Colin Sheridan: Has the world finally caught up with Lena Dunham's vision?

Lena Dunham's Girls changed how we watched television. As her new memoir is released, Colin Sheridan asks whether the rest of the world has finally caught up

Maybe Lena Dunham had absorbed a disproportionate share of public backlash, arriving at precisely the moment when audiences were least prepared for what she was offering. Photo: StillMoving

There was a time when television insisted on flattering us — soft lighting, cleaner endings, characters who behaved just plausibly enough to let us off the hook. Then along came a voice that seemed not only uninterested in that illusion, but actively determined to dismantle it.

The re-emergence of Lena Dunham — this time via her new memoir — offers a useful moment to reconsider this idea. Not because Dunham has suddenly changed, but because the culture around her has. Or at least, it claims to have.