Louis CK was able to separate himself from Louie, yet Lena Dunham was always identified with her Girls character

Vulture

Dunham, thanks to Girls, “was completely collapsed into her art,” says Kathryn VanArendonk, resulting in her being pigeonholed as the voice of her millennial generation. Meanwhile, Louis CK “never had the burden of his art being fundamentally rooted in his identity," says VanArendonk. "His show was seen as a brilliant artistic transformation of himself. It promised us he was seeing himself clearly, and he was making a joke about who he was. We believed him.” VanArendonk adds that, even though Louie and Louis CK were virtually alike, the comedian “was allowed to hide in plain sight, given the benefit of a doubt that he was actually someone different than the character of himself he portrayed. The art never fully collapsed into the person; likewise, CK (and Louie) never had to carry the burden of representing an entire class of people. Louie got to live in a vacuum, and so did Louis.”

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