a tale of cancellations, missteps and The PowerPoint - bonus chapter: famesick by lena dunham

this episode we discuss the newest memoir by a woman who could well be the voice of our generation (or at least a voice of a generation) - famesick by Lena Dunham. from her meteoric rise to fame with the hit tv show girls, to the crippling chronic pain and mental health concerns that intersected with an externally perfect life yet highlighly cancellable life, lena dunham is compulsively honest in this new novel. we chat about hannah, jessa, marnie and shoshanna, the juicy details on adam driver, jenny konner and jack antonoff and of course, the infamous powerpoint.

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Transcript

Bridget 0:01

Hello and welcome to a Talk Lit Get Hit bonus chapter. The little book chats in between the big ones. We'll talk about reading, authors, and have discussions with people who, like us, can't shut up about books.

Laura 0:13

We might get sidetracked and talk about literally anything else, but this is a bonus chapter we wrote just for you. This episode, we're discussing the memoir of someone who may be the voice of our generation, or at least a voice of a generation. It's the book on every white millennial woman's TBR, FameSick by Lena Dunham. Bridget, hello, hello. Hello, hello, how are you today? I am so well today and I'm so ready to discuss FameSick.

Bridget 0:39

Let's get into it. This episode will contain spoilers for the memoir Fame Sick by Lena Dunham, as well as a TV show girls. If you're worried you'll hear something you don't want to hear, pause the episode, subscribe to the show, and come back when you're ready.

Laura 0:51

Content warnings for this episode include discussions of chronic illness, mental health and personal trauma, drug use and abuse, and graphic medical discussions. So look, we're here to discuss the memoir Fame Sick by Lena Dunham, one of the It Girl novels of the year. But I think before we can get too far into our discussion, we need to set the scene on what our sort of general thoughts and feelings around Lena Dunham were before reading this memoir. I have to say that I've never really known much about Lena Dunham.

Bridget 1:19

I have only ever viewed her through the lens of Taylor Swift. I don't think I've ever seen a thing that she's been in other than the bad blood music video or like read anything that she's written. I've only just started watching girls. I was very aware of the criticism at the time, and I think that only made me like her more. There's always nothing more society hates than like a smart, opinionated woman. If you add into the mix the fact that she's not conventionally attractive, I think that's just like a perfect storm for certain people on the internet. I think that makes me like maybe forgive her missteps a little bit easier, or like even just kind of brush them off. I really thought about her at the time and like even rarer now. How about you?

Laura 2:01

Yeah, I was obsessed with Lena Dunham. I wasn't really obsessed with her per se. Like I didn't really put her on a pedestal as some sort of like cultural figure to aspire towards, but I thought that she was a genius at the same time. I watched Girls When It Was Out, if I'm remembering correctly, I mean I don't think I ever would have got onto this show by myself, like I would have lagged years behind. Often during my time at uni, where I was studying my creative writing degree, I would skip class with my friend Jacob and we would go to his house, and I had an education. We watched so many TV shows, and I believe Girls was one of them. Jacob always had his finger on the pulse. I remember he showed me like breaking bad. He was one of the first people I knew who'd ever listened to Haim. It was incredibly trendy and cool. And I mean to this day, incredibly trendy and cool, but I just remember feeling like, yeah, I was locked onto something that was like shifting culture in a significant way. Yeah. And actually, like it was.

Bridget 2:57

Yeah, well, watching it now, I agree with you. She's a genius. The whole show is amazing.

Laura 3:01

I did read her first memoir, Not That Kind of Girl. At the point in time when Girls was coming out, I think it was maybe like season two or season three. That was when I had just moved out of home and I was living in a share house with three of my best female friends. I remember getting the trailer for one of the seasons, and it had that Ellie Goulding Anything Can Happen song in it. And one of my friends who's also called Laura and I were like dancing on our beds, like was trying to, you know, trying to emulate Hannah and Marnie, like with every possible move. And then after Girls Ended, I feel like Lena Dunham didn't really go away, but she kept kind of digging herself into a hole. And I think like we'll get there when we talk about the memoir. But she had some severe lapses in judgment, got herself embroiled in some controversies. And probably from that point onwards, I was like, you know what? I'm taking the cowards' way out. It's just too much for me. Yeah. I'm not gonna think about this too much. I'm just gonna simply stop thinking about her. So I haven't really had many thoughts about Lena Dunham. Girls has had a TikTok resurgence, and so that put me back on the path of watching it. And same as you, I'm like, wow, this is amazing. Why did I ever stop? So you mentioned you've been watching Girls. How far through are you?

Bridget 4:11

I'm like halfway through season four. She has just been to Iowa, the writing program, and she's just left, so she's come back. I've just met Mimi Rose. Oh yeah. No, thank you, Mimi Rose. I think she's just decided she wants to be a teacher. Yes. So that's where I'm at with it. For those unfamiliar with the TV show of girls, this is the pitch that she presented to HBO about the show. So Sex in the City was about being a woman in New York, already established and looking for love. But what about the phase before when you don't know enough to even know what you're looking for? The New York I know isn't glamorous. We graduated during a recession. We're the first generation that can't reasonably expect more than our parents had. We all grew up on Ritalin in AOL Instant Messenger. We're having sex fueled by the availability of porn, and we're feminists who don't know how to live our politics. I want to see my friends on TV. She was then asked to elaborate on that, so she went home that night and she started writing a more formal page of ideas. And she said, These girls are overeducated and underemployed. Sure that they're too smart for their positions as assistants, nannies, and waitresses, but not necessarily motivated enough to prove it or even do their jobs well enough to advance. They have that mix of know-it-all entitlement and scathing self-deprecation that is the mark of all great Jewish comedians and many 24-year-old women with liberal arts degrees. They have varying degrees of ambition, but have been raised to achieve. They know they want to be successful long before they know what they want to be successful at. Even just reading those two paragraphs, I'm immediately like, wow, why how is she so clever? That's exactly like it sums up the vibe of it perfectly. I mean, she wrote it, of course it would, but I don't know. I just think there's something about the way she strings those sentences together that really work for me.

Laura 5:59

Yeah, like over-educated and underemployed, and also they have varying degrees of ambition, but have been raised to achieve. I was actually kind of struck by this because I feel like there's this whole sort of conversation at the moment around Gen Z, like just wanting stuff to be handed to them, or like, you know, they they believe that they deserve a certain quality of life or level of privilege, but they're not willing to like do the hard yards to get that. I sometimes, and I'm scared to say it, but I feel myself like slipping into that category of older person like hates on younger person. Yeah. And reading this was like really affirming because I was like, oh no, that's right. Like we are or we were like that too.

Bridget 6:36

Yeah, it's just the same shit recycled for generation after generation. So Girls is the first, I would say, mainstream hit that Lena had, and it ran for six seasons from 2012 to 2017. The era for millennials. We were at our peak. So this truly fits the bill for deeply millennials.

Laura 6:56

It's a haunting melody. Every time someone says millennial, that just like tinkles in my brain. We're like, it was not your fault. Yes.

Bridget 7:08

Laura, most importantly, to start off the episode, which girl are you?

Laura 7:13

When I was living in that share house with my three friends, we were all watching the show, and as there were four of us, we were determined that there must be one girl to represent each of us. In retrospect, I don't think there's a way that you can like very flatteringly assign any of these characters to anyone. Not at all. But one of the girls was like just a little bit more sophisticated and cool than I think the rest of us. She had older sisters, was always sort of like doing her own thing, participating in social settings that like none of the rest of us would have even felt remotely comfortable, like dipping our toe into. So she was obviously Jessa. Shoshana is a little harder to assign, but we one of my friends was very small. Shoshana is quite small. Um, I guess this friend was like probably the most high energy of all of us, really driven, like really social and like quite high achieving, which like Shoshana is at the end of it. Like, I think she is like the the best of them all.

Bridget 8:09

She's probably the most normal one.

Laura 8:11

She actually is. And it's so weird to look back on it because I was sort of like, oh, she's so shrill, she's so crazy, but she's actually like a great person who calls them out more than I remember. Another of my friends was like probably a little bit more like interested in following the rules and like order and understanding. I remember one day I was vacuuming, I was vacuuming the kitchen and I thought, well, there's crumbs under the toaster, and while I'm here, lifted up the toaster and was vacuuming the counter. And I remember she came out and she was like, Stop fucking vacuuming the counter, which just feels like such a mani kind of outburst. So she was very obviously Marnie. When I worked you about to violate food, health and safety.

Bridget 8:57

When I worked at an undisclosed place where they had all you can eat pizza, I had a manager, there was like three or four men who were in this like business together, and they came and they bought our place of work. After about a year or so, they took off because they had been caught like money laundering, basically. Anyway, every night we obviously had to clean the restaurant, like shut it down and whatever. And these people were like all about efficiency. And so one night, while there were still customers in the restaurant, the guy was vacuuming the floor, one of the owners was vacuuming the floor, and he got the he picked up the vacuum and started vacuuming the hot plates for the pizza. And one of the customers took a photo of it and put it on like online. That is fair. That is disgusting. Disgusting.

Laura 9:46

I mean, I can't talk clearly, but well, you're not doing it for like yeah. I was gonna say I remember being like, I was gonna sanitize it. Um, and then yeah, I guess you're wondering where that leaves me. Um, I was studying creative writing at the time, so that is how it was justified. You're a writer, Hannah's a writer. And like having just told that crumb story, like, yeah, I guess I see it. But yeah, I was Hannah.

Bridget 10:13

I don't think there is a flattering person. Like, there's no way you can pick one for yourself because all of them have good and bad qualities, and I would say the bad outweigh the good.

Laura 10:24

Yeah, I think so.

Bridget 10:24

Yeah. And so when I saw in your show notes that you were like, which girl are you? I was like, I don't know if I'm ready to look at myself in that way. So I went to find a quiz.

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Laura 11:06

As all good women do. Well, I was accidentally peeking at your show notes thinking that they were our shared notes, and I came across a quiz. Wow, how fun.

(Cont.) a tale of cancellations, missteps and The PowerPoint - bonus chapter: famesick by lena dunham

Laura 11:15

I would love to do the quiz.

Bridget 11:17

And it was quite hard to find a quiz, actually. There were some pretty shitty ones, but we did get a result. Laura, you were Hannah when you lived in your share house. In 2026, who are you now?

Laura 11:29

I'm pleased to announce in 2026 I am da-da. Ray. Me too. 60% Ray.

Bridget 11:39

I was 75% Ray and 60% Jessa. Oh. And then 50% Marnie, 45% Hannah, Charlie, and Adam, and then 40% Shoshana. I don't understand the mathematics behind this. No. Very confusing. But for both of us to get Ray, what a delight. He is a cynical yet unexpectedly endearing character in girls. Older than most of the core group, he offers blunt honesty and biting sarcasm, often serving as the reluctant voice of reason. Though socially awkward and opinionated, Ray's passion for just as coffee and urban planning reveals a quirky idealism behind his gruff surface.

Laura 12:14

I mean, that actually is the other day. I was like, if I had to go back to study, maybe I'd do urban planning. And I didn't make that link.

Bridget 12:24

But there's something to that. I was watching the episode the other day when they've installed the traffic lights outside his apartment and he just is freaking out because the cars are beeping 18 hours a day. Today, we have been plagued by planes flying around and we have been yelling out the window. We have been being Ray, and I just realized it. We are Ray. We are Ray. So we have already made reference to a few of the controversies that have rightly or wrongly plagued Lena Dunham over the past 15 years. I would say the one that is probably most well known across the internet is the allegations of child sexual abuse. So in her 2014 book, Lena was telling stories that involved her younger sibling, Cyrus. These included bribing the toddler for kisses and an incident where a seven-year-old Lena examined her siblings' genitals out of curiosity. This has been something that Lena says the right-wing conservatives on the internet have taken and ran with since the release of the book. And it's something that I still see to this day in comment sections. And I would say it's not even just right wing anymore.

Laura 13:34

No, it seems to be one of those things it's like if you know one thing about Lena Dunham, that's what you know. Even if you don't know the facts. Yeah. I mean, it's never stopped them before.

Bridget 13:42

No. It was spoken about a little bit in the book. A lot of the focus was sort of put on the strain that that put on an already strained relationship between Lena and her sibling. She said that there was a conservative media site that analysed choice passages and came to the conclusion that I had engaged in sexually inappropriate childhood behavior with my sibling. The book sort of gave me a little bit of context that I think is missing from discussions or like definitely missing from comments that I've seen in the past. She said, coming from where I came from, where adults overshared at dinner parties and my parents took me to see performance art where women writhed and yelled and jerked off, I couldn't grasp the idea that anyone would take the accusation seriously. I still believed in art as a space of uncharted freedom. There are no bad thoughts, my father had always told me. Only bad actions. I extended his catchphrase to mean there are no bad stories. And I think that could sum up a lot of Lena's past indiscretions.

Laura 14:40

Yeah.

Bridget 14:40

There are no bad stories.

Laura 14:42

I think it is like a compulsion for Lena Dunham. I don't think she can help herself. I think she should be held accountable for bad behavior. But as far as like the intention behind that behavior, I honestly don't think most of the time that she thinks twice about it. It's sort of like she's doing it for the plot, but not in the way that like people are out here doing crazy stuff. It's like she's like a character in her own life almost. Like she's not Mr. Beast. No, she's not looking people up in a comparison. I was in my head. Hopefully, she releases a chocolate soon. Yes, I hope so. It's really good.

Bridget 15:21

I I agree. She's not Mr. Beast.

Laura 15:23

I agree with myself.

Bridget 15:26

She's not doing it for views, she's not doing it for clout. I don't think there's another option for her.

Laura 15:31

No. This is how she is wired to behave. The second sort of major controversy that Lena Dunham addressed in this book was her and her co-conspirator Jenny Connors' statement in defense of a girl's producer who was facing allegations of sexual assault. So this is where they chose the line of defending the male and not believing the woman. And I do think she should absolutely be held accountable for this. I think the tone of this statement from them both is really representative of the kind of short-sighted, like self-satisfied white feminism that came to be sort of like synonymous with her name during this period in time. So the statement says, during the windfall of deeply necessary accusations over the last few months in Hollywood, we have been thrilled to see so many women's voices heard and dark experiences in this industry justified. It's a hugely important time of change, and like every feminist in Hollywood and beyond, we celebrate. But during every time of change, there are also incidences of the culture in its enthusiasm and zeal taking down the wrong targets. We believe, having worked closely with him for more than half a decade, that this is the case with Murray Miller. While our first instinct is to listen to every woman's story, our insider knowledge of Murray's situation makes us confident that sadly this accusation is one of the 3% of assault cases that are misreported every year. It is a true shame to add to that number, as outside of Hollywood, women still struggle to be believed. We stand by Murray, and this is all we'll be saying about this issue. I think it's kind of crazy to say there's only 3% of assault cases that are misrepresented, but probably this one is. I don't know. Yeah, based on nothing. I guess it's important to note that the charges against Murray Miller were never filed because they fell outside of the statute of limitations. Um there were like delays in reporting and there were some inconsistencies in the case. That said, I just don't know how to justify a statement like that.

Bridget 17:30

Well, Lena tries, or maybe not justify, but she tries to explain her part in this statement in the story. And I think this is kind of a topic or a theme that she keeps coming back to, especially in the second half of the book, as her uh health starts to unravel. At this point in her life, after having numerous health issues, she has just had a hysterectomy. The chapter is titled Good Man, and Lena says that her business partner, Jenny Connor, had come in from Los Angeles to see her. She's kind of hazy on the details. She says that she knows they made the statement together in response to a request for comment, and it was decided over text message only hours after she got home from the hospital. She knows that her mother was trying to stop her from doing it. She said, This isn't you. And she also says that at this point Jenny and her were barely speaking. She said, I could try, would have tried if I had written this book any earlier, to explain to you all the backstory that informed the statement I don't remember writing. The specificity of the relationships, the obligations and emotions bound up in the decision to defend someone against an accusation, I had no business attempting to debunk. No clear reason to fight, no fucking right to an opinion on. But none of that matters. It does not materially change what happened, the shame I feel about it, or most crucially, the pain it caused. I was so deep in my own distress, physical, emotional, existential, that I had ceased to be able to imagine or invest in anyone else's. Empathy, the most important quality in a writer, a woman, a friend, all of the things I once had been and had no idea if I would ever be again, had left me. In a sense, this is the narcissism of fame in its purest form. Guilt and shame are hideous emotions. They're hideous when they're unearned, inherited, bestowed by culture or a cruel lover or friend. They're even more hideous when they're the result of actions you have to admit are your own deeds you cannot blame anyone else for. I think she understands now. So the allegations first came to light in November 2017, and I think the statement came out shortly after that. In the December of the following year, 2018, Lena Dunham actually released a public apology to the woman involved in the case. And since then, I think has been quite open in talking about how she was wrong to make this statement or have an opinion at all.

Laura 19:58

I think what you were saying before about, like, yeah, I think Lena Dunham gets it now, is kind of representative of like an overall feeling I was having about this book in a way. And that is like there are so many moments in the book where she's reflecting on certain relationships or like pivotal moments in her life and career with this like clear-eyed clarity. Like she's has just such a depth of self-reflection that she's digging into. And at the same time, in these pages, there are a couple of sections written down where I'm like, I think you're gonna reflect on that again in a few years' time. And I'm not mad about that.

Bridget 20:33

I think that's just part of being alive. Like you grow, you I don't know, psychoanalyze yourself. I've actually been reading her first collection of essays, Not That Kind of Girl, while I've been preparing for this episode. Some of the things that she's talking about in Not That Kind of Girl come up again in Fame Sick, and she's talking about them in completely different ways. I think that's just part of being human.

Laura 20:58

Especially at the point in time when Not That Kind of Girl was released, like Lena Dunham was the center point of that cultural conversation. There must be a drive to push back against the narrative that people are telling you about yourself. Like one that sort of stands out to me, and I don't remember much about not that kind of girl. I remember a quote from her where she was saying something like, Oh, haha, I don't have an eating disorder. I wish I had an eating disorder. I tried, but it didn't stick. And I remember that because at the time I was also like, ha ha, yeah, I wish I could be skinny too. I wish I could just eat less food. I just think that's so obviously a pushback on 2018, 19 culture, whatever, where the desire was to be thin without trying. And obviously, like that's still a conversation that we're having, but Lena Dunham's at a different point in her life where she's able to look back and be like, yeah, I was trying so hard. In fact, I was very sick. And I'm okay coming clean about that now.

Bridget 21:57

To add to that list of controversies, she's also had a few racism allegations. Uh, she has written some questionable tweets in her time. Girls was criticized for the lack of diversity. It had a cast largely made up of white men and women. And also, once again, she's inserted herself into conversations about things like abortion. She made a comment on a podcast once saying, I still haven't had an abortion, but I wish I had, so she could understand the um I don't know the feeling of being a woman and having an abortion. And that comment went quite viral. And she ended up having to apologize. And she said, you know how in some households you curse and have to put money in a jar. Well, in mine, if you mess up your pro-choice messaging, you have to give a sizable donation to abortion.

Laura 22:49

I think that is like such a perfect example of like she's just compelled to speak. Like nobody pours out of her. No, like the shit she says, it's like nobody would ever plan to say that shortly.

Bridget 23:00

No. And I would love to know like the ratio of crazy things she said compared to how many apologies she's had to write or say. I feel like I was constantly seeing Lena Dunham apologizes for blah blah blah over and over and over again. Despite all of those controversies, how did you feel about this book?

Laura 23:19

I really liked this book. I was instantly captivated by it. And I read it having not recently watched Girls or anything like that. But immediately her voice just felt so nostalgic and so familiar to me. I think I saw in your notes you were saying something like, Oh, take me back, but you were like confused because neither of us have ever been to like 2012 Brooklyn. Yeah. Like what she said is true. She is the voice of a generation. I felt so folded into this story. And like there were so many sections where she was reflecting on kind of like her ambition or her desire to be seen or perceived a certain way, or like whatever it was. Like the way that she's able to capture these really kind of private, personal, like at times unflattering feelings that you have in a way that makes you go, wow, that's just like me. It's absolutely unmatched for me. How about you?

Bridget 24:15

How did you feel about it? I really liked it as well. I think the main theme that I enjoyed in the book was her discussion of celebrity as a concept. I think it's really easy to just discount any struggles or any complaints that a celebrity might have. Like, yes, they're rich, they're famous, they're privileged, but at the same time, they can be going through things just like everybody else. And that feels like the most basic take ever. But I think the part of the story that really resonated with me about this is when she was talking about the loss of ownership over her name. She talks about all of the ways up until this point in her life that she had used her name. Like in preschool when she learned to write, or middle school, where it took on the hard-to-shake stink of unpopularity, through high school and college, where she used it to sign endless poems about the abstract feeling of dis-ease. And she said all of these uses were natural, the classic stuff of growing up as oneself. It was only when the name entered the spin cycle of mass media, surprising my early classmates, my family, but no one more than myself, that it started to feel alien, like a character in a film I didn't write. It became a mark of excellence, then a signifier of a certain kind of millennial absurdity, and finally a punchline that felt more like a slur. I cannot imagine how that would feel, but I think so much of this book is spent trying to explain how that feels. And I think that came across. I think she succeeded.

Laura 25:44

That was a concept I've never considered, but something that I've watched play out in like comment sections year after year. Something that I thought was really interesting was that probably almost up until the publication of this memoir, the conversation that I've been seeing online is she sucks, she sucks, she's gross, she's gross, we hate, we hate. All of a sudden, and it I guess it could just be my algorithm. But when I was scrolling through TikTok looking for reviews and like quotes and whatnot of this book, all the comments were like, Lena Dunham, they could never make me hate you. Like, I'm so glad you're back, like blah blah blah. Where were these warriors? Yeah, they were drowned out. I don't know. They didn't exist. Maybe they were like me, burying their heads in the sand. I don't know.

Bridget 26:30

Well, I think it's just the rise and fall of celebrity. Like I think over anybody's career, there's times where everyone is against them, and there's times where they're on top of the world, and then soon enough they'll be back down again.

Laura 26:41

Yeah, that's true.

Bridget 26:42

I mean, she's gonna say something freaky soon.

Laura 26:44

Yeah.

Bridget 26:45

She really will. She went to the Mecca, everyone was trying to cancel her for that already.

Laura 26:49

So it's you. Yeah. Oh, damn.

Bridget 26:52

Along with celebrity and like the curse of being famous. A major theme in this book is obviously her health. About this, she says, I've also spent the last 10 years famous. Like my illness that has vacillated in both intensity and quality. Good days, okay periods, very, very bad ones. Unlike being sick, when you're famous, nobody feels sorry for you. Fame is viewed largely as a condition of privilege that you've brought upon yourself. It's your fault, and it's also a good thing. Even the bad parts seem to those outside the experience to be outweighed by the perks. I thought that was interesting because I don't ever see anyone feeling sorry for her being sick. Her version of fame has overshadowed her sickness, and I don't think she's given any grace for that.

Laura 27:40

I would agree. The comment sections I see are often like celebrating the physical manifestations of her illness, like and commenting on her appearance. Obviously, another huge and important component of this book is her discussion of her chronic illness and chronic pain. Um, Lena Dunham is someone who lives with an astonishing assortment of medical conditions. She lives with OCD, colitis, the connective tissue disorder, Ella's Danlos syndrome, endometriosis. Um, she went through early menopause as the result of a hysterectomy. She's PTSD and has been through rehab for addiction to both opioids and benzodiazepines. And the way that she discusses it in this novel is second to none. I think this quote comes from around the point in the book where she's talking about wanting to get a hysterectomy to hopefully resolve some of the incredible pain she's in day in, day out. The quote says, Their goal had been to preserve my fertility. That was what they had considered their primary job. For many doctors, it was a calling above curing pain, above making life livable for the person suffering now. Our whole culture values the potential of life more than the existence of it, and women as vessels for that life more than as sentient beings. I thought that was amazing. Another quote was, and through it all, the pain was there, like that friend with a borderline personality who you're convinced you control until it becomes clear she's going to do to you what she's done to all others. There was no moment of any hour of any day where I did not feel pain. It assumed different forms and different levels of intensity. It had different shapes and versions, but it was always with me. I was tethered to it like a smoker to their pack, mollusks to a whale, a mother to their baby. And then I think this final quote that kind of ties in her illness and celebrity together. Everything that had happened publicly was harder than I let on, but it was real. It could be clearly laid out on a timeline, like a history book or a true crime podcast. I always struggled physically, but my symptoms which seemed diffuse were never collated into a diagnosis, especially in a world where the pain of girls and women is dismissed. Stress has a measurable effect on autoimmune and inflammatory conditions and worsened my physical symptoms. So ironically, making girls, arguably the best thing that had ever happened to me, but also the hardest I had ever worked, only served to make me sicker. I think the feeling of reading this book was interesting as well because Lena Dunham doesn't shy away from talking about the experience of her illness and how hard it was, and how, you know, there were days where she couldn't get out of bed, you know, how she was missing at such at times weeks of work, obligations, social commitments, important milestones in her relationship and friendships. She's so raw and honest about all of that. There were a couple of sections that I unfortunately didn't make a note of where she was talking about like how she started to get the sense that Jack secretly thought that she was using this illness as like a trick to get to do what she wanted to do all day, which is like lie down and watch movies. I think there was like one anecdote about some women that were in a group chat with her, and one of them left the group chat because they were sick of hearing her talk about like how sick she was. And I think it generated like a really uncomfortable reading experience for me at times because it sort of made me think, I don't know where my threshold would be. Like if she were my friend, because Lena Dunham seems like a lot. Like, even though I'm like, she's a genius, I love her, she's so funny. I don't know if that's someone I could have in my life.

Bridget 31:01

I think like after the fourth or fifth times, you've got to hear about oh, the internet hates me again because I said something again. I'd be like, at some point it's you, babe. Yeah.

Laura 31:10

And so again, I commend her. It's really brave. Let's move on to the juicy, silly stuff because there was also a lot of like fun tidbits in this book that were really enjoyable to read. Were there any really fun things that you liked about this book?

Bridget 31:23

I liked any crumbs I got of Jack Antonov.

Laura 31:27

Oh, true. I was unsure where you'd land on that. Like, obviously, I know he's a Taylor Swift collaborator. I'm not like up to date on the law, so I don't know if they're like still working together. I secretly liked fun though, so Yeah.

Bridget 31:41

I not so secretly liked fun.

Laura 31:43

I some next those.

Bridget 31:45

There was a time that I was on a bus from Canberra to Toowoomba 12 and a half hours. I listened to one Bleachers song the whole time. Which one was it? It was Everybody Lost Somebody. Oh yeah. You said you're not aware of the current relationship between Jack Antonov and Tel Swift. I'll tell you what, I'm aware of it. I'll tell you, they didn't work together on the life of a showgirl because she worked exclusively with Max Martin and Johan Schelbach for that. For better or for worse, whatever. But she just did a song for Toy Story 5 for some reason, and that was with Jack.

Laura 32:18

He's got that touch. There is a Bleachers song, like the Carly Ray Jepsen and Bleach's song. It's really good. Yes.

Bridget 32:24

I like him. He gets a lot of slack on the internet for always sounding the same, but he's a producer. I think he's very smart. I think he's very artistic.

Laura 32:32

And I mean, like, that's what producers do.

Bridget 32:35

Like you go to someone wanting a style, yeah. Exactly. And like if you think about Mike Will, every song has Mike Will made it. And like for El Williams, they've all got like producer tags. His is just he uses electronic beats to create a complex soundscape. Sue me. Sue me for liking it. Okay. Um, I also like him because he's a messy bitch. He does seem like a messy bitch, like a small but messy bitch. Yes, he loves gossip. He has been president of the Joe Alwyn Hate Club since at least 2020. He hated that man. I think he's the one who snitched to Taylor about Charlie XX talking shit about her. He was working on a project with her, he hangs out with the 1975, he knows everything that's going on. He's still going after Kanye. He called him a little crybaby bitch.

Laura 33:20

I was hoping that you had a positive opinion of him because I was like, this is gonna be really complicated for Bridget because not only, like all of that aside, yeah, Margaret Qually was high on your list of New Year's resolutions somehow. I'm pleased to hear this.

Bridget 33:36

Yeah, I do like him. I think he is a bit of a kook, though. How did you think he came off in this book? I think what he and Lena had, as Lena tells it, seemed to be a very complex, complicated, and sad relationship. That was not helped by her chronic illnesses. Um, he also has like mental health issues. I think he also lives with OCD. They were together at the height of her fame and at the height of Fun's fame, and then he started working with Taylor on 1989, and that sort of like blew up out of control. I just kind of think everything was sort of against them. I was trying to find some like really gossipy things that Lena said about him, and apart from the comments about the teenage pop star, there wasn't very many.

Laura 34:20

No, and I don't think that's a secret. I think it's just her being like, yeah, I mean, what you guys thought was sort of true. Yeah, probably happening. Yeah, yeah. And if that's the case, as is her right, I think she could have taken a completely like a way more negative stance. Do you want to talk about the PowerPoint?

Bridget 34:37

Oh, yeah.

Laura 34:37

I'm a little bit across it, but I'm not a little bit across it.

Bridget 34:40

Okay. I'm across it. At the time, I could have made my own PowerPoint. A lot of it has left my brain, made room for like important things. Sudoku. But yeah, Sudoku.

Laura 34:50

Because you're also a Lord fan, right?

Bridget 34:52

Melodrama, especially, I loved at the time Melodrama. I think I listened to that probably three months non-stop.

Laura 34:58

And is that the album that she worked on with Jack and off?

Bridget 35:01

Yeah, Melodrama is her second album. For those unfamiliar, The PowerPoint is a fan-made deep dive on the theory that Jack and Lorde had at least an emotional affair while making that album. So that was released in 2017. I mean, I hope that's it for their sake, for his sake, really. Yeah. It was created by a 26-year-old media strategist named Hilary Dale Benton, who said she had grown increasingly suspicious of the alleged friendship. It was shared to various pop culture Facebook groups, and then it went viral on the Facebook group Who Weekly, and then on Twitter and media outlets like The Mashable and The Daily Dot. Apparently, the man who invented PowerPoint has also seen it. And when asked about it, he said, interesting to see the format used for such a purpose.

Laura 35:55

I think you mean Slay. Slay.

Bridget 35:58

I actually disagree with large portions of the PowerPoint. I used to follow James Lowe. So if you don't know James Lowe, he is the predator that Lord used to date. So she was 17, he was about 24. And there was always something quite off with that relationship for me. I don't know what her parents were thinking. I think he's not the first person that Lord has dated who was an adult when she was a child. But I did used to follow him on Instagram. I was looking for clues. As I mentioned before, Melodrama was a very big Bridget album, along with Gone Now, which is Bleach's album that was released in the same year. Interestingly, they were released like two weeks apart. So you would assume that they would be working on them at the same time. And Lord actually co-wrote and sung backing vocals on a song called Don't Take the Money, which in Jack's words is about his relationship with Lena. He says, verses go through the past. Pre-chorus is an explosive fight, and the chorus is that moment when you hit rock bottom and everything is clear. You know that feeling? When you've tried your best to destroy yourself and someone else, but it's too strong to be destroyed. When you've tried to fling you and your partner out of an emotional window, but you keep landing in heaven.

Laura 37:12

I know it well. Yeah, don't we all, Jack? I'm always out that window, but headed straight to heaven.

Bridget 37:18

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know if that's how you would describe a healthy relationship. I think there's many references in the album to things that for me tell me the album is about her ex-boyfriend and not Jack Antinoff. Ultimately, I think they're both massive dorks. They both speak about music the same way, and like no one is on their level, and they have concept albums and it's all high art, and I never know what either one of them is talking about. I think it's performative and pretentious, but does that mean it's an affair?

Laura 37:48

And sometimes, like when you're excluded from the conversation, like you automatically assume it's something nefarious, like just because you don't, it's like that, you know, racists getting confused about like gender inclusion because I don't know what it means.

Bridget 38:00

Yeah, exactly. But also, like, is it an affair? Probably. I mean, I probably wouldn't be happy about it. No, if I was Lena, I think their behavior would be quite dodgy. And if that were Brown, I'd be like, why are you spending so much time with a teenage girl? It's crazy, it is crazy. Yeah. I don't think the songs on melodrama are written about Jack. I think they're written about her life up until that point and like her breakdown and relationship with James. But I do think there was something going on. I just don't think the album is about him. I think that's insane psychotic behaviour to write about the person who is basically your boss, kind of, but not really. And make it with them at the same time. Like that was their music. I mean, different strokes for different folks. I know, but that's kind of crazy. It would be very melodramatic. It would be very melodramatic. I think she's definitely written about him since there was still weird shit going on after Solar Power was released, because I think they work together again on that. And there's this crazy video of them on the top of Electric Lady Studios, just like gurning out together to one of those songs. And then when she released her 2025 album version, no Jack Antinoff to be seen. At the same time, like he's married, he's moved on. It's also become a bit of a black mark to work with Jack Antinoff because then you're getting lumped in with the Taylor Swift music. Um, and at the moment that's a bad thing. I don't know, but there has been a demo of one of her songs from the album David released just this last week for the one-year anniversary of the album, and the lyrics say, I played the show of my life, thought you were in the crowd, so much has changed. I heard you're engaged, but I know you feel it because this is our music. Took every prayer and every bone in our bodies, I release it, all the resentment, it was the season, the rivers will run, our stars will meet again. You weren't in the crowd, heaven in my head, I think you'd be proud.

Laura 39:50

I mean, I'm convinced. I'm convinced as well. I'm so ready. Like I want to be convinced, yeah, and I am.

Bridget 39:56

And the timeline for this does correlate with his engagement to Mark Qually. And I also think it's just very interesting how Taylor Swift kept them both in the divorce. I think she is a professional friend. She's very good at friendships and she's very good at being an adult. She often refers to Jack as her best friend, but she's also quite good friends with Lena Dunham. She was the bridesmaid for Lena Dunham's wedding. Lena Dunham is rumored to have given a speech at Taylor Swift's wedding. It's just very interesting to me how Jack might have done this very bad thing to her, but Lena will still, I don't know, support that friendship. So I to me that tells me it wasn't really that bad. It was just two people growing apart.

Laura 40:38

I think so. And I think that's the sense I got from the book as well. Because like she also moves on into that relationship with that disgusting, really, really gross sounding guy, to be honest. Awful. Like very quickly after the end of their relationship. And I think in the book she's saying, like, it like it was time. That was a chapter that they finally let go of, and it had to happen. I guess really the only other man that we got a scaric of gossip about in this book was Adam Driver. I don't really have anything insightful to say about the quotes about, you know, Adam Driver sort of taking charge of a scene and like throwing a chair against the wall and like sort of being like this really unwieldy, disrespectful, unprofessional, like force of nature on the set of girls. Because alongside that, I guess there's also this kind of star-crossed, like complicated friendship that the two of them seem to have.

Bridget 41:27

Also, when like this book came out and this stuff was hitting the news sites and whatever, I was like, didn't we already know this about Adam Driver? Isn't this old information? I feel like he's known to be a bit difficult.

Laura 41:40

Yeah, I sort of felt the same, but I have done no research into that survive space. I'm not surprised. But that again, like maybe I've conflated him with the character of Adam. He's no one else to me. Like, it's so weird for me still to see him in like Star Wars or whatever. Was that your intro to him, Star Wars? Yeah. And now the love hypothesis film is almost out. What a world we live in. How disappointing. I honestly like, if I were Adam Driver, I would be less concerned about the allegations of me hurling a chair against the wall than the kind of like insipid like attempts at flirting that you seem to be dishing out. I was like, this is embarrassing. This is so embarrassing. Uh, one example is driving home with Adam at dawn and drinking coffee on the Brooklyn Heights promenade, talking about our childhoods and our deepest fears and the way he would look at me, shake his head, and say something laden with meaning or potentially meaningless, like, you're really something else. If that were me, I'd be like, just put me down, give me that horse tranquilizer. I don't want to, especially like if you'd moved on with your life.

Bridget 42:48

And there are passages about like him having a girlfriend, getting engaged a week after, like, kind of saying, like, if I come into your house right now, that's it.

Laura 42:57

I'm not leaving. Yes. And I I thought those passages were so interesting as well because my knee-jerk reaction was to be like, that didn't happen. Same. And I was like, as if Lena. Yeah. Why do I think that? Because I don't know why I think that, and I think that's on me.

Bridget 43:13

I don't know either. I think we're just conditioned to think this way. Also, I love his reaction when asked about it. Have you seen this? I love how he's putting on this like boyish, coy grin, like as if he's the like in the best of spirits about it. And you know, he's just like a silly goofy guy, and he says, Well, you just gotta wait until my book comes out. He'd be chucking chairs.

Laura 43:34

Yeah.

Bridget 43:34

Behind the scenes.

Laura 43:35

He would be chucking chairs. And I don't condone that behaviour.

Bridget 43:38

No.

Laura 43:38

Lena seems okay with it. Yeah. So that's as much as I'm gonna think about it. I know I should think about it more, but I simply won't.

Bridget 43:45

I also listened to uh an episode of the Good Noticings podcast where they talked about this book and they made a very good point in that Lena was the boss. So if that kind of stuff is happening on her set, the buck kind of stops with her. That's true. If this kind of shit is happening for six seasons, then maybe that's on the person running the show.

Laura 44:06

I don't think she painted it as something that was perpetually happening. It was like a one-time thing, but I do think there was like he's like a skittish horse at all times. And I I think he persists in living that way.

Bridget 44:16

Yeah. And also, not to say that a woman is like responsible for a man's poor behaviour, but if you are hiring and firing people and you don't fire that person, then you know, there's things that could have been done about that, I think. Well, we are nearing the end of the episode, and I think there's just one question left for us to ponder. And the question is does Lena Dunham come off well in this book? Is she one up at the end of it?

Laura 44:41

In my eyes, and I'm aware this could age poorly, like at the drop of a hat, she could make it so that this statement is one tie away. Irrevocably tarred me. But I think yes. I think, like I've said a couple of times throughout this episode, like it is impossible for Lena Dunham to be anyone but herself. And that, like, for better or worse, total authenticity shines through so deeply in this novel. There are some bits of the novel that I think like might stick out as being distasteful to some people, like all the different like name-dropping of celebrities, or how she's like, I'm not a Nepo baby, like my parents were only in MoMA, like my dad had to go stay in our second house that we filmed with on a small modest budget of $60,000 in my main house. Like there's things in this book where I'm like, okay, that has the potential to put a bad taste in your mouth, but I sort of feel like to a degree there's not that much point holding celebrities to these like certain points about like nepotism and privilege because they simply like are not capable of understanding it. No, and so I think in like Lena Dunham's universe, it's not nepotism, it's not nepotism because her parents were only making art that was in MoMA. Yeah, like Alison Williams' dad was only on the news.

Bridget 46:00

Yeah, and to be fair to Lena Dunham, if I was creating a TV show, I would be like picking my friends as well. Like Jemima Kirk, her connection as Lena, and I'd be like, hey Laura, be in my show.

Laura 46:11

I would be honored. And so I I kind of liked that. I was like, you know what? It just felt very like all bets are off. I'm just telling it like it is. I'm telling the brutal, honest truth, and I loved it.

Bridget 46:24

Yeah. How about you? What did you think? My immediate thought was is she capable of coming off well? I think she is compelled to write, she is compelled to create, she is compelled to tell stories, and I enjoy them. So for me, yeah, she did, but I 100% agree with you. Next week, there will probably be something. I've noticed that she's like amping up her TikTok presence. Yes. And I'm worried for her.

Laura 46:47

It's a sense of foreboding, yeah. At this time, good job, Lena. You're up, you're one up. Yeah, at the time of recording, 4th of July.

Bridget 46:57

Yeah, but we will wait and see.

Laura 47:00

It's actually the wording of the question, like, does she come off well? Is intriguing because she actually comes off really poorly. Yes. But I like it. In comparison, though, yeah, to what she could have come off could be so much worse.

SPEAKER_01 47:15

It is a time-honored tradition for us to read Smart in August. So next month we are hitting the ice once more and visiting the world of Briar U in the Deal by L. Kennedy. Have your say on what we read next by keeping an eye on the link in our show notes and on our socials. Make sure you subscribe to the show, and if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklet.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.