Lena Dunham is not one to hold her tongue. The “Girls” star has become known for her controversial comments about sensitive subjects including rape and molestation. Now the actress has offended even more people with an article she wrote titled “Dog or Jewish Boyfriend? A Quiz.”I have occasionally been criticized for mentioning Jewish stereotypes, but this is a bizarre attack on her Jewish live-in boyfriend, Jack Antonoff.
The piece, which ran in the New Yorker, asks “Do the following statements refer to (a) my dog or (b) my Jewish boyfriend?”
The article includes tidbits like “He doesn’t tip. And he never brings his wallet anywhere.” Another portion of the article adds “…he comes from a culture in which mothers focus every ounce of their attention on their offspring and don’t acknowledge their own need for independence as women. They are sucked dry by their children, who ultimately leave them as soon as they find suitable mates.”
Fans and critics of Dunham alike have reacted strongly and swiftly to the article, which is part of the March 30 edition of the magazine. Dunham’s mother is Jewish and her father is Protestant.
I realize that she is a comedienne and I do not want to censor offensive jokes. But this relationship is doomed.
The stereotypes here are that of the spoiled, whiny, ungrateful, high maintenance, and nagging Jewish American Princess and the foolish mensch who puts up with her. But my objection here has nothing to do with Jewish values.
When a woman publicly badmouths or belittles her man, then she is unfit to be a wife. It is as simple as that.
This is one of the things I have never liked about Hillary Clinton. She acts as if Bill is not good enuf for her. That makes her a loathesome character.
If you do not know who Lena Dunham is, she is the creator of a successful HBO show. Otherwise, she is every parent's nightmare. She is exactly what you do not want your twenty-something daughter to be.
Update: A Jewish woman writes:
Most striking about the enraged responses was what they did not include: The impunity with which women are allowed to express contempt for members of the male sex, while cloaking their own neediness and hunger for love in outdated feminist lingo.
Indeed, nobody calls them out on things that men could never get away with saying, certainly not in print. ...
Her true problem with her boyfriend is not that he is typically Jewish. Nor is it due to his apathy in relation to her "many accomplishments." It all boils down to her insecurity, love-starvation and fear of abandonment. Nothing feminist about it. Merely female.
This slightly more honest version of the war between the sexes is precisely what comes across in "Girls," which partly explains the show's popularity.
More puzzling is Antonoff. Why would he stick around with Dunham after she whipped him so publicly?
The answer is going to sound just as anti-Semitic as Dunham's dog analogy. It is precisely the "enlightened" -- emasculated -- Jewish male, conditioned to accept the bullying of women waving their "minority status" in society like a machete, who dares not unleash the beast.
In Antonoff's case, it didn't help. But that's what he gets for shacking up with one.
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