We’ve all been in our early twenties. You’re possibly still in your early twenties. If so, I’m terribly sorry as it really is an awful time. You probably don’t have any money, almost certainly live in a shed with twelve other people and – if you went to University- you’ve just discovered that your expensive degree in Comparative Literature is less useful than a basic food hygiene certificate.
There’s nothing likeable about those post-University wilderness years, and there’s nothing likeable about Girls either.
In the US it’s been praised for being edgy because the central character Hannah (show creator Lena Dunham) isn’t stick thin or traditionally pretty. This seems to be causing huge waves over there, which is a bit baffling as here in the UK we’re regularly treated to real looking, talented women every time we turn on the television. Dawn French, Jessica Hynes, Jo Brand…the list is endless.
Take away the surprise of seeing an average looking young woman doing normal twenty-something things, like getting cut off by her parents and then very quickly becoming an unemployed ‘writer’ (think Daisy from Spaced but without the charm) and all you’re left with is a programme about four self-obsessed, vacant young people with no chemistry whatsoever.
It’s simply impossible to imagine that any of the characters would be friends in real life. Hannah’s a bit of a mess, her gallery assistant flatmate Marnie is flawless and uptight; Jessa is a posh British girl with a relaxed attitude to sex and her cousin Shoshanna is a dizzy Jewish virgin who wears Juicy Couture tracksuits and a permanently puzzled expression.
The only thing they have in common is a staggering sense of entitlement: summed up in Hannah’s drugged- up request that her parents support her to the tune of $1100 a month so she can write her ‘memoirs’.
People have compared Girls to Sex and the City because it’s about four women, is set in New York and regularly features eye wateringly graphic sex scenes. But that comparison isn’t fair at all: Sex and the City depicted empowering, intelligent and cheerfully smutty adult relationships, not unhappy girls in cartoon friendships who have resigned themselves to terrible, depressing and/or dull sex with awful men.
At one point Hannah tells her gynaecologist that she hopes that her boyfriend gave her AIDS, as then she’d have a genuine reason to be annoyed with him. It’s meant to be funny and show what a ditsy hypochondriac she is, but just sounds sad, empty and delusional- like watching a TV dramatization of a particularly irritating Twitter account.
Yes, you could argue that this makes it gritty and real, that it’s Sex and the City for the recession hit youth of today. If so, did anyone ask all other twenty-somethings if they wanted Hannah and her friends to be the voice of their generation? I certainly wouldn’t want Lena Dunham speaking for me.
It remains to be seen if Girls can forge ahead and develop the self-obsessed, awful characters to the point anyone actually cares about what happens to them. But if not, you can buy the Sex and the City box set for a fairly reasonable price on Amazon.
I saw the first ten minutes and wondered where I was supposed to be laughing – empty, dreadful people I’d quite happily cross the road to avoid (or punch in the face, I’ve not decided). This is a prime example of what happens to a programme when the lead also has all the producer/writer/teamaker roles too – too much to do and not enough people to stop them making an arse of themselves.
I felt genuinely depressed after watching it…until I found this (hilarious) review of the first episode on Gawker http://gawker.com/5902308/small-girl-big-mouth-a-girls-recap
So, I think you’re wrong. Not entirely – in fact, not very wrong at all – but I think many of the things you had a problem with, I simply didn’t.
I have read endless articles about how we should read “Girls”, but I’m white and privileged enough to read it in more or less the way (I believe) its intended.
And it’s intended to show a reality, to some value of real, but it’s also a TV comedy show, and I think the uneasy alliance between these elements has turned a lot of people off. And made a lot of people miss the point.
The scene in which Hannah rather glumly suggests she might be “a voice of a generation” predicts, with a sigh, exactly the kind of “how dare she speak for me?” attitude that she’s explicitly NOT portraying.
As for the friendships – the kooky English (LOLS – I’ve heard a more convincing Brit accent in a shack in the Appalachians) girl is the only sore thumb here. Marnie and Hannah’s relationship is entirely believeable – camped & funnied up for *a comedy TV show*, sure, but it works for me. And Shoshannah – who is, even within the group, an outsider, more tolerated than loved until her friends need her – is a very recognisable type.
The boyfriends get a treatment which I haven’t seen much before, but both ring true – Adam is dumb, shallow, borderline abusive but, you suspect, far happier than any of our navel-gazing heroines. And Charlie, too nice for his own good – it’s real and it works and he provides a genuine counterpoint in the narrative.
As for the bad sex – it’s funny, it’s more or less accurate, and actually I don’t mind seeing Lena Dunham naked. More normal people without their keks!
I’ve seen 6 of the 10 eps at time of writing, and in truth I think Dunham is a better writer than she is director – there’s a better pace to the eps she doesn’t helm.
Overall, it’s a show made at a specific time and place by a specific group of people and the way it studies, mocks and reveals their lives, inside and out, works for me on every level.
Though here’s an ugh – I just noticed that each of the girls has an alliterative name :/
I detested it. After two episodes, I didn’t like any of the characters. They weren’t funny, they weren’t interesting and – as Riojafan put it – I would cross the road to avoid them.
Verdict: tried too hard.