The NY Post’s Linda Stasi is known mostly for her “opinionated” writing. As Alyssa Rosenberg of Slate notes, Stasi, let it all hang out in her review of the second season of BHB Ten 2012 member Lena Dunham’s Girls, which begins airing Sunday on HBO:
Slate: At the New York Post, Linda Stasi let loose an impressively nasty review of the second season, bringing up Hollywood’s obsessive standards about women’s bodies as an excuse to express her disgust for Dunham’s. While many writers have insisted that what bothers them about Girls is the degrading positions (sexual and otherwise) its characters find themselves in, Stasi both complains about those circumstances, and makes it clear she’s disgusted with Dunham herself: “It’s not every day in the TV world of anorexic actresses with fake boobs that a woman with giant thighs, a sloppy backside and small breasts is compelled to show it all,” she wrote. “It’s a boon for the out-of-shape, and perhaps a giant economic loss for high-end gyms, especially in Brooklyn.” Reactions like Stasi’s—and the presumption that the primary and most important function of any woman who appears on screen is to be sexually attractive to the audience—are exactly why it’s rare to see bodies like Dunham’s on television.
Mareesa Brown of The Stir adds:
The Stir: Stasi goes on to say Lena’s appearance is “a boon for the out-of-shape, and perhaps a giant economic loss for high-end gyms.” She can’t seem to wrap her head around the fact that “Adam as well as another man are now obsessed with [Lena’s character, Hannah] and can’t get enough of her blobby body” or the other fact that “the gorgeous Marnie is the one who is now totally unlucky in love.” Wow. Is this woman utterly clueless or what?…
…It may be too much for someone like Linda Stasi to handle, but the more people start seeing more seriously real-looking women like Lena on TV, maybe we won’t have to worry about so many “Girls” and women suffering from eating disorders and poor body image. And for that, Lena deserves more than a standing ovation.
And of course folks voiced their disgust on the social media:
