Lena Dunham understands ‘Girls’ diversity criticism, talks ‘Too Much’

Lena Dunham is looking back on the criticism she faced over her polarizing signature project.

The Too Much creator addressed the lack of diversity on her hit 2010s dramedy, Girls, in an interview with The Independent on Saturday, admitting that the show’s title might have set viewers up for a letdown.

“I think one of the profound issues around Girls,” Dunham said, “was that there was so little real estate for women in television [then] that if you had a show called Girls, which is such a monolithic name, it sounds like it’s describing all the girls in all the places. And so if it’s not reflecting a multitude of experiences, I understand how that would be really disappointing to people.”

Girls centered on a group of four young New York–based white women, played by Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, and Zosia Mamet. Dunham had previously defended the show — which she created, wrote, executive-produced, starred in, and sometimes directed —  from detractors by explaining its personal connection to her particular background. 

“I am a half-Jew, half-WASP, and I wrote two Jews and two WASPs,” she told NPR’s Fresh Air in 2012. “Something I wanted to avoid was tokenism in casting. If I had one of the four girls — if, for example, she was African American, I feel like, not that the experience of an African American girl and a white girl are drastically different, but there has to be specificity to that experience [that] I wasn’t able to speak to.”

Although Dunham sometimes felt frustrated by the discourse over diversity in the past, she says she “liked the conversation around Girls” overall, adding that her new show, Too Much, boasts a much more diverse cast and crew as a result.

“The thing I have really come to believe is that one of the most important things is not just diversity in front of the camera, but it’s diversity behind the camera,” she told The Independent. “As a producer, one of my goals is to bring a lot of different voices into a position where they can tell their story.”

Co-created by Dunham and her husband, Luis Felber, Too Much stars Megan Stalter (Hacks) as Jessica, a mid-30s workaholic New Yorker recovering from a broken relationship who accepts a job in London, where she plans to live a life of solitude. However, when she meets Felix (The White Lotus season 2 breakout Will Sharpe), she cannot deny their unusual chemistry.

Elsewhere in the new interview, Dunham expressed how the conversation around her figure across Girls‘ six seasons on HBO dissuaded her from pursuing more acting projects. “Having my body dissected was a reason that I chose in general to step back from acting a little bit more and focus on my writing and my directing,” she said, “and also just make different kinds of choices as an actor.”

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Too Much premieres July 10 on Netflix.