GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

Dunham is really, really good. I love the way she's played pretty much all of her scenes in the last two episodes - charismatic but quiet.
thought the scene with Marnie and the artist? was really well done, the tension on the platform was right on

wouldn't be upset if they cut out Britchick and the SITC fan

SATC

Sexin' the City

http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2010/12/Snax-and-the-City4.jpg

Needs more Papyrus font.

"giant hot dogs"

Isn't Generation Y about two generations ago?

yeah, gen x was several years older than me during the grunge era, and i'm 'old' now

am highly skeptical of the idea upthread that the show is ambivalent about its chars, feel like it unabashedly loves them and views them through the self-romanticizing prism that often makes young artists insufferable. there's plenty of self-awareness there, but also a natural lack of distance (this could be part of the appeal for some viewers)

how do you parse hannah showing up in her parents' hotel room and informing them she is the voice of her generation? ... which tbh when the show has been that self-aware about what's / what isn't going on anyone who then says 'ah but is this really what gen y life is about' has been played and can just stfu, gtfo

im also not convinced that dunham can give the characters distinct voices, or at least she hasn't yet - shoshanna's still a thin caricature and marnie's scenes in this ep felt to me like they were written for hannah's character

this on the other hand i kind of get with: i feel like the other three are more like facets of or ideas for characters, and i don't think it's really deliberate. -- also something that would work in a novel better than in an episodic tv show with four leads. -- when shoshanna has a main plot what on earth is that going to look like, i wonder

the gawker posts on this are the worst thing in the world

"maybe they weren't awful. maybe your taste is awful." hahaha!

will always have total mancrush luv for legros. i'm only human!

xposting I don't know how far past Gen X or Gen Y we are, exactly - it's not an exact science - but certainly we've hit the point where Gen Y should be starting to churn out their share of movies, books, etc.; Dunham might even be on the young end of that scale. The so-called millennials are all still in school, so we've got a few years before they offer their own solipsistic take on the world.

they will only be able to make movies if their parents are watching them though.

That'd be hilarious. "Lena, don't forget to shoot coverage! And wipe that powdered sugar off your cheek!"

three episodes isnt quite enough for me to make the judgment that the characters dont have distinct voices but yeah so far shoshanna and gemma dont have much depth at all. marine is a little better but not by much -- but it seemed really clear to me that her scenes in episode 3 were hers, the whole, "uptight girl gets sexual mind blown by Andy Samberg sidekick" thing

don't forget your water bottle! you need to hydrate. most hydrated generation alive.

x-post

i thought the art gallery bathroom masturbation scene was weird, not specifically masturbating in the bathroom but that marnie would be so turned on by that guy telling her about his scary sex, the kind of thing that if itd happened in a show written/directed by men i wouldve written off as fantasy

then again sexuality is a mysterious & complex phenomenon

i believe artist dude is a man but i don't believe that he knows things.

anyway i still like this show a lot, it makes me laugh enough not to care too much about dancing to robyn at the end

There’s also a scene in one of the episodes where a guy says to one of the characters, “The first time I fuck you I might scare you a little, because I’m a man, and I know how to do things,” and it’s supposed to be a huge turn-on.

Somebody actually said that line to me, only afterward he was like, “That’s the thing my friend who works at Vice magazine taught me.” And I was like, the best way to negate the hot thing you just said is to end it with, that’s the thing my friend at Vice magazine told me.

Was it working before he said that?

No, it never really worked. I don’t think he was really willing to put his money where his mouth was. I’ve been watching that show “Bent,” and I just love the main guy in it. He’s a guy who comes over and is like, “When you’re ready for me, it’s gonna be crazy.” I’ve never had a situation in real life where that’s been effective, but in my movie life, it’s very effective. Real life – it’s grotesque. But if somebody says like, I’m paraphrasing, like, “We’re gonna screw and you’re gonna like it,” that is so much more attractive in theory than in practice.

i googled 'onion av club lena dunham interview' trying to find that (which is actually from the salon interview, oops) and even with 'lena dunham interview' in the search terms the episode guides show up above it on google. the mtynahseriouis tv wastching habits of genernation y

apparently there is also a neogaf thread about this show which before i click on i am going to pre-emptively take back the thing i said about the gawker posts on it being the worst thing in the world

dunham is really good at deflating those weird pretentions, especially w/r/t sex, so its weird to me that she played the marnie scene so straight

yeah, gen x was several years older than me during the grunge era, and i'm 'old' now

more than several, Generation X lasted from the 50s to the 90s as a current term for "oh our feckless young generation, wherever are they headed"

dunham is really good at deflating those weird pretentions, especially w/r/t sex, so its weird to me that she played the marnie scene so straight

it's bcz marnie is a figment rather than an actual person

generations are pretty big, everyone who isn't a baby boomer or gen y is somewhere in the gen x spectrum

yeah i was surprised at marnie's reaction to that idiotic thing that dude said, too. lena dunham explained it in the little after-the-show clip but it still seems kind of out-of-character.

marnie doesn't seem like a figment to me

like i thought the whole thing was going to be, marnie's having one of those intense flirty nights w/ this guy shes into, and he says this ridiculous thing and it completely ruins the moment

Mostly I'm taking away that girls in this generation have names that start with the same letter.

was super-excited to see james legros

Gen X had nothing to do with the '50s. Though the '50s did give birth to youth culture, and young people are angsty and self-obsessed, so there's that.

Generation X the book = based on Generation X the Billy Idol band = named after Generation X the 50's sociology book that Idol's mum had on a shelf.

Named after =/= based on, obviously.

really generation y ought to be referred to as generation x-subscript-2

The letters X and Y precede hundreds of generations.

xps

There's "generation X" as a term that has been wheeled out since the 50s and then there's the generation which we currently refer to with that term.

A generation of young people about whose future there is uncertainty; a lost generation. In later use: spec. a generation of young people (esp. North Americans reaching adulthood in the 1980s and 1990s) perceived to be disaffected, directionless, or irresponsible, and reluctant to participate in society.

1952 Holiday Dec. 41/2 What, you may well ask, is Generation X?‥ These are the youngsters who have seen and felt the agonies of the past two decades,‥who are trying to keep their balance in the swirling pressures of today, and who will have the biggest say in the course of history for the next 50 years.
1964 C. Hamblett & J. Deverson Generation X 8 The ultimate responsibility of Generation X is to guide the human race through the final and crucial decades of this explosive century into the enlightenment of the next one.

marine is a little better but not by much -- but it seemed really clear to me that her scenes in episode 3 were hers, the whole, "uptight girl gets sexual mind blown by Andy Samberg sidekick" thing

― max, Tuesday, May 1, 2012 9:48 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i mean i got what was happening from a character standpoint, its just in the execution it felt very hannah-y - just imagine dunham in those gallery scenes kind of mumbling to herself and going along with short dorky jizz in his pants guy and its a perfect fit. i didnt buy it, i guess its just me though

only generation x could take a thread about millennials and turn it into a thread about them

xp - No fair enough, switch the 'based on' to 'named after', just saying it's been a tag that's been around for a while - Douglass Coupland isn't the first to pin specific behaviours to general fecklessness, but his has stuck a bit better because a) he's Douglass Coupland and b) we were all the right age for it :)

xp nah i didnt buy it either really, i suppose it makes a little more sense if you imagine that the guy is some hip artist who marnie is really into

only generation x could take a thread about millennials and turn it into a thread about them

― max, Tuesday, May 1, 2012 7:22 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Pretty sure boomers could've done this handily, too

It only makes sense to me if part of the attraction is his prestige

yeah i mean i got what was happening from a character standpoint, its just in the execution it felt very hannah-y - just imagine dunham in those gallery scenes kind of mumbling to herself and going along with short dorky jizz in his pants guy and its a perfect fit. i didnt buy it, i guess its just me though

― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Tuesday, May 1, 2012 10:22 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hannah definitely would have rolled her eyes at "when i fuck you, it might scare you a little, cause i'm a man," though! marnie's desperate for the kind of fun she thinks she's not having in a committed long-term relationship. but it's still kind of hard for me to buy her not snorting at what that dude said.

I asked my mom and she said you gen x'ers are being mean and she's going to call stet and complain if you don't knock it off.

it would have worked better if the dude had been a really ladykiller/hottie but a real ladykiller/hottie wouldn't have said that.

no i think it was good that he was sort of normal-looking and a dick

he was highly plausible all-around

hannah would have said something like: "scary, like, are you going to wear a scary mask or something?"