Last week, perpetually-offended Girls creator Lena Dunham found herself being torn apart by the online “outrage machine,” rather than working the levers herself, as she usually does.
It seems Lena was seated with Odell Beckham, Jr. at the 2016 Met Gala back in May, and she was so astonished when the Giants wide receiver didn’t hang on her every word that she decided it must be because he’s a misogynistic bigot.
“I was sitting next to [Beckham] … He looked at me and he determined I was not the shape of a woman by his standards,” Lena said while interviewing Amy Schumer.
“He was like, ‘That’s a marshmallow. That’s a child. That’s a dog.’”
The reaction from the press and on social media was that between her “precious snowflake” privileged upbringing and her early success in show business, Lena has spent so much of her life being showered with praise, that when someone appears uninterested in what she’s saying, she assumes it’s because they’re the worst kind of deeply prejudiced person.
In addition, many expressed their beliefs that Lena looking at a black athlete and deciding that the thoughts running through his head are no more complex than “Can I f–k it?” (her actual words) reflects an astonishing level of racist ignorance.
Dunham eventually issued a statement clarifying her comments on Beckham but refused to apologize.
Presumably someone then took her aside and explained that she’s in the wrong – an interaction that’s almost certainly never previously occurred in Dunham’s life.
So the next day, Dunham apologized to Beckham in a social media rant that was, of course, mostly about her and her feelings.
Not surprisingly, the Internet remained pissed.
But you know who couldn’t care less about this whole mess? Odell Beckham, Jr.
While Dunham spent the last week attempting to claw her way out of the deep, dark hole she dug for herself, Beckham remained silent on the issue.
But apparently it wasn’t because he decided to take mercy on Dunham.
No, it had more to do with the fact that these days the standout WR is spending his time studying the Dallas Cowboys defense, not the tabloids:
“I don’t really know much about the situation,” Beckham said in a recent locker room interview.
“There’s never any bad blood between me and anybody. I’m sure it’ll get handled or settled, but right now my focus is way bigger. It’s on Dallas,”
Seems that Lena could really learn something from Odell’s example.
If you don’t really know anything about someone of their thoughts or beliefs, maybe you should just refrain from publicly trashing them.
Just an idea.