Writers are often told that, when it comes to the act of artistic creation, one should "write what you know." And yet, when it comes to the art I value most, I tend to be more intrigued and even sometimes moved by works in which an artist not only depicts what he or she knows, but also tries to step outside of themselves and imagine characters and situations outside of their usual purview.

I've thought a lot about this issue ever since I saw Lena Dunham's 2010 feature Tiny Furniture, which won top honors at South by Southwest two years ago and which has since inspired its fair share of spilled ink, especially from those firmly on the "con" side. I've always been rather baffled by the charges of narcissism that have plagued this immensely talented writer-director since Tiny Furniture exploded on the independent film scene; apparently, one person's bracingly honest self-examination is another's insufferable navel-gazing. But really, where's the point at which unsparing self-awareness lapses into the kind of self-absorption that no one except the filmmaker would really care about? What distinguishes one from the other? Continue Reading »