Audio Interview: Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham, writer-director of Tiny Furniture and creator of the new HBO TV series “Girls,” on a recent “Fresh Air” appearance. Excerpt:

GROSS: And everybody’s, like, picking it apart to see if this is what, like, the new wave of feminist-oriented programming by young women is like. What does it say about young women today, and what does it say about race today because the characters are white? And you must just be overwhelmed by the response.

DUNHAM: You know, I always think of myself as sort of ready for every criticism. There’s a line that my character says later in the season where she says you can’t think of one mean thing to say about me that I haven’t already said about myself in the last 30 minutes. And that was sort of what I expected to be my experience as I was kind of preparing myself for what the reaction to “Girls” would be.

And people have come at it from so many angles that I never predicted. I’ve sort of had to bend and stretch and try to figure out how to respond to these new kinds of criticisms. And I’d say the overwhelming feeling is a feeling of excitement that it started a dialogue about topics that I feel are important and feeling pretty lucky that it sort of cut through all of the cultural noise and is finding its audience.

You can hear the interview here.