'It's too sexually focused': Actress and feminist Lily Tomlin accuses HBO's Girls of teaching young women how to be 'used'



Actress and comedian Lily Tomlin has criticized HBO's Girls for being 'too sexually focused'.

The 73-year-old feminist, who plays Tina Fey’s radical mother in the upcoming film, Admissions, told Vanity Fair that the show 'should have a little more range.'

'I don’t like that [sexuality] is put on teenyboppers and young girls. They should be developing themselves in a different way than just being sexually accessible. Or looking good,' she said.

Too sexually focused? Actress and comedian Lily Tomlin has criticized HBO's Girls for being 'too sexually focused' and that it 'should have a little more range'

Ms Tomlin, who famously said on the Johnny Carson Show in 1973 that she 'likes children but doesn't want to bear' her own, explained that as feminism has progressed, young women - unwisely - have let themselves become too 'accessible.'



'A lot of young girls - they’re expected to give blow jobs now. Young, young girls, as far as I can perceive. Maybe 12 or 13 years old. I mean, that’s a rite of passage, I suppose. As a feminist, I don’t want those girls to be used.

Lily Tomlin: The 73-year-old plays Tina Fey¿s radical mother in the upcoming film, Admissions

'Maybe they love giving blow jobs, I don’t know. Maybe they do? But I don’t think you really love giving boys in general blow jobs without any feeling to someone you’re not close to. I don’t try to speak for people that young. I’m not that young anymore. But my own sense of self—I wouldn’t give myself away that easily,' she said.

'But the sexuality is what is going to bring the big audience, and a lot of young girls, I suppose, puzzling over what to do and what not to do or how to do it. Life is very different from the time when I was 20 and the time Lena is.'

Girls, created by 26-year-old Lena Dunham, is about four women in their twenties who are trying to grow up. Or at least trying to figure out how to grow up.

Many critics, who praise the show for confronting the harder questions surrounding today's generation of women, as well as its mostly realistic portrayals of twenty-something life in New York , disagree with Ms Tomlin.

Sarah Nicole Prickett , 26, who critics Girls for Bullett .com , believes Ms Tomlin is slightly out of touch.



She told MailOnline: 'I deeply enjoy giving blow jobs, yeah, especially when I like the guy.



'More importantly, my sense of self isn't located in my throat like Linda Lovelace's clitoris!'



Gloria Steinem, a feminist icon who was the media spokeswoman for the Sixties and Seventies women's liberation movement, has also praised the show.



'I am so relieved to see real people saying real words and wearing real clothes,' she told Vulture .

And Elaine Blair, who wrote an essay on the show for The New York Review of Books, agrees.

She wrote last year, before the start of season two: 'For all of its emphasis on sexual and romantic experience, Girls never suggests that a smoothly pleasant sex life is something worthy of serious aspiration.



Show's praise: Many critics, who praise the show for confronting harder questions surrounding young women today, as well as its realistic portrayals of twenty-something life in New York, disagree with Ms Tomlin

Feminist fans: Gloria Steinem, who was the media spokeswoman for the Sixties and Seventies women's liberation movement, has also praised the show

Open for discussion: Emily Nussbaum, who reviewed Girls for The New Yorker, explained how the harshness of the show's sexual thread can positively make private pain public, and embarrassing stories funny

Girls: The HBO show follows four twenty-something young women in New York, fresh out of Oberlin College as they struggle to ease into adult life



'The ultimate prize to be wrung from all of these baffling sexual predicaments is a deeper understanding of oneself,' she add.



Meanwhile Emily Nussbaum, who reviewed Girls for The New Yorker , explained how the harshness of the show's sexual thread can positively make private pain public, and embarrassing stories funny.

