GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

have they said where the characters went to school

she said 'liberal arts' in the last ep but im not sure weve been given a name

do they seem kinda wesleyan or are they more sarah lawrence

Bad Company is really more famous than Free, aren't they?

― Neil Young’s social media channels (some dude), Thursday, 3 May 2012 16:44 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes

― lag∞n, Thursday, 3 May 2012 16:44 (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

not in the UK, where 'all right now' is a much bigger fm radio staple than anything by bad company

4 girls, 7 sisters

I don't think the assertion here is necessarily one of nepotism so much as: if you have family who have attained some level of fame in the entertainment industry, it's going to be easier for you to enter the entertainment industry on a somewhat higher level than Joe Actor. Whether this increased facility manifests as a result of strings your family members can pull or connections they have or name recognition or even simply the fact that they've had a level of exposure to the industry that allows for a greater understanding of its workings, the fact is that you're gonna have an easier go of it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/jemima-kirke-girls_n_1444001.html

I hear the wishbone ash dudes have some talented daughters

"All Right Now" is pretty huge in America too but there are at least 3 Bad Company songs just as big

yeah, i totally get that, just saying that bad co never really had that impact in the UK. in fact the only song of theirs i know (i think) is 'can't get enough of your love'. oh, they did 'feel like making love' too, right?

yes

wow Bad Company really were much better in the US than the UK. they're like the Bush of the '70s!

better=bigger

Lena went to Oberlin so I assume that's the liberal arts college experience she's drawing from in her writing. xps

Kirke's older sister, Domino is really rather lovely.

http://clubmonacolookbook.com/Spring2-2011/images/qanda/Interview_Pic_JEMIMAandDOMINO.jpg

alternatively, it's straight up misogynist bullshit

That's stupid. Dunham I know because of "Tiny Furniture;" she had a track record beyond her genes, relatively modest as even those may be, and she's also the star/auteur of this show. But the other three? This is it. Not a single one of them has made any waves outside of this show, afaik, not even in tabloids or whatever. So for the time being, being the shorthand "daughter of Brian WIlliams" trumps whatever the fuck name her character is on three episodes of this one show. That's no accusation of nepotism. It's stating the fact that for a huge number of people, Brian Williams - or David Mamet - is more famous than his daughter. It's just an easier shorthand than calling her by her character's name for casual viewers.

"Which one is that?"

"Brian Williams' daughter"

"Oh, her. OK."

Now, if Olivia WIlliams ends up doing anything else beyond this, she'll earn her own billing, dammit.

people might even start calling her Allison Williams.

That's funny, my bad. But then, I don't watch the show, I just bitch about it.

zosia mamet has been on a few other tv shows (notably 'mad men' but also 'parenthood' and 'the united states of tara') and some movies ('the kids are all right') so it's kind of silly to say she doesn't have a resume

i mean sure maybe her dad is "more famous" but it's kind of silly to be like "oh she's never done anything"

zosia is also really funny

Charges of nepotism and second sex (albeit wrt parents) still fail to address performance.

fwiw I haven't heard of any of their fathers so most of this thread just confuses me without aid of Wikipedia

nothin' misogynist about this

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17l7i2o6hs1krjpg/original.jpg

It's stating the fact that for a huge number of people, Brian Williams - or David Mamet - is more famous than his daughter. It's just an easier shorthand than calling her by her character's name for casual viewers.

okay, this is a context in which referring to the actor as 'x's daughter' is not motivated by misogyny

there are and will be other contexts. viz gawker have been recapping this straight up refusing to use the names of the characters or the actresses throughout

there are, historically, a lot of structures in place which people use to denigrate art made by women: one of them being, they don't have any real talent, their fame is due to whose family they belong to or are sleeping with. (another one being, they are inherently self-absorbed and incapable of the high-falutin' mindset of the true artist.) (also the meta-level 'gad, this art made by women is just terrible for women', but i don't want to get into the game where we all try and be the best feminist in the room.)

particularly when i so spectacularly screwed up by failing to remember allison williams' name, oops

my objection above was that there's a lot of daylight between "alternatively, it's straight up misogynist bullshit" and "okay, this is a context in which referring to the actor as 'x's daughter' is not motivated by misogyny." i take you at your word that you're not trying to win some biggest-feminist-in-the-room game. so assuming that you generally think the good ppl of ilx are not trying to be sexist assholes, and considering that you probably could've gotten to Josh's explanation on your own without it being spelled out, maybe give ppl here the tiniest benefit of the doubt before suggesting that posters are straight up misogynists?

I'm misogynist

It's something to do with Japenese soup and women, right?

are people never allowed to point out when they think someone's said something sexist because people on ilx are good people?

http://preacherontheplaza.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/charlie-sigh-769156.jpg

This is really nepotism vs misogyny and to some extent it's also about privilege and gotcha-ism. It's also little to do with the acting, production, cinematography and writing of the show.

of course they can but I think it's common curtesy that when someone says something that could be innocuous or could be malicious, to at least give them the benefit of the doubt long enough to ask them what they meant. xp to horseshoe

i was following on from this post

i'm really looking forward to the whole "let's refer to these characters ONLY AS XXXXX'S DAUGHTER" thing to run its course.

which i took as a reference to The Rest Of The Internet rather than ilx, i think the discussion here is mainly okay. on the other hand, we've already established that josh hates women.

Josh in Chauvinism

your turn to curtesy my turn to bow

where's jbr? she can use that name...

guys, I just mentally think of them as "british one, aspiring writer/main character one, nerd virgin, and the pretty one"

why because I don't care who they're related to unless they're obviously on the show due to nepotism or whatever

i think of them as 'my pals'

guys, I just mentally think of them as "british one, aspiring writer/main character one, nerd virgin, and the pretty one"

This is, for future reference, Jessa, Hannah, Shoshanna and Marnie (except all the others are cuter than Marnie). They refer to each other, by name, in pretty much every scene. If they were called Johnny, Johnny, Johnny and Dave, you motherfuckers would have Dave pegged after the first 120 seconds.

not really the best example

YOU MOTHERFUCKERS

love how the things people are getting heated about itt are just getting smaller and more trivial every day

'motherfuckers' is more amused than disgusted (though I'm not not disgusted), but a refusal to even learn the names of the characters is in a way kind of central to some of what is fucked* in this thread and other media reactions to Girls.

* most things in this thread are not at all fucked, including people not liking the TV show.

the falcon cannot hear the falconer

the falconer is calling the falcon a motherfucker and accusing it of misandry

there are just a billion posts on TV/movie threads on ilx where a character is referred to not by their name but by the name of the actor, or the name of a different project they were in, or the name of their character in that other project, or what more famous person they're related to or dated, etc etc. it's kind of funny to dwell on it in this instance.

context is everything, as they say

i'm not looking to be argumentative (really), but srs question: how long does it generally take you guys to learn the names of characters? i've been going through all the sitcoms i've seen on any regular kind of basis and it turns out that unless I've seen a season or two+ of a show, i rarely know many of the important character's names. i've seen ~8-10 eps of Raising Hope but the only character's name I remember is Martha Plimpton and that's the actress! from new girl i can name schmidt and zooey deschenal (Jes is the character's name iirc actually) but none of the other two roommates. i've seen about 10 eps or so of 2 Broke Girls but i only know Max, Earl and Oleg's names. I don't even remember the other main character's name. i can't name a single character on Veep (tho i can name Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Buster from AD, and My Girl actress)... maybe fodder for a new thread?

i generally never know character names or song titles