GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

i think that the motives are exactly how you described, (x-post horseshoe) and why i was ok with it in the format of an indie film, but i am just highly cynical that most people watching hbo are thinking critically about what they are watching.

out of all the things i've seen written about this show itt and elsewhere i haven't seen really a single thing that's even mentioned the word "feminism"

almost ever single thing ive seen written about this show - from that horrified frank bruni review to the very complimentary one in the new yorker - have mentioned it

i am trying not to be a typical white person and a jerk but after one episode i am not prepared to hate the show because it lacks POC. for example, i think freaks and geeks was fine, it was all white ppl iirc, it was a school and schools in the u.s. are segregated just like groups of best friends/roommates are segregated. but i would say that, i'm white! it is maybe more of a problem how it is hard for POC to get shows that they make hyped to this extent. i did however think the random black guy telling her to smile was a little weird and the asian on the computer same.

― kneel aurmstrong (harbl), Wednesday, April 18, 2012 8:25 PM (43 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't hate it because it lacks people of color, fwiw. jho also observed that the whiteness might be purposeful because white people of a certain class hang out with white people of a certain class. a thing that has been made real to me and has made me angry of late is a realization that white people of my acquaintance will tune out of culture featuring people of color, assuming it's not "for" them, so yeah, i think the marketability of a show like this might go down the more people of color it features prominently.

i wish there were more characters of color because i have a lot of accumulated anger about this subject tbh. probably more about me than it is about this specific show.

also i love white people and shows about white people and books about white people and have devoted my life to the consumption of culture about white people so whatever @ me; i've been totally asking for it.

i dunno bene_gesserit's post just made it sound like "a feminist show" (as opposed to "a show by/about young women" in which feminism is an inevitable concern) was the entire narrative around the show both in the media coverage and from the perspective of the show's creator, which struck me as odd

i guess we are reading different media because most of what i've read about this show has discussed it as a feminist work.

what is the differece between 'a feminist show' and 'not a feminist show'

GIRLS

i saw this btw it was decently funny except when they talked about facebook so you'd know they know where the hands have come to on the clock

the shirtless boyfriend almost offended me on behalf of my gender but nah i'm sure that's how half of us behave

couldn't stop thinking about how small his head was relative to his torso

I know right! First thing I said when I saw him, his head does not go with that body.

i do think this show will kinda stack up better after a while. it's weird to think about it in terms of sympathy, or in terms of realism; there was maybe not a moment but a point in tiny furniture at which it became apparent that she wasn't shooting for a story but for a pretty cynical, i guess sorta self-loathing critique, and that that was the POV it had, on her generation, or on being stupid & in your twenties, rather than the whole thing being a charming or compelling portrait of the individual characters.

i keep wanting to bring up nicole holofcener but more for the sake of it than anything.

ha, no that's p otm

Every wall in NYC seems to carry an advert for this programme. Every free magazine in Brooklyn talks about it. And even the UK Guardian is banging on about it. It is quite sad not to be able to watch it.

btw in the main pic the Lena chick looks better than the other 3, I wonder if she knows this

pinefox, search 'girls hbo' on youtube and you can watch the whole first ep

watching this show made me glad to not be in my 20s, in that i could relate to some of the awkwardness, but mostly i felt like i was watching a show not meant for me. and that's okay.

brian williams' daughter's legs are the best thing about that pic imo, lena looks like she's trying a little too hard to convey the tone of the entire show in her posture and facial expression

ratings weren't great, got less viewers than eastbound & down

watching this made me think about Solondz and how i think his films are genius, but perhaps that's an unfair comparison since Dunham's film/show isn't full-on satire. though it kind of is.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/content/dailybeast/articles/2012/04/12/hbo-s-girls-is-the-best-new-tv-show-of-2012/_jcr_content/body/inlineimage.img.503.jpg/1334220343607.jpg

it's seriously becoming hilarious to me that there are multiple promotional photos where she strikes that exact pose

really odd thing about the pic at the top, I belatedly realize / formulate, is that it appears to show them together, as friends, but they appear all to be in different scenes, with expressions totally unrelated to each other

the one on the left (is she the English one?), laughing at something quite other than her chums, or laughing at her chums while looking totally inappropriately away, is the one that really makes this effect a bit unnerving or annoying for me.

I do want to watch this programme (thanks Rrrobyn) but I read "Lena D and best friend interview each other" in a free Brooklyn magazine (L?) last week and it was horrendously self-aggrandizing and worthy.

ah, yes, well, it's not called Friends, it's called Girls
xp

haha i wish this show was called Happy Ladies

it's seriously becoming hilarious to me that there are multiple promotional photos where she strikes that exact pose
, lena looks like she's trying a little too hard to convey the tone of the entire show in her posture and facial expression

otm it's really annoying

tbh i was sort of wondering if that was a photographer's instruction so that shed be hiding her body

Oh, don't say that. :(

show should be called "in my world of young people"

the photo should have been staged like this imho

http://static7.depositphotos.com/1011061/785/i/950/depositphotos_7850329-Smiling-family-lying-on-floor.jpg

really odd thing about the pic at the top, I belatedly realize / formulate, is that it appears to show them together, as friends, but they appear all to be in different scenes, with expressions totally unrelated to each other

One of the things I really liked about the pilot was that it doesn't present them as some kind of artificial self-contained friend-cluster. You might come home from work and there are random dudes hanging out in your apartment.

also im beginning to wonder if any of you have ever seen publicity photos / movie posters before

oof: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2012/04/girls-writer-learning-theres-no-such-thing-ironic-racism/51338/

i guess that explains the meanness

yeah. btw link in Clusterfuck thread indicates that Arfin is a former Vice writer.

that yeah was to al

ah i knew that name looked familiar

multiple promotional photos where she strikes that exact pose

Her pose is always the same because it is a design feature. It conveys the stereotype her character is built around. Since the series is too new to have progressed beyond the grossest of stereotypes into nuances, the pose is still unchanged. Simple, really.

I haven't seen the show yet, but I still think she is weirdly cute.

here's the link from that thread, in the interests of completism. i agree with the writer of that article that a lot of pressure was being placed on this one show wrt lack of diversity, which makes arfin seem like that much more of an idiot. there are so many graceful ways she could have responded to the criticism.

I don't give a fuck about people of color I hate white people

x-post - otm - her responses were idiotic though.

tho I was hanging out w/ some friends last week and suddenly one of the people pointed out that we were all diff races, and then they suddenly said "this feels like the UN" and I didn't like that for some reason I dunno but I was stoned so I don't know

that is a super 1990s joke

right

i feel like someone makes it in a 90s movie. about ethnic tension in the Balkans, no less.

say Benneton ad, channel the 80s

"this feels like the UN" vs "United Colors of Benetton"
xp haha

I mean it was a single episode that had a limited number of speaking parts to begin with; if this was a season in I could understand the POC issues but like it's not shocking that an overprivileged white girl would hang out with other overprivileged white girls