as girls heads into its fifth -- and penultimate -- season, it's hard to believe that the show's creator and star, lena dunham, has only been on our screens for four years (six if you count the release of her beloved indie film, tiny furniture). From wonderfully capturing post-recession millennial angst on the show to championing body positivity, reproductive rights and feminism in both the interviews she gives and lenny, the newsletter she started with her girls co-showrunner jenni konner, dunham's impact on hollywood and pop culture would be impressive for anyone, and is all the more so for an actress and writer who hasn't even cracked 30. For this cover story, we wanted to have her be interviewed by someone equally as bold and as committed to social justice in her life and work. There's perhaps no better example of this in tinseltown than jane fonda, whose storied acting career of starring in boundary-pushing films like coming home, klute, on golden pond and barbarella as well as, most recently, the hit netflix show grace and frankie, is complemented by her history of activism, ranging from speaking out against the vietnam war and violence against women to promoting adolescent reproductive health and women's visibility in the media. In the conversation that follows, dunham and fonda explore everything from feminism and motherhood to hollywood sexism and dangerous women.
Jane fonda: So, listen, let me ask you some questions -- this is so weird 'cause i wish i really knew you.
Lena dunham: I wish i really knew you, too, and this is going to be my impetus for making sure that i take you out to dinner, and also please don't be alarmed if i throw a question back at you 'cause you're too interesting not to.
Fonda: Ok, it's a deal. We're going to become friends. So as an elderly woman who has entered tv, i'm curious to know whether you think tv is a better medium for women than film?
Dunham: Well, firstly, to hear jane fonda use the term "elderly" in any context does not sit quite right with my ears.
Fonda: I know what you mean, but i'm a week away from 78, but in my soul i'm about 20.
Dunham: I think you've completely redefined the essence of what it means to age. It's funny, every stressful thing you've done in your life has paradoxically made you fierier and look younger, so i'm hoping that will happen to me.
Fonda: Well, it's all the stressful and bad stuff that happens that makes us better actually. So what do you think about tv as opposed to film for women?
Dunham: I think that you're 100% spot-on [that tv is a better medium for women]. When i first came to hollywood and started having these meetings with film executives after i'd made tiny furniture, the things that were being offered to me had absolutely nothing to do with what i had made or who i was. It was only when i started talking to television executives and talking to the people at hbo that i felt there was actually a place for the kind of work that i make. We started making girls five years ago and there were some amazing female-driven shows [then], but [so much has] sprung up in the time that we have been working -- and you and lily [tomlin] doing grace and frankie is really the apotheosis of it, which is that there gets to be an entire story in which women who are divorced and women who are grappling with aging and who are no longer bearing children are the actual central subject of a television show, and it's beautiful and it's refreshing and it's necessary. And it's very rare that we see that in a film, especially in a film that's being financed in any sort of mainstream way. Have you found that? Did you feel that there weren't enough parts for you in the film world before you signed onto grace and frankie?
Fonda: In the '70s when i'd become an activist i thought, "i just don't want to make the kind of films that are being offered me" so i started making my own. That was when i was the happiest. But then i left the business for 15 years and when i came back, it was a really different place. The studios made coming home and 9 to 5 and all those movies i produced -- on golden pond, although we could barely get money for on golden pond…you could never make those movies with studios today.
Dunham: Which is unbelievable. You've played some of the greatest female characters. My friend zoe kazan and i were just talking about coming home as an example of one of the films that makes you think, "oh, there is a space for me and there's parts for me and there's exciting work for me."
fonda: What do you think has changed, lena?
Dunham: Well, i think you would have the clearest perspective, but something happened where suddenly 14-year-old boys started running our economy, and i don't know how that happened considering it's not a realistic reflection of what the population is or what the population wants. But, nonetheless, here we have it and so suddenly a studio doesn't understand the use for a movie with a strong, complicated female lead like coming home or klute.
Fonda: Also the bottom line, more than ever, is affected by international sales and the fact is that internationally, action movies with male leads are what make money. And to a huge extent, that's where studios look now.
Dunham: But the fact that you and lily are re-teamed in grace and frankie and two huge movie stars want to go to television -- and television that's broadcast via the internet -- and to share their story there, there's no clearer indicator of a shift in the industry than that, because twenty years ago, there was no world where you two would've ever been on television.
Fonda: It's interesting why actors are on television -- it's because we follow the word and the good writers now are going to television more than they used to be. Don't you think?
Dunham: That's so interesting.
Fonda: Including you.
Dunham: Well, thank you.
Fonda: Let's talk about sexuality, because when i started making movies, married people on the screen slept in separate beds.
Dunham: Yeah. [laughs] my grandparents did in real life.
Fonda: Do you think america has gotten less squeamish about female sexuality?
Dunham: Firstly, you've done some of the greatest depictions of it. My friend and i were talking about coming home in the context of the sex scene when your character has her first orgasm and she cries and it was one of the first depictions of a female engaging with her sexuality in a way that felt honest and raw and realistic and not sugarcoated. Those naturalistic, woman-powered films of the '70s have affected what we're doing on television -- it can't be underestimated. And i think when people watch our show, it's half excitement about seeing realistic sexuality reflected back at them and half gawking and i've decided to just not discriminate and to feel that anybody who's watching for whatever reason, that is ultimately a net gain that they're getting something that isn't p*rn*gr*phy or isn't perfectly whitewashed, glossy sex piped into their brains. We live in a less puritanical society (but) the christian right is leading the minds of half of our country -- i'm not statistically getting that perfectly correct, but it is really possible to sometimes feel like you're living in salem but then it's also possible to feel like you're living in haight-ashbury. It just depends on who you talk to!
Fonda: I narrated a documentary that turner classic movies did a number of years ago and it was called dangerous women and it showed how before the nielsen ratings, and the censors, mae west, barbara stanwyck, there were all of these women who were so sexual and so dangerous and hot that were leads in major motion pictures, right? And then when the nielsen ratings came up in the '50s, all that was done away with. And it's like television, led by you, in particular, is bringing back a new kind of dangerous woman. It's very interesting.
Dunham: I felt that when i was watching your show and seeing the fact that these women are at this point in their life and they're still contemplating and trying to understand their own sexuality and they're not packing it in, it's such an important thing to see and i feel like i've only seen that ever vaguely reflected in a french film. It's a totally new place for television to be going.
Fonda: In the second season, grace has never used a vibrator and somebody gives her one and she comes downstairs with a brace on her hand -- she's used it so much it's made her arthritis flare up.
Dunham: That's incredible! [laughs]
fonda: I know, it's really funny. When did you start identifying as a feminist?
Dunham: I grew up with a mother who had come of age in the '70s and feminism was a huge part of her formative identity, and so for as long as i can remember words holding power in our household, that was one of the most powerful ones. She was really involved with a feminist group called the new york downtown women's action coalition, and she spent an extraordinary amount of time getting in buses, traveling to protect abortion clinics that were being picketed by religious extremists and she was always so focused on those issues -- and not just the big political issues but also the subtle issues of equality in the workplace, the subtle ways that we're dismissed by men in creative fields. So i think that she instilled it in me so deeply and i sort of thought, okay, she did the job and now the job is done and i just get to call myself a feminist and revel in what my mom did. And until i came to hollywood and started witnessing the subtle but totally systemic sexism that pervades our industry, that's when i really turned my attention to it again in a powerful way and it became a huge part of my adult identity and not just my inherited identity.
. I'm sorry, but you must know what suits your physique, and what doesn't. Luckily was clever enough to disguise it with a marvelous coat.
