It’s a wonder that Lena Dunham and Samantha Bee have only just met. After all, the vulgar writer/actress and comedian/talk-show host are cut from the same progressive, feminist cloth.
But the anticipation of Bee’s Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner special finally brought them together in a New York City interview published by The Hollywood Reporter. During the duo’s conversation, Dunham talked with late night’s only female host about life in the Trump era and her experience with her TBS show Full Frontal.
“You go on camera every week and stick it to the man harder than anybody else,” Dunham began, referencing Bee’s anti-conservative rants. “You act as if you're explaining something to your blind, deaf and dumb grandfather at Thanksgiving. Are you ever scared?”
Bee, who is notoriously blunt and crude, responded that she was no longer worried. “We were nervous at first, but we were like, "Oh, f—k it, we're too old to worry,” she explained. “If it gets canceled, we'll say 'c—t' on television, and we'll go be farmers."
Freedom seems to be Bee’s hallmark—she wants few restrictions on what she can say. And that, in fact, is another trait she shares with Dunham. The latter’s TV show Girls—filled with sex, nudity and offensive language—aired on HBO, the cable network known for having few boundaries.
As Bee puts it, she doesn’t have “too many f—ks left to give.”
On April 29, she’ll host a Full Frontal special episode spoofing the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an annual event which President Trump has chosen not to attend this year.
“Really the night is intended to be a celebration of the free press, because obviously it’s tremendously under attack,” Bee explained.
On that note, Dunham wondered how Bee dealt with “trying to create satire and comedy” out of news that had “real terror to it.”
The talk show host went hyperbolic in her response: “Everything is a potential tragedy.”
But ultimately, Bee didn’t have answers when Dunham asked for guidance. “How can we — people who are reading The Hollywood Reporter, who are in the business — use our voices?”
“I really don’t know,” Bee responded.
“That was basically just me coming to you as, like, a fetus and begging you for help,” Dunham returned.
Strange wording indeed from a woman who said she'd wished she'd had an abortion so she could better empathize. And furthermore, a woman who clearly believes that a fetus isn't worthy of rights.
