Well, it’s official. Gillian Anderson has definitively won the so-called ‘girl dinner’ trend, so women around the world can finally set down their utensils (or lack thereof) for a round of well-deserved applause. The X-Files actress took to X (Twitter) for her take on the trend — in which users compete to cook rudimentary meals with the least amount of effort — except this time, there wasn’t a morsel of food in sight.
For her part, Anderson re-shared an image of a hundred-year old wood carving in England’s All Saints Church, in which a male figure can be seen lifting his legs with maximum exposure (seriously, it’s a wonder the image hasn’t been flagged). In response, Anderson simply captioned the full-frontal carving with “Girl dinner,” letting the imagination of her nearly 1 million-strong following do the rest of the leg work (pun intended).
Fans ate up Anderson’s saucy take on ‘girl dinner’, professing their love for the actress and joking that “someone needs to take [her] phone away, stat.” While it’s impressive that Anderson — who once dabbled in the aristocracy as Margaret Thatcher on The Crown — is even aware of the ‘girl dinner’ trend, it’s perhaps to be expected given her role in Sex Education.
In a case of art imitating life, Anderson’s tweet is exactly what we’d expect from Dr Jean F. Milburn, the sex therapist character she brings to life on the hit Netflix series. It’s a level of internet savvy befitting an actress who once live-Tweeted her reaction to X-Files, and jokingly joined the cast of the Community movie after being mistakenly mentioned by Joel McHale.
Anderson adds to a growing menu of ‘girl dinners’, with DoorDash recently unveiling a specialty category on its app with surprisingly accurate items like grapes, gummy bears and cottage cheese (not to be eaten separately).