Lenny Abrahamson says criticism of ‘Normal People’ is a "joke".
There was uproar in the director’s native Ireland when a number of detractors rang the ‘Liveline’ show on RTE Radio 1 to complain about the sex and nudity in his adaptation of Sally Rooney’s book but Lenny insisted he didn’t take it seriously.
Speaking on Extra.ie’s podcast ‘The Weekly Watch’, Lenny said: "I just thought the ‘Liveline’ thing was just something to take as a joke.
"I felt it was a celebration in its own way. It was almost like when you go through the attic and you find some old things that relate to a terrible time in your life and you’re able to look at it and go, ‘Oh, isn’t it amazing that that’s no longer the situation that I’m in’.
"It’s like you find a photo of yourself with a terrible ex and you go, ‘How did I do that?’.
"Society has to create a space in which loads of diversity can live and I think what’s amazing, as it happens, is the vast majority regard the way in which sex is shown in ‘Normal People’ as a step forward.
"It amazes me that there’s still just about that kind of mentality that the human body is dirty, it’s ugly, it shouldn’t be looked at, that sex is something that’s shameful unless it’s surrounded by ritualised, cleansing institutions like marriage and even then it should be for procreation.
"The point is, I don’t think those ideas are operative anymore – they’re not pulling any levers of power."
And he insisted that people who don’t want to watch the show – which features Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones as star-crossed lovers Connell Waldron and Marianne Sheridan – should just turn it off.
Lenny explained: "I’m OK with people saying what they want.
"It’s really interesting because there’s been a bit of backlash on this on social media, which I get, where people will say, ‘Look at the liberals laughing, so much for tolerance when they won’t accept any other view’.
"I think the point is that the only views that people won’t except are views that prevent them from being who they are.’
"That’s the one thing you’re not free to do is repress other people. Everyone is entitled to feel the way they want, even the people who rang ‘Liveline’.
"They can switch it off and nobody makes them watch it, they can have the beliefs they have."