‘Girls’ Producers Suffer ‘Rage Spiral’ When Reporter Asks Why There’s So Much Nudity

Well, here's a little firestorm I didn't see coming. Speaking on a panel at a Television Critics association even in Pasadena, the producers of the hit HBO comedy girls totally lost their sh*t and went into a self-described "rage spiral" when a reporter asked star and creator Lena Dunham why there was so much nudity on the program. Then they gave him quite the lecture from executive producers Jenni Konner and Judd Apatow, who called the guy a sexist and a misogynist.

Here are the exact words, according to Entertainment Weekly:

I don't get the purpose of all the nudity on the show—by [Dunham] in particularly. I feel like I'm walking into a trap where you go, ‘Nobody complains about all the nudity on Game of Thrones,' but I get why they do it. They do it to be salacious and titillate people. And your character is often nude at random times for no reason.

On the surface, the guy seems to be asking a legitimate question. Have you seen the show? For every scene with people actually having sex, there's one with Dunham naked and eating cake on a toilet, or naked and playing ping pong, or naked and sending a text message. Meanwhile, over on Game of Thrones, the goal is obvious: boners for everybody! So this guy might just be trying to ask, if not for the sake of boners, why the nudity?

Now, to me, it's obvious that Dunham and company are just trying to be as authentic as possible, because hey, real people do random stuff naked. And sure enough, that was pretty much her response. But I can see how, to a Never Nude, the nudity would seem "pointless." So maybe this guy was just trying to get them to address that.

However, it's quite obvious that everyone on the panel believed the question to be implying, "the only reason a woman should be naked on TV is to arouse men."

Unfortunately, I wasn't there so I just don't know. Simply reading the man's words I cannot conclude for sure that there was a misogynistic undertone. However, it's certainly possible that his tone and inflection conveyed as much, and that's certainly how Apatow, Konner, and Dunham heard it. So maybe it's even likely that this really was a misogynistic question. But I'm certainly not going to make the call.

What do you think, oh wise and powerful internet?