Girls, Girls, Girls

I’ll say it now, first, so you aren’t left wondering: I simultaneously feel jealous, condescending, disdainful, and crushing on Lena Dunham.

Jealous because she grew up in NYC, has had success early on in her twenties, and is on a path that I wish I could follow/parallel but I don’t really know how to do that. Basically, I want (parts of) her life.

Condescending because she is easily dismissed as a stereotype of the millennial generation-brooklyn hipster-liberal arts educated-privileged child set, and oh how I want to dismiss her as such for the sake of making myself feel better about my lack of most of these things.

Crushing because actually, I really admire her talents and feel like in some other dimension where our paths crossed, it is possible that we could have been friends.

I’ve been reading a lot about Girls lately on the interwebs, and I thought I should take a looksee myself before I jumped on one band wagon or another (I was sorely tempted by this bandwagon but ultimately I think I’m joining this one, and I agree totally with this one). Luckily, HBO put the whole first episode on youtube, which is great because who owns a TV?

(reminder: this is HBO. Viewer discretion needed. Meaning, there is a lot of cussing (like middle school) and weird tv sex (like most TV shows and movies! Do people really have sex with that many clothes on? These guys don’t even seem like they are in that much of a hurry, so I don’t get it, why don’t they just take their clothes off. Do they like to do it with their pants around their knees and 70% of the rest of their clothing still on? Is that a thing I don’t know about?))

watch here! http://youtu.be/OrQfvq9RfM0

When i told joel who the main characters were—specifically, that they were all the daughters of famous people from NYC—he was horrified. "this isn't secretly a reality TV show based on their real lives, is it?" Actually it totally is just that, probably.

Considering that Lena and the blond girl and the funny guy basically played these exact same characters in Tiny Furniture, i would say that yes, it is quite possible that this is a reality show, or just as real as the reality shows.

Also, that both this series and Tiny Furniture feature Lena being in relationships with really jerky guys makes me revoke part of that jealousy thing I was talking about. I am not jealous of that at all. I am SO glad that this is not part of my personal twenty-something/privileged millennial life journey.

But, as much as I thought it was pretty enjoyable, reflected pretty realistically what young adult life is like today, and was witty and entertaining, I can’t really like this show all the way. I mean, what is this show even saying? That it is okay to act entitled and not consider the practical dimensions of your life? What is so annoying about Lena’s character and other characters in this show (or at least this one episode) is that they totally disregard the fact that their actions have consequences. That the things we do have consequences, and the choices that we make have consequences, and the lives we want to live have consequences, and we need to figure out what to do with those. I hate that they represent twenty-somethings this way, because it is what everyone says about us, and here they are, proving it on TV.

Also, let’s talk about the portrayal of men. First, Lena’s character’s boyfriend/whatever is such a jerk. SUCH a jerk. I can/could never understand why girls think it is okay for guys to act that way, ever. But…she just goes with it? Ugh. Second, the other main boy character is Brian Williams’ daughter’s boyfriend, who is supposedly this quintessential “nice guy.” Except he is not, he is not a real guy. I have never met anyone like that, and I went to the college with the hands down highest percentage of nice guys in the US. No one is like that. It makes me wonder if Lena and her co-writers have ever actually met someone they could consider a nice guy. Perhaps not. Also, their portrayal of him as the quintessential nice guy just makes the idea of being the “nice guy” even more distasteful to men, which is unfair both to men and to women. I can’t support this gender portrayal on this show.

BUT, I can forgive both of these. Because Lena is a millennial actually writing about her own generation (remember how people from other generations love to write about us and get it wrong and it’s annoying?), and she is a female in the entertainment industry, where only 16% of writers/directors/etc are women and there are horrible portrayals of women on nearly every show.

So hooray for Lena Dunham and her vast potential stretching out before her! Maybe we will meet in THIS dimension and be friends.