PHILADELPHIA — Lena Dunham has emerged as one of Hillary Clinton’s preferred and most frequently deployed celebrity surrogates but never more than she was on Tuesday night at the Democratic National Convention.
“According to Donald Trump, my body is probably, like, a 2,” Dunham told the crowd at the Wells Fargo Center. “We know what you’re all thinking: What should we care what some celebrity has to say about politics?”
Dunham and fellow actress and liberal activist America Ferrera went on to explain why they’re “with Hillary,” two words they declared in unison from the convention-hall stage.
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“Donald Trump and his party think I should be punished for exercising my constitutional rights,” Dunham said, stressing that Trump’s rhetoric “takes us back to a time when [women] were meant to be beautiful and silent.”
“[Hillary Clinton] knows we have to fight hatred of all kinds,” she continued. “As Hillary Clinton says, ‘Deal us in.’”
Dunham enjoyed a primetime speaking gig as prominent as the ones offered to Elizabeth Banks on Tuesday and Sarah Silverman, Eva Longoria, and Demi Lovato the night before. In one sense it shouldn’t be surprising that star of Girls would make the case for Clinton to young women. After all, she’s already done cozy interviews with Clinton, cut videos, and written essays for the Democratic nominee.
But Dunham has had a large role behind the scenes, too.
The actress and the Clinton campaign have discussed everything from fundraising to helping to rally together more celebrity support for the campaign. Dunham is valued by Clinton’s Hollywood liaison apparatus due to the belief (however grounded in reality or not) that she can push the “feminist case” for Clinton while at the same time advancing their millennial outreach efforts, according to a Clinton official.
“She is one of the [celebrities] we’ve been in touch with the most during the campaign,” a senior Clinton campaign official told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “She has taken on an even greater role than we had expected. It’s her part-time gig, and then some.”
