Lena Dunham responds to criticism of lack of diversity on ‘Girls’

Lena Dunham knows “Girls” has its flaws.

The actress and producer, 39, addressed the lack of diversity on her hit HBO series in a new interview with The Independent.

“I think one of the profound issues around ‘Girls’ was that there was so little real estate for women in television [then] 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 explained.

“And so if it’s not reflecting a multitude of experiences, I understand how that would be really disappointing to people,” she added.

Dunham was the mastermind behind “Girls,” which followed a group of four young women (played by Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke and Zosia Mamet) who live in New York.

The series, which starred mostly white actors, ran from 2012 to 2017.

Dunham told The Independent that she “liked the conversation around ‘Girls’” because it was important to have, and now she’s used those lessons on her new Netflix series, “Too Much,” that has a more diverse cast.

“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,” Dunham 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,” she shared.

Dunham previously defended “Girls” from its critics the year it came out.

“I am a half-Jew, half-WASP, and I wrote two Jews and two WASPs,” she told NPR’s “Fresh Air” in 2012. “Something I wanted to avoid was tokenism in casting.”

She continued: “If I had one of the four girls — if, for example, she was African American, I feel like, not that the experience of an African American girl and a white girl are drastically different, but there has to be specificity to that experience [that] I wasn’t able to speak to.”

In a recent interview with The Times, Dunham spoke about how she took an “international break” from acting after “Girls” ended.

“I didn’t really understand how to distinguish between what was and wasn’t necessary for the public. I felt confused about how I was supposed to respond,” she recalled. “I thought if I explain properly who I am, or give a glimpse of who I am, people are going to have a different perception of me, that we would be friends. But no one cares — and that’s fine.”

“I always joke that I need a T-shirt that says, ‘I survived New York media in 2012 and all I got was this lousy T-shirt,’” Dunham joked, adding, “And all I got was this lousy PTSD.”