HBO is reportedly reviving Lena Dunham's Girls with a five-episode reboot set to begin production next summer, according to GQ. The announcement has dragged one of the most uncomfortable episodes of Dunham's career back into the spotlight: her 2014 memoir, in which she falsely accused a Republican of raping her.
Breitbart editor-in-chief Alex Marlow raised the matter on The Alex Marlow Show, pointing out that the woman HBO is now celebrating put out a memoir a decade ago where she falsely accused a Republican of rape.
She put out a memoir 10 years ago where she falsely accused a Republican of rape. She said she got raped by a... — Alex Marlow, The Alex Marlow Show
The accusation was widely reported at the time and was, by Dunham's own account, a mistake. In Not That Kind of Girl, Dunham described a sexual encounter during her college years involving a man she identified as "Barry" — later reported to be a fellow Oberlin student named Barry Marcus — and wrote that the encounter was not consensual, while also describing herself as a willing participant who had initiated it.
Once the passage drew scrutiny, Dunham walked the accusation back publicly. The man at the center of it was a Republican, and the false allegation became a talking point on the right for years. Marlow's point on his show was simple: Dunham did real damage to a real person with a claim she later withdrew, and the entertainment industry has never treated that as disqualifying.
GQ's coverage of the reboot is, characteristically, focused on which of the show's male characters might return. The outlet noted that Andrew Rannells is set to return and that Adam Driver and Christopher Abbott — the show's breakout male stars — have no announced involvement. GQ's piece is a playful speculation about where Adam, Charlie, Ray and Desi might be a decade later; it does not address the memoir episode at all.
Dunham has not commented publicly on Marlow's remarks. It is not known when the reboot will air beyond the reported production start next summer, and HBO has not announced a premiere date.
The reboot news lands in a cultural moment when the entertainment industry's treatment of false accusations is under renewed scrutiny. The man Dunham accused — a private individual, not a public figure — has never received an apology in the format in which the accusation was made. Dunham's retraction came in interviews and statements, not in a revision to the memoir's central passage.
For conservatives, the episode is a reminder of how the media ecosystem of the 2010s worked: an accusation from a celebrity with a book to sell could destroy a person's reputation, and the retraction, when it came, merited a fraction of the attention. Marlow's show on the Salem Radio Network reaches a national audience, and the clip is circulating online.
HBO's decision to bring Dunham back is a business decision. Whether it is a smart one is a separate question — and one the network's subscribers will answer with their wallets.
Our Take
Here's what the entertainment press won't say out loud: Lena Dunham accused a man of rape in a bestselling book, the accusation collapsed under scrutiny, and the man's name is still attached to it in every archive that matters. He was a Republican. That detail is the reason the story got the traction it did on the right, but it's not the reason it should matter to everyone.
What should matter is the asymmetry. An accusation from a celebrity is a weapon. A retraction is a footnote. Dunham moved on to book tours, magazine covers and now a reboot. The man she named moved on to a life where his name is permanently searchable next to a crime he didn't commit — and no one at HBO seems to think that's worth a sentence in the press release.
This is the same industry that spent years telling Americans it had learned lessons about due process, about presumption of innocence, about the cost of getting these things wrong. It hadn't. It had learned which accusations were useful and which were not. Dunham's was useful, until it wasn't, and then it was forgotten. The revival of her career is the proof.
If HBO wants to reboot Girls, that's HBO's call. But patriots should remember the pattern: the people who build careers on false accusations get second acts, and the people they accuse get a lifetime of explaining. Ask yourself why the man's name is still in the book and Dunham's is on the marquee.
