GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

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

well like i said, i was just shooting the shit and have seen like <10 mins of the movie. people can feed the troll if they like but i'm happy to duck out of the thread and not defend my tangent any further at least until i see an episode of the show or something.

it is really not your kind of movie, i think, al.

How did enjoying a movie and discussing filmmaker's next project become "pumped" and "bowing down"?

As for " student loans", well yeah just like Lena Dunham maybe they are mentioned a lot, but only by certain people and not in the context they should be.

whiney's stamp of approval is def a sign i went too far with the hyperbole, sorry for the loaded language

:(

i understand exactly where sd and whiney are coming from in their distaste for the thing they describe, but after a point you just gotta judge things on their own merits

sorry to whiney for sneak dissin

buying flowers for everybody here

yeah word hungry

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

yeah this is really good and like really the whole point, i mean the show is called 'girls' and i think this is really the best, the most honest and funny, stuff in the movie too? like the maybe cliched 'post-collegiate search for purpose and identity' stuff is p inextricably mixed up in this kind of sexual and romantic flailing? which i mean '2 broke girls exists' but its really dishonest and terrible so

exactly, fucking whitney cummings is evil and this is antidote
it is bemusing how they're presenting this as sex and the city for youngsters and it looks anything but

but again, i should follow al's lead and shut the fuck up until i actually see the dumb thing

let's hold hands and shut the fuck up together

i mean it's definitely the gender stuff that matters to me. i think the work/ambition strand is of a piece with that though. it's not like "everybody young is searching" it's more specifically about a paralysis women of a certain privilege experience wrt work, in part because they haven't been acculturated to valuing their own labor, taking making money as a goal, etc.

i can see how that would be deeply irritating to some people, but again, i think it's real.

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

yeah this is really good and like really the whole point, i mean the show is called 'girls' and i think this is really the best, the most honest and funny, stuff in the movie too? like the maybe cliched 'post-collegiate search for purpose and identity' stuff is p inextricably mixed up in this kind of sexual and romantic flailing? which i mean '2 broke girls exists' but its really dishonest and terrible so

― Lamp, Friday, April 6, 2012 11:08 AM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this stuff reminds me of some m*mblec*ore flicks (thinking 'hannah takes the stairs'), tho it's played less explicitly & not really for laughs. also, i feel like greta gerwig in that & others rec'd similar crit @ the time (can't act; only cast cuz shes v embracing of nudity, etc)

idk what my point is, just sayin

Just FYI, I will not be "embracing nudity" in BOYS.