GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

i tried metropolitan expecting to like it and turned it off after like fifteen minutes as utterly unredeemable
i tried tiny furniture expecting to dislike it and ended up being shocked at how good it was

how to make it in america was pretty crummy (in a bland way, not in the way entourage made you feel that it was necessary for civilization that beverly hills be bombed), but it did lead to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7vPfmiDLpI

heh the first 15-20 mins of tiny furniture are a real trial by fire imo - once you get past that it starts to get a bit better

that guzman video has moments of pleasure in it for sure

the 15 mins of 'how to make it america' i watched seemed like the same empty vodka ad fantasy-world that lots of other nyc shows inhabit for all their privilege the characters in 'tiny furniture' are occupying a more realistic and observed world

i agree though i did find it funny that hbo was clearly pushing how to make it and now girls as replacements for entourage and sexcity when neither are appealing as lifestyle fantasies in the slightest, which is the aspect that kept people watching their predecessors long past their primes

i think that's certainly why they're cynical about it though (its why i am anyway)

― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Thursday, April 5, 2012 4:53 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh yeah, sure, i was just calling out al's (intentional?) point-missing

admrl can i be in your show??

the same empty vodka ad fantasy-world

love this description

of course!

i tried metropolitan expecting to like it and turned it off after like fifteen minutes as utterly unredeemable

Watch the whole movie, it's dope.

man i just i dunno

oh yeah, sure, i was just calling out al's (intentional?) point-missing

― max, Thursday, April 5, 2012 5:10 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

oh yeah it was pretty intentional. but seriously at this point any new york-based artist whose art is primarily about being a starving artist in new york can jump in a well afaic

food in there

also other artists, so warm

i know no-one was waiting for a sincere & impassioned defence of miranda july's work itt but:

But it would’ve been more repulsive if I was like, “Okay, I’m going to have her work in a prison, because that will make her gritty and likeable.” That’s playing it safe, to make everyone likeable and a good person, you know? I think it’s more interesting if you go all the way with the world you have, and really look at it, and push it to an even more extreme extreme. So I guess that’s my answer. But then I don’t have the same relationship to those characters that a critic would, because I wrote them, and they come from things that matter to me.

she said this about the future, in response to criticism of it solely depicting the angst of handsome metropolitan white liberals, & it's otm i think. i can't correlate between filmmaker circumstances & films in class terms - & it ignores the i think pretty broad correlation between higher-class filmmakers having made a lot of the key depictions of lower-class living in cinema (particularly british & neo-realist stuff iirc) - but yeah i can't understand automatic disdain for something that doesn't feel earthy enough.

the 2nd ep of this show is called "Vagina Panic" fyi

I don't really give a fuck if the subjects of someone's fiction are suitably earthy or working class or whatever, I'm just tired of the world bowing down everytime someone finds a slightly insightful new way to say "student loans, amirite?"

like honestly, i think it's great that navel-gazing meditations on urban bohemia have made great creative strides since Reality Bites, but that was gonna happen no matter what with all those monkeys typing away about the same subject

it is hard, turning on the tv and its like non-stop navel-gazing mediations on urban bohemia

*throws tv down well*

so glad I had cable taken out and my antenna gets nothing

max you've got new york goggles on you don't even notice this stuff do you

no! i mean, really! how many shows on tv are "navel-gazing meditations on urban bohemia" right now!

i kinda think you may have internet goggles on where you think that "the world" is "bowing down" to "insightful new ways to say 'student loans'"

i mean, replace some dude's "the world" with the more accurate "whatever phrase means 'Tumblr whites' that won't cause a 30 post clusterfuck," and he's as otm as otm gets

just for that i will raise a glass to you sir and ruefully say "tumblr whites, man"

where do you guys hang out online?! seriously i actually *like* most tumblr whites and you guys are more expert in the stuff theyre doing than i am

NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO MAKE IT SO, WHINEY, 'TUMBLR WHITES' WILL NEVER BE A THING OTHER PEOPLE SAY. And if it becomes so, may god have mercy on your soul.

i kinda think you may have internet goggles on where you think that "the world" is "bowing down" to "insightful new ways to say 'student loans'"

― max, Friday, April 6, 2012 9:09 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm not literally saying Lena Dunham is on the cover of Time Magazine, afaik it's only Forks Monthly that is calling her the voice of her generation

then what are we talking about here

i'm just shooting the shit

once this airs tho the forks monthly circulation is gonna skyrocket

i mean, unless it bombs like 'how to make it..' but i expect it to be at least like competant

NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY TO MAKE IT SO, WHINEY, 'TUMBLR WHITES' WILL NEVER BE A THING OTHER PEOPLE SAY. And if it becomes so, may god have mercy on your soul.

― 1 of paper = 4 of coin (Deric W. Haircare), Friday, April 6, 2012 9:19 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

some dude just said it :)

yeah i mean 'tumblr whites' is totally a thing on ilx at this point, and whiney's use of it isn't that much less sarcastic than anyone else's

okay i really liked tiny furniture

what'd you think

tiny furniture is pretty interesting. i thought it would be funny but kinda frothy, and instead i thought it said some pretty interesting things

yeah, i mean, i definitely thought it was funny but in addition to being a portrait of early-life blunderings, as someone upthread put it, i thought it was about women and work and ambition. the scene where dunham's character actually explains the film's title was the scene where i realized how much i liked the movie. the observation about her female friends in college getting really into baking and then making tiny furniture. that's a real thing.

i guess if people's critique about her privilege is how dare she take the problems of people that rich seriously, i can't argue, but i find the suggestion that she's unaware of her own/the character's privilege absurd; i mean, look at her mother's apartment! also the way charlotte is like, i've been using my dad's credit card all week. also a million other moments.

on the other hand, my sister, who also really liked tiny furniture, is annoyed that there don't seem to be any brown girls in the cast of girls. i'm reserving judgment.

also the dunhamy thing she does that i had read about before (maybe in the new yorker profile?) where she unflinchingly portrays her character's utter humiliation at times in her attempts to connect with dudes, i love that. it doesn't seem punishing, just honest. the way she uses her body, both comedically and pathetically. that people would complain that there's a woman whose body is insufficiently sexy onscreen (if i'm to take the huffpo piece seriously, which i don't know) is of course totally unsurprising but also exactly point-missing.

also she was just great at the whit stillman/chris eigeman q&a after the screening of last days of disco last night.

i think i'm done.

yeah i do find that her comic persona has grown on me, her semi-deadpan reactions to an endless procession of humiliation. the scene where her sister is yelling at her and she's just sort of mildly wacking her with a spoon killed me

i find the suggestion that she's unaware of her own/the character's privilege absurd; i mean, look at her mother's apartment!

But I think that was Dunham's mother's actual apartment, just as that's Dunham's actual mother and actual sister in the movie. That blurred line between the fiction of the film and Dunham's actual life is a lot of what makes me question her distance from and awareness of her character's privilege.

haha yeah that was great. "stop hitting me! it doesn't hurt!"

xp i don't see how making a film in her mother's own apartment means that she's not aware her mother has a lot of money?

she's found a way to show people having unpleasant and unenjoyable sex where the men are doofuses and the women are entirely unclear as to how they got into this situation without slut shaming which is pretty clever imo

question her distance from the character, sure.

xp

that works kinda as a non xpost too

Yeah, her comic persona was one of the things I pointedly liked about the movie, which is why I'm willing to give Girls a chance. She seems a'ight, generally speaking.

I'm just tired of the world bowing down everytime someone finds a slightly insightful new way to say "student loans, amirite?"

haha i thought the problem was that 'tiny furniture'/'girls' is pointedly NOT about the sort of ppl who have student loans