Lena Dunham, the millennial icon who changed the way the body and sex are portrayed

In the world of television, Girls marked a before and after when it premiered in 2012. If Sex and the City, which debuted 14 years earlier, reminded women of their power and their right to have fun and take control of their lives, Girls — the quintessential millennial series, written, directed, and starring Lena Dunham — delved much deeper into the realities of everyday life, far less glamorous for ordinary people.

Dunham was just 23 when she signed a deal with HBO to create the show, but her success was no stroke of luck. By then, she had already won the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival with Tiny Furniture, a film she wrote, directed, and starred in, which captivated Judd Apatow, one of Hollywood’s most influential producers, who went on to become her mentor.

“Lena has been ahead of her time. She paved the way. She found a way to address privilege, body positivity, sexuality, and friendship in ways that are both hilarious and moving,” Apatow said via email.

For Sophie Gilbert, author of Girl on Girl, Dunham also captured the voice of a generation in socioeconomic terms: “Millennials were raised with the expectation that they would do great things with their lives and careers, so when their entry into the labor market coincided with the economic crisis, the consequences took on a kind of morbid humor that Dunham was able to observe and capture brilliantly,” she said by email.

Girls ran for six seasons, from 2012 to 2017 — the same span as Dunham’s relationship with musician Jack Antonoff. After those two endings, her life seemed to veer off course. She underwent a hysterectomy (following a diagnosis of endometriosis), learned she was infertile, and entered rehab to address her addiction to benzodiazepines. It was then that she tattooed the word “sick” on the back of her neck, turning stigma into a badge of identity — a gesture that has long defined her.

One of the most celebrated aspects of her work has been her willingness to publicly display what society often hides. In the series, Dunham frequently showed her body, far removed from the beauty standards of the time, which centered on thinness as the ultimate ideal. In doing so, she helped normalize a non‑conforming female body in popular culture, without stylization or self‑consciousness.

This shift in narrative, in step with advertising campaigns like Dove’s that promoted real bodies, played a key role in cementing the body‑positivity movement and influencing mainstream culture. Girls also featured sex scenes that felt real: often awkward, frustrating, and embarrassing — something rarely portrayed on television before.

The response was immediate. This honest and direct language resonated with everyone, especially in a world that tended toward idealization and was increasingly moving toward artifice and pretense.

Dunham has always championed the concept of body positivity, even now, in the Ozempic era. On Instagram, she celebrated the 24 pounds she had gained, describing herself as “happy, joyous, and free.” The idea that body image shouldn’t matter is also evident in Too Much, the series she released on Netflix in 2025, which did not make it past one season. It is based on her own life: her move to London, where she now lives, and where she met Peruvian‑born musician Luis Felber, whom she has since married. The fact that the protagonist is obese has no impact on the plot; no character and nothing in the script suggests that weight is an issue.

But this does not mean Dunham is immune to outside opinions or constant scrutiny; her public exposure has taken a toll on her mental health. She has been labeled a “nepo baby,” accused of writing from and for privilege, and called narcissistic, racist, and even Zionist — after she wrote a 2012 essay about a trip to Israel without acknowledging that she was visiting occupied Palestinian territory. “I’m tired of making headlines,” Dunham said at the launch of her third book, Famesick at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) on April 14. “Now I just want to tell stories that comfort people, stories you could tell your grandmother.”

The multifaceted writer spent eight and a half years working on her memoir, in which she describes how her professional success grew in inverse proportion to her mental and physical health. It is a vulnerable book, marked above all by a sense of loneliness, which she announced on Instagram with a video of herself in tears, saying she was tired of talking about herself.

“During the filming of Girls, there were times when I didn’t have a single friend,” Dunham said at the event. Despite the weight of her admissions, the evening was also characterized by her quick wit, which drew laughter from the audience and showed her ability to address painful experiences with humor, with lines such as, “I have endometriosis and a couple of other things that also sound fake.”

One particularly painful episode she recounts in the memoir is her eight‑year estrangement from Girls co‑writer and her closest friend, Jenni Konner, who had questioned her diagnoses.

During the event, Dunham often leaned on her father, painter Carroll Dunham, who was in the audience and whom she frequently quoted. She also took questions from attendees. “If Hannah [the protagonist of Girls] were alive today, she’d have a Substack newsletter with 3,500 followers that wouldn’t be enough to live on, she’d be on Feeld [a dating app for open relationships] because that’s where the straight people who think it’s interesting are.” And she clarified that, although viewers believe Hannah is her alter ego, the producers not only forced her to play the character, but also to gain weight to be able to do so.

Actor Andrew Rannells, who played Elijah Krantz, Hannah’s gay ex-boyfriend and one of the few people from Girls with whom Dunham has maintained contact after 16 years, joined her on stage for the presentation. The two chatted with the audience while lying down and sharing a bed in a recreation of Dunham’s bedroom.

“You were so young, you were able to do something unique on television, something very difficult to achieve, and yet, people came after you,” he said, referring to the backlash Dunham faced and continues to face from those unwilling to credit her achievements. It illustrates how sustained criticism can wear anyone down, regardless of their irreverence or talent.

“Her writing always left me speechless. Sometimes she would write an episode in a weekend, and it seemed like she had been polishing it for months,” Apatow said.

The story of Lena Dunham, who just turned 40, is one of the rise and subsequent questioning of a voice that once captured and then lost touch with her generation. “I think many people resented Dunham,” said Gilbert, “primarily because of her success, and now they’re reconsidering her because historical distance makes it easier to see her work for what it is.”

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