Now Reading: Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner Are the Definitions of Victim Blaming

Loading
svg
Open

Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner Are the Definitions of Victim Blaming

November 19, 20173 min read

In the past few weeks, Hollywood has been on a purge with people sharing their many stories of sexual assault and rape. One of the most recent cases is Girls writer Murray Miller being accused of sexually assaulting actress Aurora Perrineau, which the LAPD is currently investigating.

The co-runners of the show — Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner — recently released a statement defending Miller…  

The statement puzzles me deeply. How can you be a feminist who is “thrilled to see so many women’s voices heard” but shut one of those said voices down, only because you have worked with one of the people being accused? Twitter was justifiably wondering the same thing:

https://twitter.com/wokeluisa/status/931717356031688706

https://twitter.com/ummmno21/status/931709142997315584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

https://twitter.com/kat_blaque/status/931731750719447040

Not only is that statement contradictory, but it gets worse at the end. They acknowledge that “it is a true shame to add to that number, as outside of Hollywood women still struggle to be believed. We stand by Murray and this is all we’ll be saying about this issue” yet they still won’t acknowledge Perrineau’s claims at all.

This is the problem in Hollywood: People don’t believe big names because they’ve known them forever and could never imagine them doing that type of thing.

News Flash: just because you’ve known someone for a long time doesn’t mean they are immune from criticism and have never done anything wrong.

People like Dunham and Kronner, people who shun victims are the reason so many are afraid to speak up. People don’t want to feel embarrassed or ridiculed by others, so they would rather stay silent.

Dunham’s statement is extremely shocking since she wrote about her sexual assault story in her memoir, Not That Kind of Girland on the Today show in 2015 said, “it’s a very, very painful thing to share an episode that personal and receive criticism… but what I received was only a small percentage of the doubt and victim blaming that most women who are sexually assaulted in this country experience.” Ironically, she does the same thing in her statement with Kronner that she spoke out against on show, two years later.

The day after The Hollywood Reporter released the article with the statement (and after a lot of public outcry), Dunham issued an apology on Twitter for defending Murray Miller.

But if you know anything about Lena Dunham, it’s that she seldom learns from her mistakes and has released countless apologies. Here’s a collection of them all.

How do you vote?

0 People voted this article. 0 Upvotes - 0 Downvotes.

Daryl Perry

Daryl is a 19-year-old filmmaker, journalist, and photography enthusiast. He also writes for the University of Maryland's The Diamondback and The Campus Trainer.

Loading
svg