20 Questions Gone Wrong

Question and answers are a great way to get to know each other, but putting them as an article did not work for Lena Dunham's interview with Playboy.

In the rather jumpy article, we get to know more about the woman behind the new hit series 'Girls' in many different ways. The first couple questions are the ones that would be expected about the show and the explicit sex that comes with it. In that sense, I think Playboy succeeded in trying to get more unique questions as compared to 'how do you come up with the sex scenes' and 'was it weird to film these'.

One question I have to give them credit for is asking about writing men's characters as a female writer. Dunham came across as very interested in this question and gave a great response:

"It’s important to me to create fully formed characters who don’t feel just like good guys, villains, creeps or sluts. I want it to feel real. I want my male friends to feel just as much of a connection to my work as my female friends do."

Another interesting question followed shortly after:

Playboy: If you woke up tomorrow in the body of a Victoria’s Secret model, what would you do for the rest of the day?

Dunham: I’d be really disoriented and wonder what had happened in the night. Which enemy had dragged me to the doctor? I don’t think I’d like it very much. There would be all kinds of weird challenges to deal with that I don’t have to deal with now. I don’t want to go through life wondering if people are talking to me because I have a big rack. Not being the babest person in the world creates a nice barrier. The people who talk to you are the people who are interested in you. It must be a big burden in some ways to look that way and be in public. That said, I probably would want to see if I could get free food at restaurants. Then I’d call a doctor and see if she could return me to my former situation.

I found this to be a controversial and amazing question on Playboy's part. Dunham is not a woman with a smaller body type. She has tattoos, a stomach and boobs. It is not like 'Sex and the City' where all the women are thin and model-like; Dunham is a normal sized woman doing sex scenes on HBO. It is something I know she must get criticized for; I hear people talk about her size during the sex scenes all the time. I enjoyed seeing her answer to this question and respect her a lot more after reading her answer. That is the type of role model that I feel all women need these days.

For me, it was hard to start paying attention after this question. Playboy seems to jump around a lot in their questions, and it was something that made it confusing for me to read. They went from 'what type of guy has a chance with you' to 'is it bad to receive all of this acknowledgment (Golden Globes) at such a young age' to 'what is your grocery checkout routine'. 

If I was Dunham and that was the actual order they asked the questions, I would be sitting there completely confused. As the reader I am confused and trying to figure out why we are jumping all over the place in this article. 

While some of the questions may be good, I find it hard to like this article because of the way it is set up. It was difficult for me to get through, and I think Playboy could have structured it in a better way for the reader. It has amazing content, just a poor structure. 

Stranger in a New Land

"Evgeni Malkin knew about 10 words in English, and none of them were appearing in Pittsburgh International Airport. As he took off his iPod headphones, the white noise buzzed around him. He was living inside a broken television. Static."

It was an opening that was able to catch my eye and keep my attention just in the 10 seconds it took to read it. While doing some research for another blog I was going to write, I ran across an old article from the December 2011 issue of Pittsburgh Magazine focusing on Evgeni Malkin. As a Penguins fan, I love reading about the players and their past histories. Malkin is no exception, especially with his extraordinary story on how he came to the team. Out of everything I've read and known, Sean Conboy went above the norm in this article and I wish I came across it sooner!

While Malkin joined the Penguins in October of 2006, this article was just published in December of 2011. Conboy manages to make Malkin's story stay alive despite the fact that he had been here for about five years by that point. That fact alone would make it a great story, but Conboy goes on to make it intriguing for the fans.

Imagine going into a foreign country not knowing anyone or the language around you. Scary, right? Almost hard to imagine. Conboy brings it to life with Malkin's story. It is not a simple overview of the hectic couple days Malkin had leading up to getting to Pittsburgh, it is putting the reader next to Malkin hiding out in Finland. It is giving the reader the anxiety Malkin was feeling trying to get to his dream. The heartache he felt leaving everyone he knew behind without a hint he was going. It put the reader inside Malkin's head and that can be a difficult feat to accomplish.

The different places the story is split up allows the reader to focus on the moment and turn the page to get to the next. It is enticing and exciting throughout all the parts. Conboy is able to show Malkin raw and without anything to hide behind. He keeps all quotes exactly as Malkin says them, even if it means broken English and different grammar:

“At first, I don’t have car, so Gonch have to drive me everywhere,” Malkin says. “He have to speak for me, translate. It was tough. I come back from practice and stay all day in house, talking to Russian friends on Skype or watching movies.” 


It is a great interview with a player that has worked hard both on and off the ice. It shows the fans that there is more than just what they see on the tv. It shows the struggle this man had to get to the place he was and I think Conboy did an amazing job with it. It is the type of relationship between reporter and interviewee that everyone should aspire too. It takes a good writer to get someone still getting used to the English language to talk as openly and honest as Malkin did. 

“Tell fans thank you for supporting Penguins and Steelers,” he says. “And sorry for my English.”