GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

me too, for a show i "never watched' for some reason every time i see a re-run it's an episode i've already seen

I watched a few early episodes, they were fairly different from what it ended up like iirc. Carrie's voiceover where she starts to wonder.... became like nails down a blackboard for me so I have no idea how other people continued watching.

^many of us were held hostage and forced to watch this as a duty.
just saying.

and i get that it's the best option from a shitty pack. it's still a mostly shitty option.
though my main issue is the blatant consumerism and that's more just a personal thing.

I have seen less than one episode of SATC and have no real opinions

I've hated every second of SATC I've seen but it's been an incredibly small percentage of what aired and what fans of the show claim they find in it makes me happy for them (from a distance).

Kinder otm. I watched the first season and some of the second but have only seen a handful of eps thereafter. I haven't read through the whole thread since this morning but just had to say that not everyone who disliked it still watched. I had p much 0 interest for most of it. Also, I really dislike Oprah.

btw re: british girl "lucking out" - we don't really know yet whether she miscarried or her period was just late. she seemed pretty happy about it at any rate.

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Wednesday, April 25, 2012 5:26 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

R, I assume if she'd gone so far as to schedule an abortion she'd done a pregnancy test and it was confirmed so I doubt it was just late. I mean it could have been but that sort of doesn't make sense to me. I'm not surprised they didn't actually show her getting an abortion. iirc only one TV show ever has because it's still considered too controversial. Shows have talked about it but usually a miscarriage happens before the op ever does (see Party of Five). Maude is the one that actually had a soup to nuts abortion plot line, I think.

you would think hbo could handle it? i was sorta hoping that might be the taboo breaker the show was committing to. it's something that needs demystification.

You would think so! I was pretty pissed when I realized they weren't actually going to have her have the abortion.

you would think hbo could handle it?

they wouldnt even let one of the hags on s&tc have one!!!

the only shows i can remember where a character had an abortion are everwood (lol) and six feet under. almost no one on tv has abortions

Fast Times at Ridgemont High still ahead of its time.

I really don't see that HBO or Dunham would have a problem with having an abortion on the show, especially considering how frank and diverse the discussion about it was. Of course, Judd Apatow is a producer, so *CONSPIRACY THEORY* maybe he's continued his pro-life campaign on from Knocked Up!

Talking and doing are two different things. There are a handful of shows where it's been discussed but very very few where it's actually ever actually preformed. I didn't realize there was one on 6 Feet. Maybe Maude is the only network show that ever had one. Anyway it's rare and though I doubt Dunham has issues with it I wouldn't find it difficult to believe that someone at HBO thought it would be better to have the character miscarry.

the only shows i can remember where a character had an abortion are everwood (lol) and six feet under. almost no one on tv has abortions

― Lamp, Wednesday, April 25, 2012 9:47 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is one of the reasons everwood rules. also degrassi. but the degrassi abortion episode didn't air in the united states!!!

six feet under does not rule, though

everwood totally had one it was on a broadcast network!! well... the cw. also friday night lights had a really good abortion storyline but the show was on directtv by that season???

haha xp

I've never heard of everwood!

it is a show that i am embarrassed about liking but there it is

this is terribly off topic, but Lamp i am re-watching once and again. i blame you and scott seward.

tbh I think HBO would be happy with an abortion. It gives them edgy cred, and as they don't give a toss what advertisers think (the driving force in other networks' decisions) they would have let her do whatever they wanted. xposts

Everwood was totally solid, btw. A really underrated WB/CW soap that lacked the obvious interesting elements that a Buffy or a Gilmore Girls had but managed to be an excellent drama nonetheless.

x-post I totally don't remember that either though it seems to have aired during a time when I couldn't afford cable and only got Pax christian programming which aired p much only touched by an angel and 7th heaven.

once and again, I mean

once and again is top ten all-time for me. love it 4ever.

friday night lights had an abortion.

she calls it a word alert lmao

oh shit, yeah, FNL. I knew I had seen one on TV in the past few years.

everwood was the show chris pratt was on

obviously no one here watches my little pony

Their glimmers of reality are undone by artifice and attitude.

no offence or anything but i find it hard to believe someone would say this about a show where the principle characters weren't four women, for whatever reason.

second episode so much sharper and funnier than the pilot, which is how it should be. really love zofia mamet, too.

Imagine someone writing "their glimmers of reality are undone by artifice and attitude" about Entourage.

Yeah. I can't.

And much as I enjoyed series 2-4, I think Entourage is an infinitely more facile and substance-free show than SATC.

Their glimmers of reality are undone by artifice and attitude.

no offence or anything but i find it hard to believe someone would say this about a show where the principle characters weren't four women, for whatever reason.

Why would I not say this about other shows? Entourage is without a doubt stupider, more facile, more all sorts of negative things than the vast majority of shows. But "Girls" has a higher bar, imo, in that it is set in some sort of real world, rather than in a rarified parallel universe of privilege (like Friends or Entourage or Woody Allen movies or whatever). Even SATC is only about as real-world as your one-set average sitcom; there's no pretense of lol we are the 99% reality. The characters of Girls might be in their own respective worlds, but their environment is at least recognizable (to me) as reality based, diversity aside. Ergo, the character contrivances irk me. Now, it would be fair of me to admit that, say, the contrivances of "The Wire" did not irk me, but then, "The Wire" existed to serve a larger plot/story, if that makes sense. Its characters were important, but they had a narrative to serve. In "Girls," the cast is the sole attraction; there is no plot, per se, not yet, so I wish they were more compelling. Which maybe they will become if the show generates any gravity. But right now, there is nothing at stake, which to me makes it feel lightweight.

I guess I don't really see the character contrivances you're hinting are present in Girls, or that they're particularly more contrived than the shows you mention. I don't see much in the way of artifice in Girls, tbh. And I don't really understand what you mean by "attitude".

What exactly must a situation comedy have "at stake" for you to be invested in it, for it not to be "lightweight"? What sitcoms, for you, are not "lightweight"?

louie and uh....
uh....

Well, I guess that's the crux of my (again, academic) problems with the show. By attitude I mean approach; I'm really not sure how to classify it. It's not a comedy, really, though it can be funny. It's not escapist, though these are not lives like mine. It's not aspirational. I don't find it particularly dramatic. Which is why it's sort of hovering in a vacuum for me. I'm not really rooting for them. I'm not rooting against them. If these four girls decided not to be friends, I wouldn't care. If they ended up homeless, or living at home, I wouldn't care. It's early, but I suppose by "at stake" I mean a compelling reason to follow their lives. It doesn't have to be life and death. But as the second ep showed, it could even be sort of blase and passive about abortion, so I wonder if it will build toward something or simply hover in stasis as a sort of Gen Y mumblecore exercise. I hope it doesn't, but I could easily imagine the tone staying this steady for the duration.

otm

It's a blog!!!

THERE HAVE BEEN TWO EPISODES!

christ

AND IT'S ONLY A TV SHOW!

jesus

I WANT TO SHOUT TOO!

our lord and savior

People actually watch Entourage? I think I tried watching it and, unlike some shows that do work for me, I didn't like any of the characters AND I pretty much found what they were doing either horrible or uninteresting. There are shows where I loathe all the characters but I find the show interesting, but that sure wasn't one of them.

It's not a comedy, really, though it can be funny.

see, such generic concerns don't really bother me. the second episode made my other half and i guffaw aloud numerous times, which has never repeat never happened whenever i've had the misfortune to catch how i met your mother or similar.

i agree the show's not escapist or aspirational. and my life's not much like theirs, but it has the smack of truth about it. and it's really funny. that's enough to keep me watching, tbh, and i don't feel anything about it that's much more artificial than most good sitcoms on at the moment, excepting Louie.

seasons 2-4 of entourage the characters are sorta likable, and the inherent misogyny of their banter is more muted.

it's funny, all josh in chicago's criticisms/personal reasons for not being into the show reflect why i like the show. the show itself is a curious entity.

it's funny, all josh in chicago's criticisms/personal reasons for not being into the show tl;dr

fwiw maybe it's because I've not lived in a city the size of Chicago or NYC but the backdrop of Girls seems just as fake as most other shows. Well, not Friends or whatever, but still pretty fake. I think the closer something is to your experience, the more you're willing to forgive the set piece bits of it.

seasons 2-4 of entourage the characters are sorta likable, and the inherent misogyny of their banter is more muted.

― Bad Company's Drummer's Daughter (stevie), Thursday, April 26, 2012 10:25 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah...i remember a certain point where johnny drama started talking about 'banging whores' or something and i was like woah did this show get nastier or am i looking at the funnier early seasons through rose tinted glasses?

there is a guy they refer to as johnny drama

case closed