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Lena Dunham: Women In Hollywood "Just Can't Win"

Photo: Steve Granitz/WireImage.
It's no secret that Lena Dunham's body has undergone a lot of criticism since Girls premiered in 2012. Even if you don't love the HBO show, or support everything Dunham's done, we can all agree that body-shaming is never okay.
Critiques of Dunham's body have always been an unfortunate part of the larger conversation around Girls. (It's a real shame, because there are so many nuanced arguments to make about the show.) The star's weight has been criticized by trolls for years — and more recently, there were a number of headlines celebrating her reported weight loss.
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Dunham has been vocal about working out with Tracy Anderson — but she's also made it clear that she's not exercising to lose weight. Still, it seems like the conversation always turns back to her appearance.
Dunham was a guest on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Wednesday, and she explained to the host the struggles she's faced in Hollywood over the years.
"It's just so crazy, because I spent six years of my career being called things like 'bag of milk' on the internet… I never felt self conscious about it. Anyone who was going to take the time to say something negative about my weight on the internet wasn't someone I was particularly keen to impress anyway," Dunham said to DeGeneres. "But then, I had this experience of my body changing and suddenly I got all these people being like, 'You're a hypocrite! I thought you were body positive! I thought you were a person who embraces bodies of all sizes!' And I was like, I do, I just understand that bodies change. We live a long time. Things happen."
"It really was evidence that as a woman in Hollywood, you just can't win," Dunham told DeGeneres. The host agreed, saying people can be discriminatory "if they think you're too heavy or too thin."
Dunham hit the nail on the head — can we all just stop talking about her body, please?

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