That’s pretty fantastic.
I have watched the Craig Ferguson interviews with her and she comes off as real to me, whatever that means. I’m still torn about whether or not to watch Girls. sigh
Baby boomers. The first generation that grew up in middle class America and made it into adulthood without learning from any real struggles. It would make sense that they are enjoying a show that humanizes the new generation of narcissistic young adults.
The reason I believe most people don’t like the show (which is also the reason I love it) is because it humanizes narcissists. It doesn’t just mock self-absorbed characters for comedy (like Seinfeld and Always Sunny), but also digs deep into why these characters are so self-absorbed, and all the twisted and disturbing consequences of living that way.
Hanna and the rest of the characters pretend to be adults. More accurately, they pretend to be what they think adults are. They have no clue what they are doing, and they suffer for it. However, because they are pretending to know everything, they don’t ask their friends for help. When they face trouble in their relationships, they break them off to maintain the fiction that they know how to handle everything themselves. No one does, but everyone pretends they do, and no one asks for help. Just look at how alone Hanna is in the most recent episode and still doesn’t ask anyone for help. Look at what happens when Adam pretends to be a normal person.
I feel bad for Hanna, but I also understand how some people don’t. Her problem are entirely the result of her own selfishness. She’s pretending she’s a better person than she actually is. Now she lost all her friends and has OCD. She got what she deserves, are we happy now?
I guess as a 45 year old male I am too young to be a fan. I don’t feel one way or another about the cast. I generally don’t care about someone’s off screen life. If I have no problem with watching something from Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson (and I don’t, the trailer for Oblivion looks promising) I certainly won’t dislike the show because Dunham is full of herself or whatever is supposed to be her flaw. When I was watching it the characters actively annoyed bordering on angered me. Not because they are not good people. I like Seinfeld and Its Always Sunny. After watching them (particularly Mamet’s character) I decided I did not want to spend any time with them.
I don’t watch it regularly because we don’t get HBO. But when I have seen episodes I usually get drawn into them which makes me feel as though the show is fairly well written.
That said, I’m pretty glad we don’t get HBO, because I do find the show terribly depressing and a fairly accurate representation of gross self-involved people living gross self-involved lives. I saw the episode where Jessa gets married to that douchey Wall Streeter in that awful surprise “ironic” wedding and it was almost uncomfortable for me to watch because her wedding was just so stupid, her husband seriously gross and the obviousness of her mistake in marrying him simply unbearable.
The sort of dinginess they capture of being hipstery and/or not fabulously wealthy in NYC just adds to the depressing yucky feeling the show gives me.
In fairness, Sex and the City also made me uncomfortable because I thought it was shallow and irritating in a different sort of way.
I swear, I don’t hate female-centred or written shows and I can actually appreciate that Girls is engaging…I just don’t want to be engaged in it at all.
I enjoyed Buffy, but even the potentially original gender role reversal isn’t all that creative in my opinion. It was a good show, just not the masterwork claim. The musical episode might be the lone exception. 
Alias was fine. Oh look, a show about an attractive female spy. Oh, and things arne’t as they seem in this show about spies! It was a fun show that I recently learned does not stand up well to a rewatch. Still not all that creative in my opinion. Lost was just ridiculous. By season three it was fairly clear that it was spiralling out of control, and I only kept watching because I enjoy trainwrecks. It was also fun to hate Kate for being just terrible.
Ugh. The author is dead. Who cares whether Dunham is “down to earth?” Polanski is a rapist, but that doesn’t mean that his work is any less impressive.
This is a fault that lies not with the show but with those members of the audience who can’t or won’t see the line. I blame the generally unchallenging nature of the bulk of recent programming. When most channels are chock full of “reality” programming it’s no wonder that slackjawed viewers might be confused by the sort of apparently pseudoautobiographical material Dunham has to offer. Let’s hope they never have occasion to watch Cannibal Holocaust or Man Bites Dog.
I was looking in my magazine basket and saw the EW cover from last month. “How Lena Dunham became the voice of a generation.” Its not uncommon to get some backlash from pronouncements like that.
That is a much better way to say it.
But . . . but . . . but . . . you can’t even begin to understand Buffy the Musical without at least a season’s worth of episodes that came before it!
And you didn’t like Hush? The Body? The Zeppo? Band Candy? Passions? Becoming Parts 1&2? 
No, it was no Firefly ( ), okay Babylon 5, which is still *my *favorite TV show, but it ran long enough to have ups and downs with the baseline, for me, being higher than most shows.
Again, different things for people. I think the first two seasons are still very good and well done. It’s when Abrams apparently stepped away, season three, that it lost its focus. When Alias focused on Rumbaldi, I think is when it was the best but that’s me.
A bit back on point. I have no problem differentiating between the person and their work. I was merely commenting that I like it better when I like celebrities and they seem “down to earth” rather than not being able to relate to their fans. Tom Cruise, Liam Neeson, and others i can’t think of at the moment can entertain me but I don’t like what I read/hear about their personal lives or opinions.
Loach: I got that issue and I think that’s the interview, and the Craig Ferguson ones, that made me think she might be cool. So, if not, that’s a bummer. That’s all I’m saying, really.
anu-la1979: I think part of the problem is that I live in the midwest (Des Moines) and I don’t understand the “big city mentality” that so many shows have. It’s like the Cracked article that talked about having a big presentation be the main thing about a person’s job because it’s the (Hollywood) writers big thing! But presentations are rare in my job and not that stress inducing when they are. Again, I thought Sex and the City was interesting as a vague look at what NYC life might be like and wonder if this is another viewpoint of that?
vislor
It sounds like Loach only read the cover, so no need to be bummed. That “voice of a generation” tagline is a play off of the famous line from the pilot where Hannah blurts that out after her parents cut her off. Hannah probably believes it, or wants to, but I’m pretty sure Dunham’s intention with that line was to have us all roll our eyes at Hannah right off the bat.
I fell behind and its actually an issue I missed. I have it set to the side and I will be reading it. Maybe I’ll form a good opinion of her. I don’t have a bad opinion of her now. I just don’t like the show. But that cover is a bit off-putting. (I know she didn’t write the cover and may even hate it being applied to her)
This is the exact tone of self-aggrandizement I adopt when I’m mocking my friends for digging on Girls.
This is a spot on analysis and one of the reasons why I watch the show, but it is also one of my frustrations with “Girls”. By keeping their motives so layered, it’s difficult for the viewer to anticipate actions, and in some cases things seem rather arbitrary. And that’s surprising, given how exhaustingly Hanna and other characters seem to over-verbalize their thoughts/rationalizations.
Hanna’s newfound OCD fits that pretty well; it’s hard to see this as anything other than a plot convenience, but then again I’m sure there’s detailed internet analysis somewhere pouring over the minutiae of season 1 that lists in exquisite detail how a few scraps of throwaway dialogue conclusively prove that, yes, it was always there. This show–more than any internet darling I’ve watched in the past 8-10 year–depends on that on-line analysis.
That’s a pretty thin criticism, and it only marginally detracts from what I think is an excellent show. It’s interesting to see young adults actually living like real young adults rather than pretending to hard knocks in their $3000 a month apartment. And there’s a lot of material in navigating the baffling and often capricious world of “made it” adulthood. But to watch flailing for the sake of flailing can get tedious; here’s hoping to some sort of move forward in the finale (almost certain for Shoshanna and Ray, less so for others).
I watch it… its only a half hour.
Maybe its the white, pasty, flabby, tattooed nudity …God I hope not.
Food’s disgusting, but at least the portions are small?
Ok I read the article. I can see why the line between the artist and the work are blurred. I thought it was full of the same navel gazing that I found boring and annoying. Along with a strong hipster vibe that I can’t stand. She met the interviewer at an animal shelter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Williamsburg is hipster central to begin with and then you can’t just sit down for an interview, you have to adopt a dog while doing it?
(sotto voce) “She’s a rescue.” <self-satisfied sniff>
Oh you read the article too?
Nah, it was something Adam Carolla complained about once— i.e., constantly running into people who felt compelled to announce that the pet they were walking was a “rescue.”
I was joking
Bill Burr did a funny bit about it too.