It took me a while to figure this show out, and I’m not sure I can say one way or the other that I “get it”. I mean, I’m not a moron, I get it, it’s a bunch of girls in their early 20’s trying to make it in NYC. Lets face it, in NYC there are two kinds of people, those who make it, and the “almost made its.” You have to live with whatever you get.
What makes this show different than that heat rash Sex in the City, is that it’s cruelly realistic, which of course makes me salivate for it. I love Lena Dunham’s badass writing, its almost like she really doesn’t give a shit how it looks, sounds or feels.
Why do women get to write whatever they want about their own sex, and men can’t seem to get away with that type of unvarnished thought. When will a man write about their twenties like it really happened? I’m usually missing something really obvious. Or maybe it’s different, or seems different.
I’d like Zosia Mamet to be a little less cliche, just a touch. I love her so much on Mad Men, but she’s really coming into her own. (Being Mamet’s daughter has to be hard) To be clear, Allison Williams wouldn’t be on the show if she wasn’t someone’s kid (neither would Zosia Mamet), not fair to her, she is who she is, but come on. She’s tits on a bull as far as acting goes. Like she’s reading a cue card. Jemima Kirke, is too much European freedom, and I can smell the body odor, plus, did she have a miscarriage? Where did that bun in the oven go?
There is a kind of wonky-getting-to-know-me kind of growing up these girls are doing. If a boy had written this, I think it would be men being less like a gathering of freaks, as they are here, and the women being a little bit more placated.
I think the character Lena has written for herself is clearly the star, and has the lions share of the weirdness of growing up hung on her like last years hair style. Her relationship with her boyfriend is great, and I was struck by how funny it was when she degraded him as he jerked off. But what is she going to do? Now? Write a book. The person she is now is nothing like what she will be in ten years. There is a hope and urgency for adulthood while still holding onto the freedom of youth, and it’s great to watch. Her writing is whimsical and funny, even embarrassing in a way that makes me blush for her. She’s ignoring all the “right” paths to take, and when she asks her boss to fuck her, I thought how out of it she really is. I remember those years, and yes, they were weird and embarrassing. I would never be the person I am now, without my twenties.
Does this show last past this season? It isn’t Cinderella ass cheese like Sex In the City, where the great white knight comes to town and marries you. In Girls, he’s a muscle bound asshole who gives you an STD and the overweight starlet goes back to him over and over.