The Men are Not Enough

Lena Dunham’s hit new Netflix show, Too Much, is a heteropessimist farce dressed up as a romcom

Content warning: emotional abuse, sexual abuse, all the spoilers

I admire Lena Dunham. I think she is a highly talented writer and actor and director. Dunham may not be the voice of our generation, when it comes to millennial women: but she is at least a voice of a generation, to quote her character of Hannah Horvath from Dunham’s first major vehicle, HBO’s Girls, which is currently undergoing a revival among Gen Z. The episode that saw Hannah visiting the apartment of a famous writer, Chuck Palmer, to interview him and press him about his sexual misconduct, is one of the best pieces of art made to date on #MeToo—and it came out several months before the #MeToo moment. It’s a brilliant indictment of privileged men’s sense of being victimized by those who tell the truth about their misdeeds.

The backstory to the episode: Hannah, a writer herself—much younger and not yet famous—has published a piece on an obscure feminist website about Palmer’s sexual exploitation of young women during his speaking tours on US college campuses. Palmer sees himself, of course, as the target of a witch hunt, and presents himself as the vulnerable one—a pariah now racked with anxiety and in danger of losing his livelihood. After a tense beginning, Hannah and Palmer begin to swap stories, and bond over a book she pulls down from his shelf: Philip Roth’s When She Was Good. Hannah remarks that it had an alternate title: American Bitch (also the title of the episode). Palmer gives Hannah his signed copy on the spot—a little reward for not being one. Shortly afterward, he prevails on her to lie down next to him in bed: he’s lonely; he’s not sleeping well; he just wants to feel close to someone. They are both fully clothed and his back is turned to Hannah. It’s not a sexual situation. And then suddenly, without warning, he turns around, jeans unzipped, and rubs himself against her. She participates for a moment, before yelling in disgust and humiliation, “I touched your dick!” repeatedly. Palmer grins sardonically. He has won and he knows it. He has shown Hannah how he manages to coerce young women into sex not by overriding their will, but by harnessing their himpathy.

Dunham’s latest venture, Too Much, is just as darkly funny and sharp as Girls at its best. It’s marketed as a romcom. But it’s more a commentary on other terrible men and the tragedy of heterosexuality.