Girls director and actress Lena Dunham made a joke about sexual molestation on Sunday night that didn’t quite sit well with fans.
Dunham made the joke in response to a tweet she received commenting on her performance on this weekend’s Saturday Night Live. Dunham was invited to host the show, and in a segment—a sketch about Adam and Eve—she appeared nude. In a Twitter post, a user told Dunham that she doesn’t always have to do away with clothes all the time. Her response was a joke about a molesting uncle.
Oops.
A barrage of angry tweets came in, criticizing Dunham for the petty way she tackled the sensitive subject.
Dunham immediately took down the tweet and apologized, admitting that she went too far, that her joke wasn’t so great and that she “should know better.” Her excuse for the gaffe was that she was really sleepy.
I just made and deleted a not so great molestation joke. Sorry guys. I am really sleepy.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) March 10, 2014
One user said in reply that Dunham herself wouldn’t stay mum in similar situations, noting that if anyone else came up with the joke and cited sleepiness as an excuse, Dunham wouldn’t have simply let it go. “Not if they were a fifty year old man,” the actress said in return. The 27-year-old actress added that “joke flexibility” is something women can have a lot, “Ya gotta get by in this world.”
Dunham deleted the molestation tweet because she had been seeing a lot of different kinds of Twitter rage, she said, and realized that the long-running Saturday show had a bigger audience than what she was accustomed to. For the last of her back-to-back tweets, she posted, “Sleep well and thanks for an amazing weekend.”
But I should know better, and do. Even naked girls get embarrassed. Sleep well and thanks for an amazing weekend.
— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) March 10, 2014
Last year, Dunham won two Golden Globes for Girls and also won the Gracie Allen Awards as Outstanding Director. She had been nominated eight times for the Emmy Awards, and holds the honor of being the first woman to be named Outstanding Director in a Comedy Series by the Directors Guild.
Lena Dunham In The Nude. Funny!
Image via YouTube