- By JONATHAN WELSH from blogs.wsj.com
- Raygun LLC has begun selling T-shirts that appear to respond to the University of Iowa’s decision against allowing HBO to film ”Girls” on campus.
The controversy hasn’t quite died down since the University of Iowa recently declined a request by HBO to film parts of its ”Girls” series on the campus. A Des Moines, Iowa, company well-known for its T-shirt designs is marking the occasion with commemorative shirts.
Raygun LLC, which makes clothing, coffee mugs, barware and other items emblazoned with humorous and often cutting messages, rolled out a new T-shirt with a sketch-style image of Lena Dunham, who plays ”Girls” lead character Hannah Horvath. Her face is inside a circle with a line through it.
Text below the picture reads, ”Iowa City: No ”Girls” Allowed!”
In the show’s season finale Horvath was accepted into the University of Iowa’s renowned Writers’ Workshop, leading some watchers to speculate parts of next season could be set in the Hawkeye State. But a University official said filming on campus could be too disruptive and that parts of the script cast the school in an unflattering light.
The ”Girls” T-shirts appear to question the University’s logic. In small print, Dunham’s image says, ”Vodka Samm’s cool but not naked Lena?!”
This is a reference to Samantha Goudie, a University of Iowa student who gained notoriety online and on television last year after tweeting about her reported blood-alcohol content of 0.341 following a drunken episode at a football game. She became known as Vodka Samm and, for some people, she represented much of what is wrong with college life.ÊÊÊ