Sunday Shit Talk: On Hating That I Loved to Hate 'Girls'
For all its self-indulgence and hubris, 'Girls' sure gave us moments of genius.
Lena Dunham, maestro of Girls, Tiny Furniture, Sharp Stick, and Catherine Called Birdy, is back onscreen acting in a new film co-starring Stephen Fry called Treasure. Because of that, she’s the subject of this recent New Yorker Q&A with her by Rachel Syme that gave us a curated glimpse into her psyche. Now an ex-pat married to a British-Peruvian musician, the quotes in her interview reflect a likeability authenticity, and tranquil self-acceptance—a space one can only hope to arrive at in life let alone find yourself at the ripe old age of 38.
Now that Gen Z has discovered the show (no one in my house, but still…) and everyone else waxes on about revisiting it (I don’t know if we can get nostalgic about something that only happened ten years ago, but I digress…), I felt compelled to snap it back on and see if it would still make me fume in frustration.
You see, I have to admit: I first saw the pilot of Girls when it aired and found it cringe as FCK. I understood the sheer unbridled hubris of Hannah, Jessa, Marnie, and Shosh, as Dunham states in the interview, was clearly on purpose and meant to be funny but the cloud of entitlement and privilege these characters floated on was unbearable. As a child from different cultural origins who had a job at 12, the audacity of a 24-year-old kid insisting her parents subsidize her Brooklyn journey by comparing herself to Flaubert made me laugh and turned my stomach. Plus, Hannah’s self-hatred reflected by the Adam of it all really worked my nerves.
Where I was in my own life at the time probably singed my viewing of it. I was six years older than Dunham is now, with two young school-aged kids (Dunham was born the year I graduated from high school). I finally felt old enough to take a hard look at the demographic just behind me and judge the hell out of them.
But this is what good writing does, it dares offend you. For all its faults and limitations, as the show went on, I became a fan despite myself. I couldn’t look away and watched until the very last episode. Dunham didn’t glamorize the follies of youth or flinch from the cringe and instead ran to it, flipped all that makes us squirm on its back, and exposed the underbelly of our own vulnerabilities in the process.
The episode that turned it around for me was “Welcome To Bushwick A.K.A. The Crackcident.” The Brooklyn of it all! Admittedly, I have a soft spot for watching characters cope with club-going and drug-doing and all the potential and madness a “best party ever” can give as a setting. It’s rife with possibility because everyone is there. Marnie’s ego is checked into place when ex-Charlie goes from her submissive to hot unavailable indie rock guitar player in Ray’s band, so aptly called “Questionable Goods.” Adam is spotted “looking like the Original Man,” whooping it up with some lesbians, yet sober. Ray strokes Jessa’s “Age of Innocence” outfit until Shosh rolls up talking a mile a minute because she’s so very high and it turns out, she smoked crack by accident.
Physical comedy abounds: Jessa commits to being her “crack spirit guide” until five seconds later when she, characteristically, flees and sticks her with Ray: “Just make sure she doesn’t get fingered by a beat boxer.” Shosh inevitably freaks out and flees the premises on foot with poor responsible Ray chasing her into the night. In an act of lust, the father of the kid Jessa is babysitting for shows up at the party, randomly gets his ass kicked, and they end up in the ER, him weeping his midlife crisis onto her lap then flipping on a dime to reveal himself just another selfish dick. Hannah learns Adam is an alcoholic and they flee the party on the front of his bike, symbolically going too fast, then stopping short which throws her to the ground. The best part is when Andrew Rannells, who plays Elijah the “secret queer,” makes the scene as a college buddy who runs into Marnie and calls each of them out their inherent self-absorption and bullshit. It ends with Adam and Hannah becoming boyfriend and girlfriend, despite Marnie’s best efforts to rescue her.
I still detest the entitlement of these characters (though they do embody a very real stereotype) and the unbearable whiteness of it all is offensive (which Dunham now realizes), but the storyline threads in this episode are more universally relatable than in those previous. Sure, the gals are all dicks (and Elijah gives voice to that) but we can relate to their experiences: We all want and sometimes get with the wrong people for all the wrong reasons; who we let go out of hubris suddenly gets shinier and hotter in someone else’s arms; we all accidentally do the wrong drugs; we’ve all realized the person we’re “dating” doesn’t know us at all. And, in our early twenties, we all set out for magical party nights that promise revelations among the revelry but instead deliver revelations in ways we least expect.
Now that my own kid is almost the same age as these characters, I’m able to find a lot of the show endearing. The Brooklyn I awkwardly discovered myself in is now a Brooklyn my kids can awkwardly discover themselves in, especially at parties. And hopefully, mercifully, with a lot more grace.
But here’s the beauty of what Brooklyn always holds: Last Thursday, I rode the subway with a friend of mine and two shirtless young men strolled by between us and the pole—all these rock-hard abs whoosh by. Me, my friend, the woman behind her, and the bench full of young women immediately start joking around about this display with each other. The woman standing behind my friend and I confide our ages and she drops this gem: “I may be 57 in October, but my pussy is 23.” Amen!
xx
Ok. On your recommendation, I'll revisit GIRLS. Because, with the exception of introducing me to Adam Driver, it annoyed me as much, or more, than Miranda in SATC
Last scene in taxi with bike, White Nights, Hannah’s satisfied fucked up smile. Fantastic. Watching my daughter and her friends live their version of this life now as they binge watch Girls.