Barack Obama's daughter Malia joins the production of Lena Dunham's Girls

President Barack Obama's eldest daughter, Malia, has become the nation's highest profile intern this northern summer. And not in some local law firm or even a congressman's office but on the set of the hit, and rather controversial, show Girls.

Malia Obama turned 17 at the weekend and has already begun working on the New York-based program created by actor/writer/producer Lena Dunham, access even she'd admit was helped by her parental connections.

When Dunham visited the White House earlier this year Malia announced herself a fan of the comedy/drama, now in its fifth year, which focuses on the complicated and uninhibited lives of a group of 20-and-30 something New York women. According to some reports Dunham and the young Obama became friends and the internship was arranged between them (and the Secret Service, presumably).

As well as its frank language and unfettered approach to sex, drugs and parenting, Girls is known for its comfort with nudity as much as modern narcissism. None of these is anything the wider American media or political class has ever been comfortable with in general, let alone with the daughter of the president.

Still, for now it seems Malia – who also interned on Halle Berry's TV drama Extant last year - is being employed to fetch, carry and keep gawkers away from the Brooklyn set. Before, presumably, going to her other reported internship at a fashion house and preparing for her return to her Washington D. C. School for her final year before college.