GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

Good take:
http://blogs.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2013/03/girls_episode_9_season_2_tackl.php

― your fretless ways (Eazy), Monday, March 11, 2013 11:02 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I am kind of o_O at this blog post's "this wasn't quite rape" thesis.

Haven't read post yet ^, but was about to post on here, and I might (deservingly) catch holy hell for this, but I'm not sure it was rape? I need to rewatch the scene. She was not into it & he knew that, but she didn't explicitly withdraw consent. This is something I need to define for myself moreso than to anyone on the board, because lord knows I've been in some gray areas like that.

that is the entire point of the scene

Unrelated: I have really enjoyed Marnie's flailing in this season in light of what a pretentious snot she was in the 1st season. Even though Hannah is also falling apart, she's the one who actually is closer to the kind of success Marnie wants so desperately.

I also loved the way Ray smiled at Shosh after her psuedo-confession.

(Fictional thing, so should be referring to events in present tense? oh well)

Yeah, I get that was the point, so why do I feel like I'm sticking my neck out saying I'm not sure if I would consider it rape?

(I also think there were other points to the scene--Adam's vulnerability and how he deals with it, but no one is really crying for Adam today)

i think it's worth making the distinction between something that constitutes criminality and, you know, "legal" culpability and just being really (intentionally, in this case) shitty and evil and abusive without making *any* concessions or excuses for the latter.

i mean it's classic taking advantage of presumed trust and intimacy in order to humiliate kinda stuff.

He went from someone who has murky boundaries to someone with very particular, articulated boundaries

Trying to think back, but there were definitely some times where Hannah was not happy with what was going down sexually, but she went with it for the sake of "gathering experience" & also because it's harder to tell if you're being violated when you haven't really defined your own boundaries to yourself. I think the accumulation of those experiences, though, made her much firmer when he was showing up at her apt and shit.

The very first scene is him in her butt without consent, no?

her mother is gonna be pissed

that whole phonecall to her parents with her mom shouting NOTHING SMALLER THAN YOUR ELBOW SHOULD GO IN YOUR EAR HANNAH made me lol

#classicparents

The very first scene is him in her butt without consent, no?

iirc he was joking, she was uncomfortable because she didn't know if he was but wouldn't set boundaries

all caught up:

-appreciate the background w/ jessa's family but I sort of map s.clover's point upthread about afflictions onto this - yah its prob p humanizing but... idk dont know if I buy it, feels like they were trying way too hard to make her family seem abnormal. the line that stuck out to me was jessa's about the vows meaning something... like that makes sense if all she was really looking for was some sort of stability, semblance of normative domesticity... idk though.
-lol @ charlie being surrounded by hot chicks 94/7 in his lil' startup
-didn't really buy hannah's OCD at first but i don't know anything about OCD. feels like they're introducing it so late for the sake of having a big denoument in the finale
-so many cringes @ marnie singing, really great touch that she would just cover a song and change some of the lyrics - of course shes not gonna have any original material
-we sort of all knew this was coming w/r/t adam, right? not that that excuses anything but yeah, eyuichk
-minority representation alert: first east asian was a whiz w/ photoshop, first black char was homeless, first south asian is a doctor w/ an accent (albeit one who zinged hannah a lot). keep on doin what you do, girls

Nu uh, first South Asian was the crazy rollerblading girl

But I see your point

oh word? i missed that part ;_;

btw I confirmed on imdb recently that

http://cdn.crushable.com/files/2012/11/hbo-girls-hannah-gynecologist-pay-me-24-640x361.png

is the WH Chief of Staff on House of Cards so that's all falling into place

Aha! You were right after all xpost

The very first scene is him in her butt without consent, no?

wait. what?

it is p genius that this scene comes after a scene in which new girlfriend explicitly lists what she will and will not tolerate in bed

yep

this season is p frequently flawed, & it can be frustrating to be simultaneously just floored - by the richness of Adam's AA monologue on love (or his totally convincingly embittered tweetiepie doll analogy a couple episodes back), or by Shoshanna's repeatedly awesome tightrope-walk between sorta upfront-vapid, & then just like heartbreakingly young & awesome & empowered & figuring shit out, cf her quicktalked couch speech about the anxiety over the limits on independence felt amid & between relationships - & then also disappointed, in small ways (is that what startup offices look like) & bigger ways (ray was better this week but sorta still feels more like a sitcom buddy than he ever should've been) & re: extratextual stuff (re: minority-watch, staten island resident cameo wasn't so hot either, & it's so crazy that the racism critique was formally ~addressed~ & then seemingly entirely forgotten) - but, but but but, the last couple episodes totally renew my appreciation for lena dunham. she is so important, this show is such a valuable contribution.

"her mother is gonna be pissed"

this is the one thing that bugged me about this; the girl is presumably the child of an alcoholic and yet when he orders drinks she's kind of like "ok". most people who have a parent in AA I would assume would have taken that as a bigger warning sign.

pick whatever works for you: she's had a few drinks already, they're getting to know each other, people related to and who spend time with alcoholics know that there's considerable gradations in what constitutes a binge

The very first scene is him in her butt without consent, no?

wait. what?

I mean, it's played for laughs, but doesn't the first episode have the scene where she says "Uh, did you mean to put it there?"

it does.

again that is basically what startup offices look like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5OfTPGnzqQ

"again that is basically what startup offices look like"

Certainly in SF in the late 90s, yeah (haven't been in one since, but I'd be surprised if they'd changed or were that different on the east coast).

are all the employees also part-time models tho

look at all those verified accounts

lol

"are all the employees also part-time models tho"

In SF, probably not.

There are so many pretty broad elements to the show (the startup, the shrink, etc) -- but I quite like the inconsistent mix - not sure it needs to be completely one way or the other. There are character inconsistencies (aka bad writing) which are kind of more problematic, but not too damagingly.

it wasn't so much the 'look' or layout of the startup office (tho really, nice balcony!) as the size and spaciousness, cleanliness, and just the feel that no real work was happening and also the silliness of important boss ppl always having other ppl run up to them to talk about things because obv it is a startup, time is of he essence, and the quarterly sales numbers cannot wait!

"as the size and spaciousness, cleanliness, and just the feel that no real work was happening"

Haha okay now I think YOU'VE never seen a startup.

Because seriously that describes just about every startup I've seen (certainly once money started pouring in).

i for one was not convinced because there weren't baskets of snacks lying around, also no masseusses

these days they tend to be a lil more worky than they were in the 90s

also smaller

i dunno, big lofty type space w/ people just milling around sounds about right

allison williams is dating ricky van veen of college humor, which was bought by barry diller much like charlies app was ostensibly bought by some clueless rich guy, college humor offices have a v similar vibe to whats represented in the show

i think maybe techy vs. mag/journo startups tend to have a different feel?

although 4real, i may have only been in the offices of unsuccessful startups.

well at any rate im glad to have successfully derailed this thread to focus on something important

how did they calculate an increase in their monthly average users when they've only been going for about a month?

same way he managed to hire an entire office of models

how do we know its only been a month

It was also the time period where Hannah's OCD symptoms slowly surfaced.

it is p genius that this scene comes after a scene in which new girlfriend explicitly lists what she will and will not tolerate in bed

― purp (roxymuzak), Tuesday, March 12, 2013 11:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

clever writing too that he didnt break any of her rules