GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

slim leg! (gesture) slim leg! (gesture)

I kind of hated the opening scene with the girl getting the book published. Something rlly backbitingly ugh, ny publishing, about the whole thing. Makes me never want to live in ny. So catty and gross

― littledotheyknow (D-40), Tuesday, June 12, 2012 11:40 AM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't know; the part about being unable to help being a wench to someone whose professional success you envy rang true, not just to ny publishing. at least hannah copped to it later in the episode.

thought this ep was a bit too transparently setting up conflicts to be resolved in the finale, not that it was poorly executed but imo it lacked lighter moments & felt a bit rushed or heavy

i feel like one of the things dunham is interested in is anatomizing "cattiness."

xp yeah there were definitely less laughs than average in this episode

my fav part of the episode was jessa's intrigue at weed dad's wife's description of her dreams in which she murders and eats her

slim leg! (gesture) slim leg! (gesture)

― horseshoe, Tuesday, June 12, 2012 12:10 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I LOVE THAT GUY SO MUCH

he is a genius of getting under my skin. loved his trite monologue of worthy subjects for writing, culminating in death of course.

ya that was amazing

have had a version of that conversation with a dude, more than once

I know this probably goes without saying but I think it's so important and amazing and brave of LD for showing herself as she is in nude scenes. Every single time that happens I'm surprised and hankful for her for doing this. In an ideal world that wouldn't be so remarkable but it is and it's awesome.

x-post - I still haven't watched TF but I know he's in it a lot and I should really get on that because he cracks me up in every scene he's in.

may have yelled at my tv during that scene

"racial profiling" THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT, ASSHOLE

lena dunham's use of her body on this show and in tiny furniture is an amazing thing

Even if I didn't love this show for a whole host of other reasons it would still be important for that alone imo.

lol that you associate this with ny, it's publishing

totally
xp

lol that you associate this with ny, it's publishing

― “Argh!” I cry. But I really don’t care. (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, June 12, 2012 11:35 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ny is where publishing is bro

chicago is where bad weather is but i don't say i would never go chicago because i associate it with okay never mind

i thought this was a good ep fwiw, i just found myself grossed out at the entire thing, and the way the boyfriend's suicide was turned into a punchline, like i 'get' the idea of disliking someone you're envious of in anything but the show def treated her target w/ condescension instead of making her at least somewhat sympathetic, it was like, well yeah but her shit is garbage

oops i meant the 'entire thing at the beginning' not the entire thing like the entire episode

forks getting defensive on behalf of ny. thats a second city attitude lol

i feel like the boyfriend's death was only turned into a punchline to make hannah and jessa look like assholes for talking about it that way.

yeah but isnt the writer kind of flippant about it too?

the show def treated her target w/ condescension instead of making her at least somewhat sympathetic, it was like, well yeah but her shit is garbage

― littledotheyknow (D-40), Tuesday, June 12, 2012 12:42 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

scene between her and hannah made me laugh in the way lucille one and lucille two on arrested development make me laugh, tbh

i guess b/c of the realism of the dialogue in this show it just pushed it too far into arrested devel. territory for me, like i wish theyd made her character not entirely negative

yeah but isnt the writer kind of flippant about it too?

― littledotheyknow (D-40), Tuesday, June 12, 2012 12:47 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she doesn't joke about it and she kind of pauses when hannah blatantly brags about how her boyfriend is alive, but i guess she lacks the demeanor of a bereaved person. the show definitely does not fully characterize her, but i found her little dig at hannah's writing to ring pretty true.

but Marnie said her stuff was good. Maybe that's another negative though

forks getting defensive on behalf of ny.

def thought it was kind of inappropriate for professor christopher moltisanti to tell hannah that he didn't think the other girl was a good writer. i guess he's not her teacher anymore, but still.

i forget, they were both students of his? that's a bit weird yeah

my understanding was that they were, but i don't know if that was ever explicit

naw it was sweet

i mean, sweet for hannah haha

unethical imo

also totally rang true; teachers do that kind of thing all the time

hah, yeah

one of my favorite professors (whom i still keep in touch with) actually does that a lot

I liked the way Marnie really passive-aggressively put down the "hoarders" story and the ambiguous nature of how much she didn't like or how much she's just pissed off at Hannah.

loved his trite monologue of worthy subjects for writing, culminating in death of course.

particularly loved "what could be more trivial than intimacy?"

i feel like one some level that monologue was meant to be a bit boorish, but it also felt *right* on some level and something that Hannah/Lena has probably thought to herself many times.

the book publishing thing was def a bit of a "sex in the city" cast off but in a p. bad way.

that is really not the way i took it

xp

yeah it may hinge on whether you think her story about the hoarder sounded good or not. (it did not to me!)

i don't care about that story one way or the other but the view that a woman writing about her life is trivial is pretty eh to me at best.

well (at least to me) i think the tension between that seeming self-involvement and stuff that "matters" (big quotation marks) is exactly what's at issue for Hannah. she's trying to find a way to write about herself and her life that doesn't veer to the opposite comical extreme: "DIED"

yeah maybe. i just see red at that not-even-that-exaggerated-for-comic-effect critique.

yeah fair enough. i suppose the fact that he definitely seems a bit full of shit (and you're right, what does HE know about that stuff) tempers it. but it def got to Hannah.

yeah and then she wrote a terrible story inspired by it

it's not just that he might not know about that stuff, it's the ability to pretend writing about your obsessions does not equal writing about yourself if you're a man.

i have a chip on my shoulder about this from grad school (lol i almost wrote "white school") because dude friends of mine were always puzzled by how frequently female academics wrote about gender and academics of color wrote about race "isn't that just writing about yourself" because when they wrote about boats or whatever it didn't count as writing about themselves because no one marked them in that way.