Dear Lena Dunham: I Exist

The “funny” and “plump”  Latina co-worker who “helps”. A “funny” ( read “sassy”) Jamaican nanny. A “grandmotherly” (think “old world wisdom”) Asian nanny. A black nurse. An Asian nurse. The “very sexy” black guy who is a romantic interest but only has one scene, so not to upset anyone who’s bothered by interracial couples. And a young black guy who sits on a stoop and is “funny.”  Just like in real life. Oh you non-whites, what would we white people do without you to provide us services, make us not look so racist and make us laugh as we walk down a NYC street?

Frustrating thing is, this is HARDLY isolated to this one show.

The blogger behind the site Mark Reads used to work with this woman and last night he chimed in on Tumblr about his experience with her. (The post can be found here: http://panasonicyouth.tumblr.com/post/21341995481/itsinthetrees-redlightpolitics-lesley-arfin ). He commented that she used to compare Obama to shit all the time in a breathtaking display of racism (read the post for the details, I feel uncomfortable pasting them here to be honest). And lo and behold, she also has a post in her own blog where she euphemistically calls pooping “taking Obama to the White House”. 

What I am trying to say is that obviously, this is part of a much larger pattern of racism and a general hurtful attitude where she doesn’t seem to measure the consequence of her words.

I caught 15 minutes of it and groaned. She should be embarrassed. Not watching is the best way to address this. 

There’s nothing wrong with a black nurse named Shanice, just like there’s nothing wrong with white girls named Apple. Not all people wanted to name their kids Mary or Betty. The names themselves are not wrong – it is the connotations that are influenced by racism and classism.

(And you may want to be a bit more conscious railing against black names on a site run by a woman named Latoya, especially when you are attacking the name of my younger sister.)

I’ve never seen or heard of this show before.  But based on this article, I think it must be “spot on” in portraying my generation, because we are indeed obsessively self-centered and narrow-minded, unable to see the world through any point of view but our own.  My generation’s greatest achievement is Facebook, a monument to self-obsession mirroring the shallow social boundaries and cliques which exist in the real world.  We go online, not to discover truth and open our minds, but to reaffirm our prejudices by surrounding ourselves with like-minded people.  We’re only interested in two opinions–our own opinion and the popular opinion–and we do our best to make sure the two conform, lest we lose friends and popularity.

By and large, my generation has nothing we want to fight for, except that little thrill, the tingle of self-indulgent pleasure when our existence is acknowledged in tiny pixellated lights on a computer screen–that all-important “representation of ME.”

Amazingly,  as I’m reading this post guess who’s on CBS This Morning, yep it’s Lena Dunham and she’s being interviewed by Gayle King. Ms. King talks to her about the sex on the show and a few other things but the subject of diversity did not come up. Also there was a lot of gushing by Gayle King and how much she loves the show. Interesting how so many journalists/ MSM interviewers of Color never touch the topic of race/ ethnicity or lack of diversity even when it would be such an obvious subject to talk about as in this interview.

Yeah… you don’t get to be the voice of a generation by proclaiming you are the voice of a generation.

BRAVO Kendra. YOU HAVE SAID IT ALL.  I can’t wait to NOT watch this ‘post-racial’ American trash.

As an sightly older woman of color, I find it hard to watch this kind of programming. Having worked for the parent company that owns, the WE channel, and IFC among other’s you come to understand how programming is selected. As someone who at time has been the ONLY person of color at these meetings the cultural divide is still an issue. For the most part there is this whole misconception that “the power’s” at be somehow know and understand “Hip- Hop/Urban Culture( make no mistake this show is an off set to of this). Despite what the creator of the show may say other wise. The problem is not so much the show, it’s the constant mindset that the ”
Millennial Generation ” actually knows or understands the contributions made and is entitled  to reap rewards they have not earned.

When you don’t have ANY majorities in this process, this is the programming you will continue to receive.  The problem is not really the show, it’s the fact that somehow there is this false need to engage in conversation that says “Where are the minorities”  Frankly, this is a rewrapped BADLY done version of “Sex In The City” that has a lost less cultural value. 

Does anyone remember that “My one Black friend” article from a few years back? I believe from GQ? I watched “Girls” and my first question was- statistically, how many friends of color (okay, that sounds silly, but non-White friends sounds worse in my mind) does the ‘average’ privileged upper middle class hipster White college graduate have in major American cities? Is this realistic? The second question I kept pondering: Should a show be aspirational in what it shows? (as in: Should it show Lena’s character as having PoC friends although Lena herself does not have them?) The answer I gave to myself was: No, but she should at least be conscious enough to have characters address their lack of PoC friends on screen. And then the scene with the Asian colleague who gets the job came up… And then my pondering turned into “just-annoyed-at-this-shit”: The Asian colleague spoke faux broken English. argh!

Co-sign. I have given up trying to see if people like this understand anything related to POC. In Hollyweird, they either whitewash everything were POC virtually do not exist or, if they do exist, they are only present in a stereotypical fashion and for the mere reason of appearing post-racial.

But, this may be a blessing in disguise. Do we really want a white person who probably knows nothing about POC writing about POC via a stereotypical lens if there were more characters of color present?

So first off, I want to reiterate again that no, I DON’T claim to know what classes Lena Dunham took when she was at school. That said, a few points…

- The students in my year (there were about 14 of us) always referred to it as the cinema ‘department’. Our profs were often hooked up in other departments as well, yes, but not all of us were double majors like I was, and thus my classmates considered it to be a department. That said, program or department, it doesn’t matter. That doesn’t excuse the requirements for not having non-white/European classes included. 

- The core classes are electives, yes.  But you still have to take a certain number to graduate. And if you want to take four classes on American and French film while ignoring the African-American film classess, you can do that– Which I think is a downfall of a program looking to educate people in media.  I don’t claim to be a master of world cinema and I don’t think that you should know EVERYTHING by the time you’ve graduated college.  I do, however, think that you should be required to think outside the white Hollywood narrative. I wish I was at my personal computer because I still have some of the sylabi for my film classes.  Where did I watch Cabin In The Sky? In my Afro-American Film class, NOT my Hollywood Musicals class. Where did I watch Daughters of the Dust? My Afro-American Film class, NOT my Cinematic Traditions class (I can’t remember the exact name of the course). The lowest attended screenings in my melodrama course? Our back to back viewings of  an Imitation of Life. The lowest attended viewing in one of my best friend’s Cinematic Traditions class? Sweet Sweet Back’s Baad Asssss Song. 

No one is requiring students to think outside the box of Hollywood and no one is chastising them when they are asked (usually once per semester) to consider something from another gaze.  A cinema studies student should have a fully formed film vocabulary. I’m going to question you never having seen Star Wars in the same way I would if you’ve never seen an Ang Lee film. 

- To further hit that point home, terms like ‘the African American/Black gaze’ and ‘African-American Diaspora’ were never used in my other course. If I hadn’t chosen to take an African-American film class I would have never read Bogle or Hooks because though they’re film scholars, they’re not presented in other classes. 

- ALL media studies students should HAVE to challenge themselves to think about Spike Lee’s Brooklyn (or ANY director’s non-white/Euro perspective) in the same way they should have to challenge themselves to think about Griffith’s America, Spielberg’s view on families, ect.  If a school isn’t EXPECTING that out of the students then, for me, that’s a failure within the department.

Show’s writer / story editor Lesley Arfin, the brainiac behind that Precious tweet, wrote once comparing defecating to Obama in the White House. I wish I were making this up.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/04/girls-writer-learning-theres-no-such-thing-ironic-racism/51338/

You’re 100 percent correct and I apologize to everyone ( not just the one’s I justifiably offended).

 I shouldn’t have typed that ( or thought that). I was trying to make a very poor point about their stereotyping and I did exactly the same thing

Sorry again for my ignorance and insensitivity ( like a lot of people I’m here to stop ”thinking stupid” but more than that to learn the reasons why I “do stupid”)

Thank you for addressing this to me and anyone else you has a similar predjudice

Wow, they almost cast a POC on equal footing with a white lady, but they made sure to make sure she’s ‘pleasantly plump’ (who wrote this? Cartman’s mom?) just so we, the audience, don’t make the mistake of thinking that this Latina (who puts strangers in their place on the subway) could be mistaken for a desirable woman. Nope, she’s just a fat, sassy Latina, along with the other Magical Negros, Magical Asians, and slutty Latina maids to help Lena Dunham become a Better Person.

How long, oh Lord, how long.

Good grief, I’m from the boonies and I can tell this thing stinks.  I get the feeling that my three or four days in Manhattan and the Bronx brought me into contact with more nonwhites than this writer has noticed in her entire life.  And I was a self-absorbed teenager.

Really makes me annoyed when fellow white girls do this. You can’t have it both ways – you can’t claim you “get it” and understand problems with representation (ie that there’s not enough LGBTQ and POC representation out there), and then clearly not have given enough thought to it to make your principal cast white. It means you are essentially just making the same kind of gross misrepresentation of New York as lily-white, like in Friends and so many other shows. That’s a sign you don’t get it, you just like to think you get it.

I only read about this show today, and was curious for a while but bleh, whatever. 

As a fellow Obie alumna I wanna say YES!!!  X10000

The backlash to this show is, so far, way more interesting then the show itself. It’s as if there is a collective “not passing the sniff test” that the general interent public is getting that the critics didn’t. Probably because the mainstream critics are by and large the same kind of people as those depicted in the show. 

I read the times article on this show. IT sounded interesting and different but I can’t get behind something that erases POC from their narrative.  

I would argue that at least it’s realistic that they have no Black friends because what Black person would want to be friends with these appalling people, but then it occurred to me that I’m white and I don’t want to be friends with them either. Huh.

Include me in the growing number of women  that have almost the same background  as Lena’s autobiographical characters on “Girls” but are non-white (Latina) and find the show irritatingly separatist. 

I’m born and raised in Manhattan with the identical small, independent education background. Greenpoint and my current Brooklyn neighborhood  are nearly identical in income, diversity and gentrification. We both share’d the same insecurities and self-sabotaging behavior that every NYC twenty-something experiences their first few years out of college. Same interests, same social life, same ridiculous clothing. Yet, the world of  ”Girls” is almost exclusively white. Frighteningly white. Writers and creative directors have a blank canvas to create whatever world they please when making art. If the world of “Girls” is as autobiographical and realistic as Lena and the critics claim it to be, I am truly frightened at how fast my story, my culture, my friendships or my relationships could be erased from my Caucasian counterparts’  imagination. 

As a Brooklynite, I find it near impossible to exclude the existence of non-white people from my daily life. Why is it such a breezy, brushed aside “mistake” (as she states in an HBO chat) to exclude it from hers? Did she NOT remain friends with one of the many students of color at St. Ann’s and Oberlin? Are NONE of them in her social or networking circle? Does she NOT socially interact with the ridiculously large black/latino filmmaker community in Brooklyn? Has she NOT had an impacting conversation with a non-white person at the myriad of art/underground/dinner/house/bar/band/restaurant parties that most “hip” Brooklynites attend as part of their social lives? Has she NOT had a professional relationship with a Black/Latino colleague that was non-threatening , non-pitying y or unadmonishing? Does she have NO  friends that are in serious, long-term relationships with someone outside their race?  Has she NOT come across or spoken to any of her Greenpoint “neighbors” that are 20% Hispanic (mostly Puerto Rican)? As a New Yorker,  it’s impossible to answer yes to any of these questions, less so as a Brooklyn resident. Since Lena and the writing staff STILL managed to erase a whole wealth of cultures and populations from their creative universe, than I am truly frightened if she is believed to be “the voice of my generation”.

 And one of her dislikes is “meager portions!”  Because we fat ladies, we just love to eat!

I don’t sing and I don’t dance, but I feel as though Glee represents my generation more so than this show.  

I’m a white woman and I don’t feel represented by this show. WOC have had a huge impact in my life and have been some of my closest friends. Not including them in something like this is like hacking a chunk out of my reality. And that quote about Precious….it’s just disturbing. Thank you for your point of view. It’s sad to think about all the people’s stories and perspectives we don’t learn about in school, but it is our choice whether to remain ignorant on these subjects. Especially when we’re making movies. 

I think this essay hits some of my point in a more astute way than I
could have but in the end, the problems I see related to the production
of Girls are structural and
relate to more than any one person’s stories. Lena Dunham has a right to
her vision and her stories.  Any writer
could be called out for
the absences in their stories. I don’t have any friends with physical
disabilities; people with physical disabilities are render invisible
through my work.  Does that mean that I should shut my mouth
and keep my stories to myself?  Perhaps.  Or perhaps, if we make space
for the stories of people with disabilities and mine, we all get a
voice.

Thus, I feel duty bound to call out the people who make decisions about
whose stories get told the loudest. At the end of the day, that’s not
Lena Dunham’s call. The real ire should be directed at HBO
and a television industry that literally banks on getting a pass on the
erasure of “the other”, the presupposition
that we are okay with not seeing our lives represented.  Additionally, I
think it’s too easy to pile on a 23 year-old writer.  Lena Dunham is a beneficiary of privilege.  The television
industry is yet another
institution that recognizes her voice as valuable (commercializing her
stories) and ignores/represses lots of others.  It would be great if
Dunham
could call that out and critique it from her position despite the fact
that it
could end her career.  I’m not 23 years old and starting a career as a
writer, so I absolutely will. 
 

simi-random thought…. What was that movie a couple years ago, based in Baltimore with no black characters in it and one Puerto Rican? 

This happens in Hollywood. It’s not surprising – it’s rediculous – it gets old, it’s been old.

Obviously, this show is not true to life. But I also feel like it’s not really true to even Lena’s life.
 
I keep getting the feeling when I watch her work that Lena Dunham is constantly making a vanity project, where she is some sort of whimsical paragon of Every White Girl Trying To Make It On Her Own in the history of film. So she quits jobs heroically, gets inspired by magical homeless people, makes loveably bad decisions, and as I can predict from that casting call, is constantly surrounded by other bad sitcom stereotypes.

As the article points out, it seems obvious that Lena has grown up consuming a lot of bland mainstream art and film, and is now re-imagining her life in the same terms.

I propose a nation-wide campaign called “The Education of Lena Dunham” where she must watch and read interesting artistic material and present a 30 minute report of what she’s learned every Sunday night.

Wait, can someone please tell me more about these white girls and their tribulations?!? I think we have a really undertold story here.

Sadly I have to agree.  I haven’t seen the episode because watching a show about entitled 20-somethings that are supposed to represent my generation doesn’t appeal to me.  But, I live in Brooklyn and I do have close-knit groups of white friends where, when we hang out, I am the only person remotely of color and I’m half-white.  (I also find this city to be very self-segregating, but that’s just my limited experience after 5.5 years here).  That being said, that’s not the kind of demographic I want to see on TV or in movies, not only because it doesn’t represent my world, but also because I think the point of storytelling is to imagine worlds that are bigger and more idealistic than what real life can sometimes be.  I don’t need to watch “reality”, I live it. I want a good story, preferably with some diverse characters.

 I’ve never found San Francisco to be very diverse, I think when people say San Francisco is diverse they mean that it’s not Caucasian American dominant, or they ascribe a meaning to diverse that reads as “not white”. The thing about NYC is, you have to try really really REALLY hard to have nothing but the most superficial encounters/interactions with POC. As someone that grew up in Brooklyn and has lived everywhere from Canarsie to Kensington, during the 24hrs in a day I’ve seen at least two people from any ethnic group you can think of. Even in high school when all my friends were West Indian like me (and West Indians are a pretty ethnically diverse group), my only two boyfriends were Puerto Rican.  I never really noticed (growing up there and all) how truly diverse the city was until I moved to the Jersey Shore a couple of years ago and realised that I could go days without seeing another brown person, hell, most days when I frequent my local coffee shop where I usually sit for at least three hours, I. Am. The. ONLY. Brown. Face. For hours. Everyday. For weeks at a time. This, would NOT happen in NYC. So the point I’m trying to make is this, to keep POC out of the narratives in the show in any meaningful way, is most likely a very deliberate action on Dunham’s part.

Let’s just be real here. It’s not simply problematic that the cast is all white girls; it’s problematic that the cast and characters are all white girls who grew up with very successful artist/rock star/playwright parents. To be honest, it is not only racist, but it is economically elitist. Dunham grew up in a Tribeca loft with famous and successful artist parents. A co-star is the daughter of NBC newscaster Brian Williams. Another is the daughter of the Bad Company drummer (not that they don’t suck, but still). And finally, there is David Mamet’s daughter. Not only is the supposedly universal 20-something experience relegated to highly educated, white girls, it’s even more narrowed down to highly educated, wealthy, white girls with famous parents. To pretend to “transcend” and appeal to a universal experience is absurd. 

There’s only been one episode so I think we’ll have to see how it develops.  However, I think the characters certainly seem unaware of their privilege (especially their economic privilege).  I think they are unlikeable enough that viewers should be able to get that we’re supposed to laugh at them, rather than with them in many instances.

I have trouble understand how yet another show that shows the lives of privileged white women who manage to avoid all minorities in a city as diverse as NYC is seen as groundbreaking.

Nothing about this show is groundbreaking except perhaps the fact that the girls who star in the show are more average to below average looking.

At any rate, the most annoying thing is that they are attempting to turn valid criticism of yet another white-washed portrayal of Manhattan as being misogyny and sexism.  And younger “feminists” are acting as if there has never been another show about white women (um, seriously?  White women have headlined shows and had their own shows since TV started).  But it’s really just another great example, of shut-up Black/Asian/Native/etc. women which is kind of par for the course.  It definitely illustrates how self-proclaimed “feminists” are not interested in telling any story or featuring any experience that does not put them front and center.  And it’s another reason why I’ll identify with feminism. 

What ridiculous is that as annoying as these girls are, it’s not as if I don’t see cliques like this that have non-white members…there are non-White hipsters, writers, artsy types, etc. who could have easily been slipped into one of these four roles.  But that would require acknowledging that we aren’t all the same and we don’t all have the same minority experience.  

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”" – opening lines of The Great Gatsby, the whitest, wealthiest and most privileged novel of them all.

My fundamental problem with the show is not that it stars or tries to describe the lives of white, priviliged, wealthy women. That would not make it fundamentally unrelatable. After all, white, priviliged and wealthy people are still human and capable of connecting to anyone. Just look at Princess Diana. Or Hamlet. Or Home Alone.

There are thousands of examples of work written by the WPW that transcends its demographic make-up and speaks to the hearts of many. The entire Western Canon of literature is written from that point of view, and no one but completely immature and militant crusaders of the Identity Politics Police would suggest that the entire Western Canon is worthless and does not deserve out attention. Should we all stop reading Jane Austen, George Eliot and Virginia Woolf because they were white, priviliged, wealthy women? That would be silly and impossible, because anyone (who is not fundamentally reverse-racist themselves) can relate to the gender dynamics in those novels. Virginia Woolf wrote about wealthy repressed English housewives yearning for other women, for pete’s sake.

The problem with Lena Dunham’s work, for me, is not that she excludes people of other races and classes (although a white Brooklyn looks stupid), but precisely because she INCLUDES them as the most obvious, rehashed, gross stereotypes. She uses them as empty ciphers whose sole purpose it is to contrast, and therefore, construct a very specific white privileged female identity. Thus, we get Annoying Nerdy Asian girl who steals her job. And Magic Homeless Black person who inspires her at the end with some nonsense she makes him yell. She defines herself against these types as their opposite. That’s what makes it racist for me, not the accident of birth that made her the daughter of wealthy white people.

I also just want to point out that to a non-racialized gaze, movies like “The Notebook” and “Love & Basketball” are the exact same movie and that’s how it should be.

Kendra: I’m a Cinema Studies Prof in a similar sort of college (Pitzer), and I’m happy to admit their our curriculum looks much like the one you seem to call for (our emphasis is on social justice, integrated production and theory, and a commitment in our teaching and scholarship to queer, non-white/US, activist/artistic media theory and production), However, even so, I do take some issue with imagining that Dunham’s problem is a primarily a curricular one, and not first a cultural or generational one. Which is to agree that taking a larger range of classes, and seeing more diverse films, would certainly have opened her up to ideas, but her “generational” malaise seems to be shared by many of your age-cohort (though not all), a critique I made recently about Pariah (I produced the first African-American lesbian feature, “The Watermelon Woman.”) I feel there is a great deal at stake in our conversations, across generations, about how we understand, share and represent agency, history, politics, and theory (which does get us back to college, I suppose, which is why I am a professor), and also why I am writing here. My post on Girls wants to think it through Grrrls. Hope you’ll take a look.

Alexj

It’s amazing how much the media and even big corporations want to bend towards the will of Millenials. I’m a 30 something Gen Xer and I remember of course all of the fuss about us in the 90′s when we were 20 somethings.  

But companies want to change their workplaces and workspaces and the ways that we communicate all for people who haven’t paid their dues and who frankly are still immature and fickle.  But I work for a company that has Gen Xers(in a pretty sweet spot of being young enough to get re-hired but old enough to have unique skills)  running for the door and they don’t seem to care at all.

Compared to Queens where I grew up, Brooklyn has always been more integrated and multicultural.  Maybe her take is more of a wish fulfillment that gentrification might bring. 

Whenever someone tells me I’m thinking too much, I generally conclude that they are thinking too little.

With all of backlash over this show’s seeming lack of diversity, I’m pretty much expecting them to throw in a lone POC friend/lover into the mix soon (ala Friends) just to calm the fury down!

Speak for yourself. If you and I grew up a similar age, we’re supposed to belong to the same generation. But I don’t fit in your patronizing, pseudo cynical view of the alienated American young middle classes, so you must be wrong :S

Keep trying.

I also grew up not in Manhattan, not all that far from Lena Dunham, but 15 years earlier. We have very similar socio-economic and educational experiences. But my parents weren’t artists and they were definitely not particularly open-minded. Yet my first boyfriend (in 2nd grade) was Dominican, my prom date was Jamaican, and my pediatrician was African-American. My best friend in junior high was a recent transplant from El Slavador, and my mom and I spent afternoons in our kitchen helping her with her English while she did the same for us with Spanish. All of which leads me to ask, who is this woman? She is nothing like any native NYer that I know, so who exactly is she supposed to represent? I don’t know that I can even remember a single day here that I didn’t have some kind of non-superficial experience with a POC. How is her life, as depicted, even possible? She has absolutely zero credibility as far as I’m concerned. To act as though her exclusion of significant characters of color is not on some level completely purposeful is just ridiculous.

I remember that ! They threw in a black woman who dated two of the characters simultaneously and then Aisha Tyler was in the show for a few episodes. I call that the “Throw-them-*******-a-bone-to-shut-them-the-hell-up” card.

I am from Jamaica Queens, and I grew up their during the late 80′s early 90′s.  And I wouldn’t call Elmhurst diverse.  It’s pretty much lacked black folks. While Asians and small groups of Latinos might seem to indicate diversity, the legions of blacks that have had to leave NYC for better opportunities says otherwise.

http://www.timesledger.com/stories/2006/1/20060105-archive83.html

You’ve read Ellison I’m sure. White people don’t see us until they need someone to blame or something to fear.

 American University <– the one in DC? So nice to randomly come across another Eagle

I grew up in Queens too (Astoria and Woodside to be exact) and I also currently write about family issues in Western Queens for Examiner.com. Having said that, if by diversity you mean that Queens is less white, I can say for a fact that the Woodside/Elmhurst/Jackson Heights areas fit the bill. Astoria less so due to gentrification right now. But if by diversity you mean that it isn’t as diverse as it could be, with many more ethnic/racial groups living side by side, then yes these neighborhoods aren’t as diverse as they have the potential to be. 

Kristen, 

According to mainstream (read: white) media, there is no okay ground. That’s the whole point. US media and pop culture create caricatures of POC, and especially women of color as if they are not complex human beings with a whole spectrum of emotions and experiences. They are only there to entertain and somehow serve the white majority.

As a current oberlin student I’d like to thank you for writing this piece. However your claim that it’s diversity would have prevented her from having a homogenous group of friends is inaccurate. For the most part white kids here only hang out with white kids.

The majority of casting calls on Breakdown that I see shout “PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES.” This is really race-controlled. These are facts.

I want to add that my main problem with all white cast is that when they finally add a non-white character they are just stock characters, but I have not problem with all white cast since it presents a reality of self segregation.

 He’s Just Not That Into You,. a (2009) Rom-Com. In fairness, it was an interesting take on the gentrification going on in Baltimore right now. Reminds me of You’ve Got Mail in early-mid 90′s New York.

 ”Um, white women have way more than two ways they are portrayed on TV”

Really ?  I think it’s pretty onedimensional.

 Thanks for bringing up racist comedy. I just had an argument with my parents on why people shouldn’t get a pass for comedy acts based on racism “But they were just being funny” and “its all in good fun” are not excuses.

 Veep, Sookie (True Blood), Madame Stark (Game of Thrones), Girls, and that’s just Sunday on 1 channel