Lena Dunham Plans Children's Movie With Incest & Beatings

Lena Dunham, who recently revealed acting as a “sexual predator” towards her younger sister in her book, Not That Kind of Girl, is set to make the children’s book Catherine, Called Birdy, into a film. The book, written in 1994 by Karen Cushman, tells the story of Birdy, a 14 year old girl living in Medieval times, whose father is intent on her marrying a suitor of his choosing.

Dunham revealed her plans for the film at the New Yorker festival in New York in October. Said Dunham:

It’s hyper realistic and really pretty and it’s full of incest and beatings, but it’s a child’s story.

I’ve been obsessed with it since I was a kid.

Currently Dunham does not have funding for the film and, given the backlash she is receiving from fans and others over her treatment of her sister, it would be surprising if anyone stepped forward to allow her to make a movie for children.

For now, it appears Dunham will be busy attempting to get back at those quoting her book. After canceling part of her European book tour, Dunham threatened to sue the website, Truth Revolt, for publishing direct quotes from Not That Kind of Girl, which her lawyers call “false and defamatory.”

The book excerpts at Truth Revolt, that Dunham’s lawyers believe to be untrue are:

“Do we all have uteruses?” I asked my mother when I was seven.

“Yes,” she told me. “We’re born with them, and with all our eggs, but they start out very small. And they aren’t ready to make babies until we’re older.”

I looked at my sister, now a slim, tough one-year-old, and at her tiny belly. I imagined her eggs inside her, like the sack of spider eggs in Charlotte’s Web, and her uterus, the size of a thimble.

“Does her vagina look like mine?”

“I guess so,” my mother said. “Just smaller.”

One day, as I sat in our driveway in Long Island playing with blocks and buckets, my curiosity got the best of me. Grace was sitting up, babbling and smiling, and I leaned down between her legs and carefully spread open her vagina. She didn’t resist, and when I saw what was inside I shrieked. “My mother came running. “Mama, Mama! Grace has something in there!”

My mother didn’t bother asking why I had opened Grace’s vagina. This was within the spectrum of things that I did. She just got on her knees and looked for herself. It quickly became apparent that Grace had stuffed six or seven pebbles in there. My mother removed them patiently while Grace cackled, thrilled that her prank had been such a success.

As she grew, I took to bribing her for her time and affection: one dollar in quarters if I could do her makeup like a “motorcycle chick.” Three pieces of candy if I could kiss her on the lips for five seconds. Whatever she wanted to watch on TV if she would just “relax on me.” Basically, anything a sexual predator might do to woo a small suburban girl I was trying.

I shared a bed with my sister, Grace, until I was seventeen years old. She was afraid to sleep alone and would begin asking me around 5:00 P.M. every day whether she could sleep with me. I put on a big show of saying no, taking pleasure in watching her beg and sulk, but eventually I always relented. Her sticky, muscly little body thrashed beside me every night as I read Anne Sexton, watched reruns of SNL, sometimes even as I slipped my hand into my underwear to figure some stuff out.