I started watching Girls recently. It's only ten episodes, not much of a commitment. Everyone seems to be talking about how funny it is or interesting or controversial it is. I really liked Sex & the City and this looked a lot like it. So I thought I'd check it out.
The concept itself is rather unappealing, or at least one I've seen before. They lampshade Sex and the City in the first episode with a background poster. But lampshade hanging doesn't mean copying is excusable. One can't help make comparisons when it's about four twenty-something girls in New York City with very different personalities and their relationships/sex lives. It's like SATC: The Next Generation.
The problem is everyone is so damn irresponsible with their bohemian lifestyle. It's like the unappealing parts of rent, where these "arteestes" expect other people to roll over for them because they're "being real" or "true to life". In the very first scene, the main character is at dinner with her parents, who tell her that they're cutting her off. At 24. After she's been working at an unpaid internship for two years. I'm not sure who I'm supposed to be rooting for.
Another girl has this great, considerate sensitive boyfriend. And all she wants is someone to fuck her raw. It's like, what chance does that give guys like me? Who actually respect women? Who maybe want to have face-to-face sex because we like looking at you and we love you? That maybe we're not trying to treat you as some object and reinforce decades and centuries of female oppression? And don't get me started on the French girl that gets knocked up and then leaves her friends high and dry at the abortion clinic while she has sex with some guy in a bathroom.
So as you can tell, I'm not terribly in love with the show.
But I can't look away from Lena Dunham. She is just so adorable. I love her face. I love her voice. I love the fact she doesn't fit in with the other actors. You can tell her talent isn't in her acting ability (she's the creator/director/producer). I'm not saying she's a bad actor, but you can tell her style does not fit with the others. The chemistry is different.
She feels like your cool aunt. One you might have a chance to bang if you both get drunk enough has a lot of stories. In one of the episodes, she gets a penis-pic from her boyfriend/fuck-buddy (who treats her horribly and I want to punch). So she just whips off her shirt in front of the audience, exposing her not-Hollywood breasts/body and takes a hand-bra picture of herself. I thought that was awesome, and so hot. I would love to date a girl that free with herself.
She reminds me of girls I went to college with, with big brown eyes, and a wider torso, and a sly, sincere smile. And she has some cute tattoos of literary stuff, and she doesn't make a big deal of it (not like her other actor starlets who you can tell are tattoo-less and model-like to ensure their acting career). She reminds me a little of Hannah Hart.
I'm four episodes in now. I'll probably finish up the season, just to see if there's anymore of her. If they start focusing too much on the bitch French girl (who I KNOW is going to bang the father of the kids she's nannying for) or the ungrateful woman who's relationship is based on sex or the teenybopper virgin who wants everyone to like her -- in other words, the unlikeable characters (in other other words, everyone who's not Lena Dunham), I'll drop the series.
Labels: girls, HBO, sex
