GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

is marnie going to hook up with that Powers Booth/Boothby Graffoe/whatever the Booth guy's name was? the artist dude in the peacoat

he was douchey in an interesting way

Marnie just leaves me cold. I can see why she might be thought attractive but I just don't see a lot of there there and what I do seems insipid. Shoshanna is funny but that kind of desperation makes me squirm. Hannah is exasperating but if you can avoid getting her hackles up, she seems like she'd be fun to hang with. They all would make me rather exhausted to have to deal with for any great length of time.

is marnie going to hook up with that douchey guy.

If you introduce a gun in the first act...

lol yeah that was a dumb question

Marnie is probably my least favorite; she's just so, I dunno, emotionally dishonest with herself? And with her boyfriend. Her whole relationship with him was horrid.

But now we get to see her go on the rebound w/arty types!

I'm hopeful of good things, or at least lols

don't dislike marnie, but don't have any kind of strong response to her. she's just there.

was repelled by her arc w/ her boyfriend because i mean it is not her fault that she's no longer attracted to him and it's inevitable to feel kinda frustrated and angry when you start to realize how not-attracted you are to the person you're supposed to be in love with and natural that this anger's initial direction would be towards him but she sucked so bad at recognizing and dealing with this and hurt him like crazy out of what just seemed like irritable petulance that her life was not as she'd like, plus she's boring

In other words, she's young and not terribly worldly...

well they're all that! idk i know plenty of twentysomethings capable of a reasonable level of thoughtfulness.

when she started crying about 'please don't dump me' I had an instant lightbulb: I totally know that girl!!

I think part of the show's shtick is how immature they all are. I'm not accusing all 23-year-olds of being like this but they sure seem to be.

"Living the dream. One mistake at a time."

but she sucked so bad at recognizing and dealing with this and hurt him like crazy out of what just seemed like irritable petulance that her life was not as she'd like

yeah, she was jerky and he got hurt, but then again, he asked for it and should have known better. nothing that happened there inclined me to take sides with either of them. plus they were both ridiculous and horrible to hannah about the not-a-journal, enough so that i figured they deserved whatever they got.

some more than others for sure. there's just sort of an emotional finding-your-way about your early 20's that does ring kinda true with some of their situations, for sure. at least for me, anyway.

(xpost)

I concur, the irony being that she's basically saying that pc be damned, they're not quite young women, they're GIRLS.

oh she's totally a real type; i don't think her character is an error on the show's part or anything.

I think the Freaks and Geeks comparison upthread feels somewhat true to me; maybe not to the same degree but I do like the emotional truth of it, and I'm kind of enjoying revisiting memories of my friends at I at around that age and realizing how smart we thought we were but still on a weekly basis it was always drama with someone somewhere over completely wtf situations

my limited experience in relationships has convinced me that there aren't too many "guilty parties" when it comes to the things people do together (not counting outright abuse or cheating and other extracurricular activities). manipulators definitely exist, but they have to be paired with those who choose to be manipulated in order to fully exercise their powers, and i'm not inclined to lay blame in such situations.

i don't think her boyfriend is a blameless victim (and i'm not at all perplexed by her boredom w/ him) but yknow. still possible to be turned off by the way people conduct themselves w/r/t other people, even in the mess of a collapsing relationship.

that weird slow/motionless sex they had a couple of episodes back was the best case that BOTH of them were the worst in their relationship. I mean seriously

otm

for some reason, the line "no, $30, because i want pizza and gum" made me laugh pretty hard.

this episode was almost enjoyable!

she sucked so bad at recognizing and dealing with this and hurt him like crazy out of what just seemed like irritable petulance that her life was not as she'd like

sadsack boyfriend's apartment makes me want to go buy a truckload of cabinet-grade plywood

me too. immediately thought, "why haven't i built me a loft?"

or, more practically, some shelves and a table

racing car bed is the only correct answer here

can't sleep clown will eat me

HALLO JOE

i dont dislike any of the characters, they are all funny & good

its like 'disliking' george costanza or something

good point, I hadn't thought about it that way

Something about Adam's face reminds me of one of those dirt cheap animations where they superimpose moving lips onto a still picture.

Also Hannah trying to fuck her boss was sooooooooo uncomfortable and also pretty out of character! Wtf!

its like 'disliking' george costanza or something

But George is cartoonishly awful, and you're never meant to empathize. He's all schadenfreude. but these characters are rooted in some semblance of reality, and intended to be somewhat sympathetic. No? Dunham in her interviews has not indicated they're meant to be the object of scorn or ridicule or anything. I think she wants it to be funny, but she also wants it to reflect her experiences.

i think george is supposed to be sort of sympathetic

george is the best and most likable seinfeld character. (well elaine is pretty likable, too, but george is definitely the triumph of characterization.)

not that likable is the point, but he is sympathetic a lot of the time!

in other news, i am an old lady because jemima kirke is so beautiful and when she was all dolled up for her date with her ex-bf i was like, you'd be so pretty if you wiped some of that junk off your face! like it was really bothering me

Yeah, it was definitely dress-up lipstick; wrong color, overdone, smelled of artifice.

but these characters are rooted in some semblance of reality, and intended to be somewhat sympathetic. No? Dunham in her interviews has not indicated they're meant to be the object of scorn or ridicule or anything. I think she wants it to be funny, but she also wants it to reflect her experiences.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:27 (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i just don't think this is at all true. dunham's MO is lacerating, self-loathing critique of her crowd, or of flaws endemic to her peers, at least; that doesn't preclude affection, and being relateable, but she has perspective & weights stories to reveal the flaws of her protagonists - the solipsism that makes hannah vapidly wonder if she wished she had AIDS, &c, or ask if her roomie liked the writing of her diary. have you seen tiny furniture? there's a tipping point someway through when it becomes apparent she's not shooting for some kind of redemptive or charming turnaround but for the characters being real and deeply flawed, kinda almost just wrong (cf her & adorable frankie). & i'm sure you can find that sympathetic!, on account of its realism, but i don't think she's just doing a short-sighted job of painting sympathetic characters, accidentally tarring them with grave personality defects.

also i thought this episode did a very good job of making sadsack boyfriend really sympathetic and then, when he's bargaining with marnie during the sex scene, kind of repulsive, so that as a viewer you're kind of aligned with marnie when she's like ugh, i want to break up.

xp i liked the lipstick color, it was the white powder on her face that bugged me.

GIRLS talk (wrong color, overdone, smelled of artifice) 10000 new answers

yeah man marnie and charlie had the worst relationship, they are both way better off out of that nonsense, i hope this doesnt mean the end of his jerky pal as a character though, that guy makes me laugh

yeah that guy is hilarious and such an effortless asshole--i always wonder if he improvised some of his dialogue in tiny furniture and in girls.

Effortless asshole is a great description. He's not even overcompensating or anything, he's just a dick, albeit a funny one.

he owns like 0 shirts as far as I can tell

oh i didn't mean shirtless dude, i meant sadsack boyfriend's jerky friend

Ray