
Speaker 1: to Cyrus's experience or meaningfully amplifying the experiences of survivors.

1028
00:58:35,360 --> 00:58:40,440
Speaker 1: And so I just really believe in centering survivors, centering

1029
00:58:40,960 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 1: giving people space to be the experts of their own experiences.

1030
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:47,560
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, the thing that really just really bums

1031
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:51,120
Speaker 1: me out is that Cyrus Grace's voice is almost entirely

1032
00:58:51,160 --> 00:58:54,840
Speaker 1: erased when people talk about this. When people repeat, you know, oh,

1033
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:57,680
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham did this to the to her sibling, I

1034
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:00,479
Speaker 1: just feel like we just don't. It's it's so easy

1035
00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 1: to not make space for Cyrus's voice, and I think

1036
00:59:04,120 --> 00:59:06,840
Speaker 1: what you said really helps us see how problematic that is.

1037
00:59:07,800 --> 00:59:11,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like having this conversation, I'm sort of wondering, is

1038
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:13,920
Speaker 2: this a conversation about childhood sexual abuse or is it

1039
00:59:13,960 --> 00:59:16,560
Speaker 2: a conversation about a celebrity.

1040
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:19,240
Speaker 1: Well, I would argue that, like I think, for a

1041
00:59:19,280 --> 00:59:24,040
Speaker 1: lot of people, because they don't like Lena Dunham for

1042
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:26,960
Speaker 1: whatever reason, and some of those reasons are valid. The

1043
00:59:27,440 --> 00:59:31,280
Speaker 1: actual meat of the conversation caring about and believing and

1044
00:59:31,360 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: uplifting survivors of sexual abuse, that kind of gets pushed

1045
00:59:34,200 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 1: to the sideline because the real thing is finding a

1046
00:59:37,080 --> 00:59:38,880
Speaker 1: way to talk about how much we don't like Lena

1047
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:40,760
Speaker 1: Dunnam and how awful she is, you know what I mean?

1048
00:59:41,040 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, Like I'm no stranger to add hominin attacks.

1049
00:59:45,880 --> 00:59:49,240
Speaker 2: You know, like if there's somebody I don't like, I'll

1050
00:59:50,440 --> 00:59:55,440
Speaker 2: happily you know, sign up for piling on for something

1051
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:58,760
Speaker 2: shitty or stupid that they did. But it does feel

1052
00:59:59,160 --> 01:00:05,480
Speaker 2: very different when that piling on involves allegations of sexual

1053
01:00:05,520 --> 01:00:08,040
Speaker 2: abuse about some third person who's not even part of

1054
01:00:08,040 --> 01:00:13,640
Speaker 2: the conversation and is built on lies, and you know,

1055
01:00:13,680 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 2: like you said earlier, just sucking the air out of

1056
01:00:16,600 --> 01:00:21,280
Speaker 2: valid conversations in the space. Not valid, I don't mean valid,

1057
01:00:21,360 --> 01:00:23,440
Speaker 2: I mean truthful, you know.

1058
01:00:24,040 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 1: Right, So you know that's exactly what I think is

1059
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:29,760
Speaker 1: happening here. So now that you know what actually happened

1060
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:32,760
Speaker 1: versus the lie that truth revolt amplified about it, let's

1061
01:00:32,760 --> 01:00:35,360
Speaker 1: talk about exactly that. Like what is it that made

1062
01:00:35,400 --> 01:00:38,280
Speaker 1: this such a sticky narrative? And that's the thing that really,

1063
01:00:38,840 --> 01:00:41,640
Speaker 1: I don't know, it fascinates me about this claim because

1064
01:00:41,920 --> 01:00:45,200
Speaker 1: it has had real staying power. So question for you, Mike.

1065
01:00:45,440 --> 01:00:47,760
Speaker 1: Have you seen that meme where it's a black hand

1066
01:00:47,800 --> 01:00:51,400
Speaker 1: and a white hand like grasping hands and a gesture

1067
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:54,080
Speaker 1: of unity and something that they agree about, like a

1068
01:00:54,120 --> 01:00:56,760
Speaker 1: shared commonality is written on the middle of their hands.

1069
01:00:57,240 --> 01:00:59,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, it's a beautiful meme about coming together.

1070
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:03,080
Speaker 1: So that meme pretty much explains what I think is

1071
01:01:03,120 --> 01:01:07,080
Speaker 1: going on here. Basically. On the black hand, you have

1072
01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:13,920
Speaker 1: you know, feminists, people of color, just general people on

1073
01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:17,120
Speaker 1: the white hand. Maybe I got right wing folks, and

1074
01:01:17,160 --> 01:01:19,840
Speaker 1: the thing that they're uniting over is that they all

1075
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:22,320
Speaker 1: agree they hate Lena Dunham. That's kind of what I

1076
01:01:22,360 --> 01:01:25,040
Speaker 1: think is going on here, because even though the claim

1077
01:01:25,040 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 1: that Lena Dunham sexually abused her one year old sibling

1078
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:29,920
Speaker 1: when she was seventeen, we know, started in the right

1079
01:01:29,960 --> 01:01:33,240
Speaker 1: wing blogosphere, it has really traveled out of those spaces

1080
01:01:33,280 --> 01:01:37,000
Speaker 1: and become a fairly widely accepted claim. And that's because

1081
01:01:37,080 --> 01:01:39,560
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham is just like a controversial figure. She's a

1082
01:01:39,640 --> 01:01:41,080
Speaker 1: lightning rod. Yeah.

1083
01:01:41,160 --> 01:01:44,600
Speaker 2: It really highlights how we can all come together to

1084
01:01:44,720 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 2: just like shit on women about shit that isn't true.

1085
01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:50,280
Speaker 1: Absolutely, to put it bluntly, a lot of people just

1086
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:52,200
Speaker 1: don't like Lena Dunham. And so in that way, I

1087
01:01:52,240 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 1: think it was really easy for folks to project an

1088
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:58,800
Speaker 1: inaccurate claim against her and have it really stick. And

1089
01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 1: this also tells us to think kind of interesting about

1090
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:04,240
Speaker 1: the way that inaccurate information works online. It can often

1091
01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:06,520
Speaker 1: speak to something that is already inside of us. And

1092
01:02:06,520 --> 01:02:10,360
Speaker 1: so if you're already primed to really hate Lena Dunham,

1093
01:02:10,560 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 1: when somebody comes along and tells you something that really

1094
01:02:13,320 --> 01:02:16,920
Speaker 1: squares what they're already held belief. It can really stick

1095
01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:21,640
Speaker 1: because our brains love information, even inaccurate information or false

1096
01:02:21,680 --> 01:02:25,720
Speaker 1: information that validates opinions or values that we already hold.

1097
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:28,640
Speaker 1: So if your opinion is that Lena Dunham sucks, it

1098
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:31,880
Speaker 1: sort of doesn't matter if she actually did joke about

1099
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:33,920
Speaker 1: abusing her one year old sibling when she was seventeen

1100
01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:36,680
Speaker 1: or not. It will stick because it squares with our

1101
01:02:36,880 --> 01:02:39,320
Speaker 1: are already held belief. That's just how our brains as

1102
01:02:39,400 --> 01:02:43,000
Speaker 1: humans work. And another truism about disinformation is that it

1103
01:02:43,080 --> 01:02:48,400
Speaker 1: often seizes on legitimate existing tensions and pressure points and

1104
01:02:48,480 --> 01:02:53,360
Speaker 1: fractures that already exist, particularly within marginalized communities. If you

1105
01:02:53,360 --> 01:02:55,960
Speaker 1: listen to the episode that we did about and Father's

1106
01:02:56,040 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 1: Day or Vanessa Gien, this will probably sound familiar to you.

1107
01:03:00,400 --> 01:03:03,960
Speaker 1: It pits black women against white women, or the Latino

1108
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:06,800
Speaker 1: community against the Black community. And I think Lena Dunham

1109
01:03:06,920 --> 01:03:11,120
Speaker 1: is a really interesting case study for this, because people,

1110
01:03:11,280 --> 01:03:15,040
Speaker 1: especially people of color, really do have some valid reasons

1111
01:03:15,040 --> 01:03:18,160
Speaker 1: to dislike Lena Dunham, and these reasons are often reflected

1112
01:03:18,200 --> 01:03:20,480
Speaker 1: in the kinds of tensions that I was just naming above.

1113
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:23,400
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the tensions occur along racial lines.

1114
01:03:23,720 --> 01:03:24,640
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting.

1115
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:26,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I want to talk about some of the

1116
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:31,440
Speaker 1: valid reasons that folks have to sort of be predisposed

1117
01:03:31,480 --> 01:03:35,760
Speaker 1: to not like Lena Dunham and thus have this, you know,

1118
01:03:36,240 --> 01:03:39,640
Speaker 1: inaccurate claim really have a little bit of staying power.

1119
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:42,640
Speaker 1: So one, I think that Lena Dunham has really come

1120
01:03:42,680 --> 01:03:45,360
Speaker 1: to represent a kind of I guess i'll call it

1121
01:03:45,480 --> 01:03:48,400
Speaker 1: white girl cluelessness that a lot of feminists of color

1122
01:03:48,680 --> 01:03:51,920
Speaker 1: were frankly sick of seeing amplified as the voice of feminism.

1123
01:03:52,000 --> 01:03:54,640
Speaker 1: You know, when the show Girls first premiered at HBO,

1124
01:03:54,960 --> 01:03:58,160
Speaker 1: there was so much fanfare cementing Lena Dunham, you know,

1125
01:03:58,240 --> 01:04:01,520
Speaker 1: as this voice of a general, the voice of young women,

1126
01:04:01,880 --> 01:04:04,440
Speaker 1: and I think there was some resentment around who we

1127
01:04:04,560 --> 01:04:07,520
Speaker 1: amplify and who we give lots and lots and lots

1128
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:11,320
Speaker 1: of chances to. I often heard black feminists saying things like, oh,

1129
01:04:11,680 --> 01:04:14,240
Speaker 1: a black woman would never get as many chances to

1130
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:18,000
Speaker 1: mess up like Lena Dunham has. Side note, Lena Dunham

1131
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:21,360
Speaker 1: has had to apologize for so many things that there

1132
01:04:21,400 --> 01:04:25,200
Speaker 1: was actually a Twitter meme account called Lena Dunham apologizes

1133
01:04:25,360 --> 01:04:30,720
Speaker 1: that just creates randomly generated apologies for fictional Lena Dunham missteps.

1134
01:04:30,760 --> 01:04:33,720
Speaker 1: And I actually went to go look one up because

1135
01:04:33,720 --> 01:04:34,960
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I should read one here on

1136
01:04:35,000 --> 01:04:38,040
Speaker 1: the podcast. That'll be funny, And so I googled Lena

1137
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:41,560
Speaker 1: Dunham apology Twitter and I found the tweet. Lena Dunham

1138
01:04:41,600 --> 01:04:44,720
Speaker 1: issued an apology for her new HBO Max series Generation

1139
01:04:45,240 --> 01:04:48,640
Speaker 1: using real cat corpses in a classroom scene. But that

1140
01:04:48,760 --> 01:04:52,120
Speaker 1: apology tweet was actually real, that was actually her apologizing

1141
01:04:52,120 --> 01:04:53,280
Speaker 1: for something that actually happened.

1142
01:04:54,280 --> 01:04:57,800
Speaker 2: Wow, So we're just living in a universe where there's

1143
01:04:57,920 --> 01:05:02,240
Speaker 2: just one can't tell what is true Lena Dunham apologies

1144
01:05:02,480 --> 01:05:06,640
Speaker 2: or disinformation Lena Dunham apologies. It's just a miasma of

1145
01:05:06,720 --> 01:05:08,480
Speaker 2: Lena Dunham uncertainty.

1146
01:05:08,400 --> 01:05:11,320
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly is it art imitating life or is it

1147
01:05:11,360 --> 01:05:13,120
Speaker 1: life imitating art, or.

1148
01:05:13,040 --> 01:05:14,720
Speaker 2: Is it art imitating tech corpses?

1149
01:05:17,400 --> 01:05:19,160
Speaker 1: So this is a little bit of a tangent, but

1150
01:05:19,240 --> 01:05:21,040
Speaker 1: I just have to mention it because I think it

1151
01:05:21,400 --> 01:05:25,880
Speaker 1: was such a weird thing that happened along the kind

1152
01:05:25,920 --> 01:05:29,920
Speaker 1: of race and gender intra community tensions that I was

1153
01:05:29,920 --> 01:05:32,880
Speaker 1: just talking about before, and that is the whole thing

1154
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:35,760
Speaker 1: that went down between Lena Dunham and Odell Beckham. It

1155
01:05:35,840 --> 01:05:39,320
Speaker 1: was just really weird. So if you don't remember what

1156
01:05:39,400 --> 01:05:42,360
Speaker 1: happened a few years ago at the met Gala, Lena

1157
01:05:42,400 --> 01:05:45,040
Speaker 1: Dunham attended and she was wearing a tuxedo and she

1158
01:05:45,080 --> 01:05:47,880
Speaker 1: would see it next to the professional athlete Odell Beckham Junior,

1159
01:05:48,280 --> 01:05:51,280
Speaker 1: and I guess Lena felt that he was ignoring her

1160
01:05:51,480 --> 01:05:54,120
Speaker 1: or not paying an appropriate amount of attention to her

1161
01:05:54,480 --> 01:05:58,320
Speaker 1: or something. And so after the event, Lena wrote in

1162
01:05:58,360 --> 01:06:01,640
Speaker 1: her newsletter, Lenny Letter, I was sitting next to Odell

1163
01:06:01,640 --> 01:06:04,320
Speaker 1: Beckham Junior and it was so amazing, and because it

1164
01:06:04,360 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 1: was like he looked at me and determined I was

1165
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:09,160
Speaker 1: not the shape of a woman by his standards. He

1166
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: was like, that's a marshmallow, that's a child, that's a dog.

1167
01:06:13,840 --> 01:06:16,760
Speaker 1: It wasn't mean, he just seemed confused. The vibe was

1168
01:06:16,880 --> 01:06:19,560
Speaker 1: very much do I want to fuck it? Is it

1169
01:06:19,640 --> 01:06:22,920
Speaker 1: wearing yup, it's wearing a tuxedo. I'm going to go

1170
01:06:23,000 --> 01:06:25,400
Speaker 1: back to my cell phone. It was like we were

1171
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:28,440
Speaker 1: forced to be together and he was literally scrolling Instagram

1172
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 1: rather than have to look at a woman in a

1173
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:33,200
Speaker 1: bow tie. I was like, this should be called the

1174
01:06:33,240 --> 01:06:39,400
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Museum of getting rejected by athletes. So, yeah, that

1175
01:06:39,640 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 1: is a lot of projecting your own negative fantasies and

1176
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:48,360
Speaker 1: perhaps insecurities on to someone who sounded like was just

1177
01:06:48,400 --> 01:06:51,240
Speaker 1: like minding their business on their phone at dinner. You know.

1178
01:06:51,400 --> 01:06:53,760
Speaker 1: Add to the fact that Beckham is a black man,

1179
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:56,160
Speaker 1: and it kind of sounds like she is responding to

1180
01:06:56,200 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 1: this like perceived projection of a hyperst sexualized black man

1181
01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:06,120
Speaker 1: onto her, like she was like disappointed or felt some

1182
01:07:06,240 --> 01:07:10,160
Speaker 1: type of way that he was not behaving in a

1183
01:07:10,200 --> 01:07:13,640
Speaker 1: way like an over sexualized manner toward her. And yeah,

1184
01:07:13,640 --> 01:07:15,520
Speaker 1: it just feels like she like really projected a lot

1185
01:07:15,560 --> 01:07:20,080
Speaker 1: onto him. She eventually apologized on Instagram, but it was

1186
01:07:20,160 --> 01:07:24,280
Speaker 1: just a very weird thing that happened along very specific

1187
01:07:24,920 --> 01:07:28,720
Speaker 1: race and gender fault lines that we know sometimes can

1188
01:07:28,800 --> 01:07:31,120
Speaker 1: be legitimate tension points in our society.

1189
01:07:31,720 --> 01:07:33,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, yikes. That kind of remind me of what you

1190
01:07:33,960 --> 01:07:36,760
Speaker 2: were talking about from her book, where she establishes herself

1191
01:07:36,800 --> 01:07:44,920
Speaker 2: as an unreliable narrator and somebody who is dwelling in

1192
01:07:45,080 --> 01:07:49,160
Speaker 2: negative fantasies all the time. A. That has to suck,

1193
01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:54,920
Speaker 2: and B yeah, it does establish them as an unreliable

1194
01:07:55,040 --> 01:07:57,640
Speaker 2: narrator who is probably going to say some shit that

1195
01:07:57,680 --> 01:07:58,200
Speaker 2: they regret.

1196
01:07:58,520 --> 01:08:00,640
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, over and over and over again and have

1197
01:08:00,680 --> 01:08:02,840
Speaker 1: to apologize for it endlessly, to the point where it

1198
01:08:02,840 --> 01:08:03,520
Speaker 1: becomes a meme.

1199
01:08:03,960 --> 01:08:08,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, those did the cat corpses accept the apology?

1200
01:08:08,480 --> 01:08:10,880
Speaker 1: I wasn't able to find a response from the cat

1201
01:08:10,880 --> 01:08:12,600
Speaker 1: corpse community, but I will keep looking.

1202
01:08:12,640 --> 01:08:14,560
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll check in with some necromancers that.

1203
01:08:14,560 --> 01:08:17,680
Speaker 3: I know more.

1204
01:08:17,680 --> 01:08:30,439
Speaker 1: After a quick break, let's get right back into it.

1205
01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:34,599
Speaker 1: So I mentioned how Lena had a newsletter called Lenny Letter.

1206
01:08:35,080 --> 01:08:37,599
Speaker 1: Zenzi Clemens, with a black woman and a writer, worked

1207
01:08:37,600 --> 01:08:40,679
Speaker 1: with Lena on this letter and she publicly quit, citing

1208
01:08:40,760 --> 01:08:44,559
Speaker 1: Lena's quote well known racism as the reason why. Clemens

1209
01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:46,320
Speaker 1: said that she went to college with Dunham and her

1210
01:08:46,320 --> 01:08:48,200
Speaker 1: friends and that they kind of were in the same

1211
01:08:48,280 --> 01:08:50,719
Speaker 1: circles when they were in college, and that she would

1212
01:08:50,720 --> 01:08:54,839
Speaker 1: call their strain of racism quote hipster racism, which usually

1213
01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:58,000
Speaker 1: uses sarcasm as a cover, which, boy, do I know

1214
01:08:58,040 --> 01:09:00,639
Speaker 1: a little something about that from my own days in college.

1215
01:09:01,040 --> 01:09:03,680
Speaker 1: Clement's encouraged other women of color to stop working with

1216
01:09:03,720 --> 01:09:06,639
Speaker 1: Lena Dunham, saying it is time for women of color,

1217
01:09:06,880 --> 01:09:09,800
Speaker 1: black women in particular to divest from Lena Dunham. She

1218
01:09:09,840 --> 01:09:12,320
Speaker 1: could not have our words if she cannot respect us.

1219
01:09:12,439 --> 01:09:17,120
Speaker 2: Ooh boy, oh boy is right, and coming from an

1220
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:20,800
Speaker 2: old friend or somebody who's known her since college and

1221
01:09:20,840 --> 01:09:24,000
Speaker 2: has worked with her, that seems like a pretty damning

1222
01:09:24,200 --> 01:09:29,560
Speaker 2: charge with more substance to it than out of context

1223
01:09:29,680 --> 01:09:31,760
Speaker 2: typo from her autobiography.

1224
01:09:32,200 --> 01:09:36,599
Speaker 1: I completely agree. And you can really see how again

1225
01:09:37,200 --> 01:09:41,400
Speaker 1: this you know, you having a black woman writer say

1226
01:09:41,439 --> 01:09:44,120
Speaker 1: this about Lena, you can see again how like these

1227
01:09:44,160 --> 01:09:49,160
Speaker 1: things really do pop up along certain pre existing tension points,

1228
01:09:49,160 --> 01:09:53,599
Speaker 1: you know, that really fall along racialized lines. And so another,

1229
01:09:53,880 --> 01:09:57,360
Speaker 1: probably the biggest, deepest example for myself personally, is the

1230
01:09:57,360 --> 01:10:00,439
Speaker 1: way that Lena handled a sexual assault allegation and made

1231
01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:03,880
Speaker 1: against writer and executive producer of Girls, Murray Miller that

1232
01:10:04,040 --> 01:10:08,040
Speaker 1: happened on the set. Basically what happened. Actress Aurora Parrino,

1233
01:10:08,160 --> 01:10:11,719
Speaker 1: whose mixed race, filed a police report accusing Girls writer

1234
01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:14,400
Speaker 1: and executive producer Murray Miller of raping her on the

1235
01:10:14,479 --> 01:10:17,799
Speaker 1: set of Girls in twenty twelve, when she was seventeen

1236
01:10:17,880 --> 01:10:20,439
Speaker 1: years old. Now, Miller said that she was making it

1237
01:10:20,520 --> 01:10:22,639
Speaker 1: up to extort him and try to get money from him,

1238
01:10:23,000 --> 01:10:27,919
Speaker 1: and Lena and her showrunner Jenny Kohner published this statement quote.

1239
01:10:28,479 --> 01:10:31,719
Speaker 1: While our first instinct is to listen to every woman's story,

1240
01:10:31,920 --> 01:10:36,000
Speaker 1: our insider knowledge of Murray's situation makes us confident that, sadly,

1241
01:10:36,320 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 1: this accusation is one of the three percent of assault

1242
01:10:39,160 --> 01:10:42,000
Speaker 1: cases that are misreported every year. It is a true

1243
01:10:42,000 --> 01:10:45,040
Speaker 1: shame to add to that number, as outside of Hollywood

1244
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:48,120
Speaker 1: women still struggle to be believed. We stand by Murray

1245
01:10:48,160 --> 01:10:50,600
Speaker 1: and this is all we will be saying about this issue.

1246
01:10:50,840 --> 01:10:56,679
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, it's bad, so bad. There's so many things

1247
01:10:56,720 --> 01:10:57,200
Speaker 2: wrong with that.

1248
01:10:57,680 --> 01:11:01,640
Speaker 1: Well, it gets worse, so obviously this statement makes it

1249
01:11:01,680 --> 01:11:04,760
Speaker 1: seem like, you know, Lena and her team have some

1250
01:11:04,840 --> 01:11:09,000
Speaker 1: kind of inside information that proves that this assault never happened,

1251
01:11:09,520 --> 01:11:13,280
Speaker 1: but come to find out that was all a lie.

1252
01:11:13,400 --> 01:11:16,479
Speaker 1: She made that up because in a twenty eighteen follow

1253
01:11:16,560 --> 01:11:21,000
Speaker 1: up piece called two Aurora an Apology, Dunham rights quote.

1254
01:11:21,720 --> 01:11:24,519
Speaker 1: When someone I knew, someone I had loved as a brother,

1255
01:11:24,760 --> 01:11:28,840
Speaker 1: was accused, I did something inexcusable. I publicly spoke up

1256
01:11:28,840 --> 01:11:31,599
Speaker 1: in his defense. There are a few acts I could

1257
01:11:31,600 --> 01:11:34,240
Speaker 1: ever regret more in my life. I didn't have the

1258
01:11:34,720 --> 01:11:38,759
Speaker 1: insider information, I claimed, rather blind faith in a story

1259
01:11:38,840 --> 01:11:42,040
Speaker 1: that kept slipping and changing and revealed itself to me

1260
01:11:42,160 --> 01:11:49,639
Speaker 1: nothing at all. So Yeah, Lena basically smeared a woman

1261
01:11:49,880 --> 01:11:53,919
Speaker 1: who said that she had been sexually assaulted by someone

1262
01:11:53,960 --> 01:11:56,760
Speaker 1: that she met on Lena's set, the set of her

1263
01:11:56,840 --> 01:11:59,720
Speaker 1: hit show. She lied about this woman for a long

1264
01:11:59,720 --> 01:12:05,000
Speaker 1: time and then eventually admitted that lie in this piece. Yeah,

1265
01:12:05,040 --> 01:12:08,040
Speaker 1: I just think it's really horrible and personally, this was

1266
01:12:08,080 --> 01:12:11,320
Speaker 1: the time, like I, as I said in the last episode,

1267
01:12:11,360 --> 01:12:14,640
Speaker 1: like I was a casual watcher of girls. I like

1268
01:12:14,680 --> 01:12:16,800
Speaker 1: a lot of Len Dunham's writing. But this is when

1269
01:12:16,840 --> 01:12:19,360
Speaker 1: she lost me for good because I just felt like

1270
01:12:19,760 --> 01:12:22,479
Speaker 1: it was such a calculate like when you when you

1271
01:12:22,560 --> 01:12:26,280
Speaker 1: call a woman of color a liar in public, you

1272
01:12:26,320 --> 01:12:30,479
Speaker 1: are doing something that is like you can't take that back.

1273
01:12:30,880 --> 01:12:33,240
Speaker 1: It's it's such a I don't even know how to

1274
01:12:33,240 --> 01:12:37,559
Speaker 1: put it, like it's it's such a big claim that

1275
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:41,479
Speaker 1: is so because of we live in like a racist, sexist,

1276
01:12:41,520 --> 01:12:45,000
Speaker 1: misogynistic society. When you say a woman of color is

1277
01:12:45,120 --> 01:12:48,920
Speaker 1: lying about being abused or sexually assaulted in public, you

1278
01:12:49,000 --> 01:12:51,400
Speaker 1: are just making a big claim that is going to

1279
01:12:51,400 --> 01:12:53,679
Speaker 1: get a lot of attention that you can't take back.

1280
01:12:53,720 --> 01:12:56,519
Speaker 1: And so for me, that was the moment that Lena

1281
01:12:56,560 --> 01:13:00,479
Speaker 1: Dunham lost me forever. So Lena eventually took this with

1282
01:13:00,520 --> 01:13:03,439
Speaker 1: Aurora's mom Brittany, at a women in Hobbywood event to

1283
01:13:03,439 --> 01:13:06,760
Speaker 1: publicly apologize again last November.

1284
01:13:06,360 --> 01:13:09,240
Speaker 4: When Britney's beautiful daughter Aurora accused a friend of mine

1285
01:13:09,280 --> 01:13:12,040
Speaker 4: of sexual assault, I denied her experience publicly.

1286
01:13:12,680 --> 01:13:17,200
Speaker 1: So I remember this moment so viscerally watching it and

1287
01:13:17,280 --> 01:13:22,599
Speaker 1: thinking this is a capital B, capital M bad moment

1288
01:13:22,640 --> 01:13:25,519
Speaker 1: for women. Lena lied about a woman of color who

1289
01:13:25,600 --> 01:13:29,360
Speaker 1: opened up about her experience of sexual violence and just

1290
01:13:29,560 --> 01:13:33,400
Speaker 1: essentially publicly smeared her. Then a few years later, she

1291
01:13:33,520 --> 01:13:38,200
Speaker 1: brings this woman's mom on stage and performs contrition in

1292
01:13:38,280 --> 01:13:41,080
Speaker 1: this kind of like, oh gee, I'm just a kid

1293
01:13:41,120 --> 01:13:43,360
Speaker 1: with a lot to learn kind of way, when in

1294
01:13:43,400 --> 01:13:48,240
Speaker 1: reality she was the very powerful creator and showrunner of

1295
01:13:48,320 --> 01:13:53,280
Speaker 1: a highly successful business with her HBO show. So this

1296
01:13:53,360 --> 01:13:55,280
Speaker 1: idea that she was just like a kid who had

1297
01:13:55,320 --> 01:13:59,080
Speaker 1: a lot to learn, that's completely incorrect, and that framing

1298
01:13:59,400 --> 01:14:02,200
Speaker 1: is is so's so clearly self serving. I'm sure you

1299
01:14:02,200 --> 01:14:04,200
Speaker 1: could make the argument that it was a genuine moment

1300
01:14:04,360 --> 01:14:07,320
Speaker 1: of you know, apology that she wanted to happen in public.

1301
01:14:07,560 --> 01:14:11,240
Speaker 1: But I just it just really made me feel weird

1302
01:14:11,360 --> 01:14:14,400
Speaker 1: and I really didn't like it, and yeah, it just

1303
01:14:14,439 --> 01:14:15,160
Speaker 1: lost me forever.

1304
01:14:15,720 --> 01:14:20,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, and why her mom? Why not the woman herself?

1305
01:14:21,280 --> 01:14:24,080
Speaker 2: Like that just seems weird. I'm sure people have answers

1306
01:14:24,120 --> 01:14:25,720
Speaker 2: to that, but it seems weird to me.

1307
01:14:26,400 --> 01:14:29,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you can really see how all the different

1308
01:14:29,720 --> 01:14:32,200
Speaker 1: controversies with Lena Dunham that I just laid out really

1309
01:14:32,240 --> 01:14:36,160
Speaker 1: do exist along pre existing political, racial, and social tensions.

1310
01:14:36,200 --> 01:14:39,360
Speaker 1: You know, white women versus women of color, white women

1311
01:14:39,439 --> 01:14:43,200
Speaker 1: versus black men, these tensions that really do already exist

1312
01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:45,920
Speaker 1: in our society and always have, like way before Lena Dunnam.

1313
01:14:46,160 --> 01:14:49,719
Speaker 1: It's not like she created these things, but that tensions

1314
01:14:49,760 --> 01:14:52,240
Speaker 1: that we have already have a kind of a tough

1315
01:14:52,280 --> 01:14:56,439
Speaker 1: time talking honestly about. And when those tensions are present,

1316
01:14:56,760 --> 01:15:00,559
Speaker 1: it's just the textbook conditions for inaccurate or misleading information

1317
01:15:00,840 --> 01:15:03,360
Speaker 1: to fester and spread. And in a lot of ways,

1318
01:15:03,640 --> 01:15:06,440
Speaker 1: I feel like Lena Dunnam is like a walking embodiment

1319
01:15:06,560 --> 01:15:08,479
Speaker 1: of all of these tensions. And so it's not really

1320
01:15:08,520 --> 01:15:13,080
Speaker 1: surprising that a particular misleading claim about her would then sick.

1321
01:15:13,640 --> 01:15:16,200
Speaker 1: And I think that is why we see this claim

1322
01:15:16,880 --> 01:15:19,799
Speaker 1: have such stickiness, you know, this claim that she molested

1323
01:15:19,800 --> 01:15:22,280
Speaker 1: her sibling when she was seventeen. I think that is

1324
01:15:22,320 --> 01:15:25,120
Speaker 1: the reason why we see it being, you know, having

1325
01:15:25,200 --> 01:15:26,080
Speaker 1: such staying power.

1326
01:15:26,840 --> 01:15:31,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's so sad that, you know, all those

1327
01:15:31,120 --> 01:15:38,360
Speaker 2: societal tensions of racism, sexism, misogyn war just gets shoved

1328
01:15:38,400 --> 01:15:43,280
Speaker 2: through the side and it becomes a conversation about a

1329
01:15:43,320 --> 01:15:47,400
Speaker 2: single like a specific white woman and is she good

1330
01:15:47,479 --> 01:15:51,120
Speaker 2: or is she bad? And like, what a useless conversation exactly.

1331
01:15:51,240 --> 01:15:54,360
Speaker 1: That's exactly my point, Like, we don't have the conversation of,

1332
01:15:54,400 --> 01:15:58,439
Speaker 1: like was this harmful to survivors of sexual violence? Was

1333
01:15:58,479 --> 01:16:01,200
Speaker 1: this a harmful experience for Lena Dunhams sibling? Should what

1334
01:16:01,240 --> 01:16:02,559
Speaker 1: does it mean that she wrote about it in this

1335
01:16:02,680 --> 01:16:04,920
Speaker 1: jokey way. We don't have to get to have a

1336
01:16:04,920 --> 01:16:08,000
Speaker 1: conversation of like what can we offer survivors of childhood

1337
01:16:08,040 --> 01:16:10,000
Speaker 1: sexual assault? Or like how can we support them? Or

1338
01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:12,879
Speaker 1: how can we create the conditions to eliminate sexual abuse

1339
01:16:13,200 --> 01:16:15,840
Speaker 1: in our world? But those conversations are too big, too

1340
01:16:15,840 --> 01:16:18,760
Speaker 1: thorny two meety, we don't have the conversation of like, well,

1341
01:16:19,200 --> 01:16:22,920
Speaker 1: why would black feminists or black women have a bone

1342
01:16:22,960 --> 01:16:26,479
Speaker 1: to pick with white womanhood or white feminism, or in

1343
01:16:26,520 --> 01:16:31,759
Speaker 1: what ways have white women historically, you know, attacked black

1344
01:16:31,800 --> 01:16:35,760
Speaker 1: men or you know, like projected things onto black men

1345
01:16:35,960 --> 01:16:39,240
Speaker 1: that were harmful to them. Those are all the big, thorny,

1346
01:16:39,400 --> 01:16:43,160
Speaker 1: systemic conversation that's hard to have and that frankly, we

1347
01:16:43,200 --> 01:16:45,720
Speaker 1: are not equipped to have. We're not having it, and

1348
01:16:45,800 --> 01:16:50,040
Speaker 1: so that just gets conflated into Lena Dunham bad, Lena

1349
01:16:50,080 --> 01:16:53,360
Speaker 1: Dunham did this or Lena Dunham not bad Lena, Lena

1350
01:16:53,400 --> 01:16:57,280
Speaker 1: Dunham not did this right, Like, it just completely flattens

1351
01:16:57,320 --> 01:17:00,160
Speaker 1: the conversation so that we're not really able to have

1352
01:17:00,200 --> 01:17:03,519
Speaker 1: it be a thoughtful, substantive, nuanced conversation. And some lingering

1353
01:17:03,600 --> 01:17:06,040
Speaker 1: questions that I still have about this are whether or

1354
01:17:06,120 --> 01:17:09,280
Speaker 1: not people who say that Lena Dunnam abused her sibling

1355
01:17:09,640 --> 01:17:11,840
Speaker 1: do they know they're talking about incidents that happened when

1356
01:17:11,840 --> 01:17:14,720
Speaker 1: she was seven and not seventeen, Like how much did

1357
01:17:14,760 --> 01:17:19,560
Speaker 1: that particular specific lie seep into people's actual consciousness and

1358
01:17:19,600 --> 01:17:22,320
Speaker 1: their understanding of what happened? And maybe the answer is

1359
01:17:22,360 --> 01:17:25,600
Speaker 1: we'll never know. And I think that is ultimately the

1360
01:17:25,640 --> 01:17:29,040
Speaker 1: reason why this is such a big tactic for disinformers,

1361
01:17:29,120 --> 01:17:33,599
Speaker 1: liars and bad actors, just creating enough negativity around someone

1362
01:17:33,720 --> 01:17:37,519
Speaker 1: or something so that it ultimately doesn't really matter what

1363
01:17:37,760 --> 01:17:41,400
Speaker 1: actually happened at all, because all anybody remembers or thinks

1364
01:17:41,439 --> 01:17:43,719
Speaker 1: about when it comes up is the lie.

1365
01:17:44,160 --> 01:17:47,960
Speaker 2: Damn. Yeah, but I think you're you're right. I think

1366
01:17:47,960 --> 01:17:51,599
Speaker 2: we've seen time and again that's their goal, to create

1367
01:17:51,880 --> 01:17:58,519
Speaker 2: just the miasma of unspecific negativity and lies and not

1368
01:17:58,680 --> 01:18:04,120
Speaker 2: just spread lies, but reduce confidence in there being any

1369
01:18:04,160 --> 01:18:06,439
Speaker 2: sort of truth exactly right.

1370
01:18:06,479 --> 01:18:09,599
Speaker 1: It's so it's like creating the conditions where it's like, oh, well,

1371
01:18:10,080 --> 01:18:13,080
Speaker 1: the conversation is so muddled and difficult to follow that

1372
01:18:13,200 --> 01:18:15,720
Speaker 1: like what is the truth anyway? And so I think

1373
01:18:15,800 --> 01:18:18,200
Speaker 1: the further we get away from that where things that

1374
01:18:18,240 --> 01:18:20,800
Speaker 1: are not true can sort of become true, the worse

1375
01:18:20,920 --> 01:18:23,479
Speaker 1: off we all are. And I have to say, you know,

1376
01:18:23,800 --> 01:18:26,720
Speaker 1: this all happened back in twenty fourteen. Here we are

1377
01:18:26,960 --> 01:18:29,439
Speaker 1: nearly ten years later, and just last week. A v

1378
01:18:29,560 --> 01:18:32,280
Speaker 1: club published an article about Lena's new film project on

1379
01:18:32,400 --> 01:18:35,360
Speaker 1: June twenty third, and the top comments were all some

1380
01:18:35,560 --> 01:18:38,280
Speaker 1: iteration of the claim that she sexually abused her sibling,

1381
01:18:38,680 --> 01:18:42,320
Speaker 1: like it will never go away. It basically is true.

1382
01:18:42,360 --> 01:18:45,200
Speaker 1: Now whether or not it actually happened is just sort

1383
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:47,160
Speaker 1: of a non issue at this point.

1384
01:18:47,720 --> 01:18:52,960
Speaker 2: That is grim all right, Well, so, so bridget what

1385
01:18:53,040 --> 01:18:55,960
Speaker 2: is the point of you telling us all of this?

1386
01:18:56,680 --> 01:18:58,840
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so glad you asked. So here we are

1387
01:18:58,840 --> 01:19:01,439
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, and we have seen more and

1388
01:19:01,560 --> 01:19:06,040
Speaker 1: more right wing extremists using very similar tactics, not just

1389
01:19:06,080 --> 01:19:09,719
Speaker 1: on public figures, but on more and more regular people.

1390
01:19:10,000 --> 01:19:12,400
Speaker 1: You know, look at things like libs of TikTok, that

1391
01:19:12,479 --> 01:19:15,639
Speaker 1: page on Twitter where people are regularly labeled as quote

1392
01:19:15,720 --> 01:19:20,000
Speaker 1: groomers or basically accused of some kind of like vague

1393
01:19:20,040 --> 01:19:25,479
Speaker 1: sexual impropriety against children. It's really gross and sad because

1394
01:19:25,920 --> 01:19:29,520
Speaker 1: we actually do have a sexual abuse problem in our society.

1395
01:19:29,960 --> 01:19:32,360
Speaker 1: So many of us are survivors of sexual violence or

1396
01:19:32,400 --> 01:19:36,240
Speaker 1: sexual abuse, and bad actors and liars who spread damaging

1397
01:19:36,320 --> 01:19:39,799
Speaker 1: lies and inaccurate content. They know this is a trigger

1398
01:19:39,840 --> 01:19:42,000
Speaker 1: and attention for so many of this like this is

1399
01:19:42,040 --> 01:19:45,320
Speaker 1: a pressure point in us that can be you know,

1400
01:19:46,000 --> 01:19:49,559
Speaker 1: poked at and inflamed, and it creates a situation where

1401
01:19:49,880 --> 01:19:52,400
Speaker 1: the sexual abuse of kids is a topic that is

1402
01:19:52,479 --> 01:19:57,320
Speaker 1: easily exploited and inflamed and can be weaponized against political opponents.

1403
01:19:57,680 --> 01:20:01,320
Speaker 1: And so ultimately, I guess in conclusion, there are plenty

1404
01:20:01,400 --> 01:20:04,559
Speaker 1: of reasons to not like Lena Dunham, including what she

1405
01:20:04,680 --> 01:20:07,320
Speaker 1: wrote about her sibling and her memoir. We don't need

1406
01:20:07,360 --> 01:20:09,240
Speaker 1: to add lies on it to talk about it. We're

1407
01:20:09,240 --> 01:20:12,440
Speaker 1: not better served when we add lies into a conversation

1408
01:20:12,520 --> 01:20:15,960
Speaker 1: as important and as sensitive as childhood sexual violence. And

1409
01:20:16,040 --> 01:20:19,120
Speaker 1: when we do that, we do a disservice to issues

1410
01:20:19,120 --> 01:20:22,240
Speaker 1: like sexual abuse that are so important and critical that

1411
01:20:22,280 --> 01:20:25,040
Speaker 1: we talk about. And ultimately, it's very concerning that we

1412
01:20:25,120 --> 01:20:27,960
Speaker 1: have a kind of media climate and ecosystem that create

1413
01:20:28,000 --> 01:20:31,639
Speaker 1: the conditions for this kind of damaging lie to persist

1414
01:20:31,720 --> 01:20:35,200
Speaker 1: for years and essentially become true even if it's not.

1415
01:20:35,840 --> 01:20:37,840
Speaker 2: It's a scary sentiment to end on.

1416
01:20:38,600 --> 01:20:40,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's that's all I got.

1417
01:20:41,439 --> 01:20:45,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, let's all try to stick to the truth.

1418
01:20:46,040 --> 01:20:48,479
Speaker 2: Huh Is that so hard? Is that going to kill us?

1419
01:20:49,040 --> 01:20:51,680
Speaker 1: Is that so hard? Ben Shapiro, Let's just stick to

1420
01:20:51,720 --> 01:20:53,519
Speaker 1: the truth, shall we? Yeah?

1421
01:20:53,720 --> 01:20:54,320
Speaker 2: Seriously?

1422
01:20:55,080 --> 01:20:57,760
Speaker 1: And so I know this is a controversial topic, I

1423
01:20:57,840 --> 01:21:01,240
Speaker 1: started the series talking about out the fact that I

1424
01:21:01,320 --> 01:21:05,360
Speaker 1: knew this was going to be something people had opinions, on, feelings,

1425
01:21:05,360 --> 01:21:08,479
Speaker 1: on thoughts on. I welcome those thoughts. I really, really

1426
01:21:08,520 --> 01:21:11,000
Speaker 1: really want to hear what people have to say. Please

1427
01:21:11,040 --> 01:21:13,200
Speaker 1: don't come for me though I'm a baby. I don't know,

1428
01:21:14,080 --> 01:21:16,760
Speaker 1: like be cool about it, but like, I want to

1429
01:21:16,800 --> 01:21:18,880
Speaker 1: know what you think. You know, what are your thoughts

1430
01:21:18,880 --> 01:21:22,559
Speaker 1: on Elina Dunham, her memoir, all the things that we

1431
01:21:22,640 --> 01:21:24,400
Speaker 1: laid out today. I really want to hear your thoughts.

1432
01:21:24,400 --> 01:21:27,840
Speaker 1: So please you can email me, you can find me

1433
01:21:27,880 --> 01:21:30,600
Speaker 1: on social media. I want to hear what y'all think.

1434
01:21:33,560 --> 01:21:35,600
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or

1435
01:21:35,680 --> 01:21:37,519
Speaker 1: just want to say hi? You can reach us at

1436
01:21:37,520 --> 01:21:40,240
Speaker 1: Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts

1437
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:42,720
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No

1438
01:21:42,800 --> 01:21:44,840
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by me bridget Toad.

1439
01:21:45,240 --> 01:21:48,639
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland

1440
01:21:48,640 --> 01:21:51,400
Speaker 1: as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and

1441
01:21:51,479 --> 01:21:55,240
Speaker 1: sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,

1442
01:21:55,240 --> 01:21:58,040
Speaker 1: bridget Toad. If you want to help us grow, rate

1443
01:21:58,080 --> 01:22:01,800
Speaker 1: and review us on Apple podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

1444
01:22:01,920 --> 01:22:04,280
Speaker 1: check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

1445
01:22:04,280 --> 01:22:05,200
Speaker 1: get your podcasts.