Lena Dunham knows Girls' lack of diversity was "disappointing" to people

Dunham understands that people may have been let down when Girls didn't represent "all the girls in all the places."

By Emma Keates  |  July 7, 2025 | 9:43am
Screenshot: HBO
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Lena Dunham knows Girls' lack of diversity was
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With a name like Girls, it’s reasonable to expect a show to represent a wide swath of girls’ experiences. Girls, of course, largely didn’t do that, choosing instead to focus on four white girls living in New York City. Creator and star Lena Dunham previously defended this choice, saying in 2012 that she was “half-Jew, half-WASP” and wanted to avoid “tokenism in casting,” per The Hollywood Reporter. 

Now, she understands that there may have been a bit more middle ground. “I think one of the profound issues around Girls was that there was so little real estate for women in television that if you had a show called Girls, which is such a monolithic name, it sounds like it’s describing all the girls in all the places,” Dunham recently told The Independent. “And so if it’s not reflecting a multitude of experiences, I understand how that would be really disappointing to people.”

Dunham isn’t the only former Girl to reflect on some of the show’s shortcomings more than a decade after its premiere. Allison Williams, who starred as Marnie, recently opined that the show could have benefited from an intimacy coordinator, telling the Not Skinny But Not Fat podcast that Dunham and Jenni Konner (a writer and producer) blocked and directed most of the show’s “many” sex scenes themselves. 

Luckily, it sounds like all this experience helped Dunham make some changes for the better in her new show, Too Much. “The thing I have really come to believe is that one of the most important things is not just diversity in front of the camera, but it’s diversity behind the camera,” she said. “As a producer, one of my goals is to bring a lot of different voices into a position where they can tell their story.”

Dunham is mostly behind the camera this time around. Too Much instead focuses on Meg Stalter and Will Sharpe, along with a large ensemble cast including Kit Harrington, Andrew Scott, Emily Ratajkowski, Aylin Scott, and more. Too Much premieres July 10 on Netflix. Check out the trailer below:

 
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