GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

i don't think her boyfriend is a blameless victim (and i'm not at all perplexed by her boredom w/ him) but yknow. still possible to be turned off by the way people conduct themselves w/r/t other people, even in the mess of a collapsing relationship.

that weird slow/motionless sex they had a couple of episodes back was the best case that BOTH of them were the worst in their relationship. I mean seriously

otm

for some reason, the line "no, $30, because i want pizza and gum" made me laugh pretty hard.

this episode was almost enjoyable!

she sucked so bad at recognizing and dealing with this and hurt him like crazy out of what just seemed like irritable petulance that her life was not as she'd like

sadsack boyfriend's apartment makes me want to go buy a truckload of cabinet-grade plywood

me too. immediately thought, "why haven't i built me a loft?"

or, more practically, some shelves and a table

racing car bed is the only correct answer here

can't sleep clown will eat me

HALLO JOE

i dont dislike any of the characters, they are all funny & good

its like 'disliking' george costanza or something

good point, I hadn't thought about it that way

Something about Adam's face reminds me of one of those dirt cheap animations where they superimpose moving lips onto a still picture.

Also Hannah trying to fuck her boss was sooooooooo uncomfortable and also pretty out of character! Wtf!

its like 'disliking' george costanza or something

But George is cartoonishly awful, and you're never meant to empathize. He's all schadenfreude. but these characters are rooted in some semblance of reality, and intended to be somewhat sympathetic. No? Dunham in her interviews has not indicated they're meant to be the object of scorn or ridicule or anything. I think she wants it to be funny, but she also wants it to reflect her experiences.

i think george is supposed to be sort of sympathetic

george is the best and most likable seinfeld character. (well elaine is pretty likable, too, but george is definitely the triumph of characterization.)

not that likable is the point, but he is sympathetic a lot of the time!

in other news, i am an old lady because jemima kirke is so beautiful and when she was all dolled up for her date with her ex-bf i was like, you'd be so pretty if you wiped some of that junk off your face! like it was really bothering me

Yeah, it was definitely dress-up lipstick; wrong color, overdone, smelled of artifice.

but these characters are rooted in some semblance of reality, and intended to be somewhat sympathetic. No? Dunham in her interviews has not indicated they're meant to be the object of scorn or ridicule or anything. I think she wants it to be funny, but she also wants it to reflect her experiences.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 15 May 2012 15:27 (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i just don't think this is at all true. dunham's MO is lacerating, self-loathing critique of her crowd, or of flaws endemic to her peers, at least; that doesn't preclude affection, and being relateable, but she has perspective & weights stories to reveal the flaws of her protagonists - the solipsism that makes hannah vapidly wonder if she wished she had AIDS, &c, or ask if her roomie liked the writing of her diary. have you seen tiny furniture? there's a tipping point someway through when it becomes apparent she's not shooting for some kind of redemptive or charming turnaround but for the characters being real and deeply flawed, kinda almost just wrong (cf her & adorable frankie). & i'm sure you can find that sympathetic!, on account of its realism, but i don't think she's just doing a short-sighted job of painting sympathetic characters, accidentally tarring them with grave personality defects.

also i thought this episode did a very good job of making sadsack boyfriend really sympathetic and then, when he's bargaining with marnie during the sex scene, kind of repulsive, so that as a viewer you're kind of aligned with marnie when she's like ugh, i want to break up.

xp i liked the lipstick color, it was the white powder on her face that bugged me.

GIRLS talk (wrong color, overdone, smelled of artifice) 10000 new answers

yeah man marnie and charlie had the worst relationship, they are both way better off out of that nonsense, i hope this doesnt mean the end of his jerky pal as a character though, that guy makes me laugh

yeah that guy is hilarious and such an effortless asshole--i always wonder if he improvised some of his dialogue in tiny furniture and in girls.

Effortless asshole is a great description. He's not even overcompensating or anything, he's just a dick, albeit a funny one.

he owns like 0 shirts as far as I can tell

oh i didn't mean shirtless dude, i meant sadsack boyfriend's jerky friend

Ray

Come on the characters have goddamn names

i don't know the names of any character on any hbo show except for karl pilkington

veep/game of thrones/treme/boardwalk empire/girls = total blank on anyone's name
except zao zosa zim zangafin or whatever the evil dude with the 13 is named.

I know the girls names; the guys get a little murky

so I've only seen the first episode, are we saying that shirtless dude remains shirtless throughout all subsequent episodes?

Yes.

Lena Dunham ... Hannah Horvath (10 episodes, 2012)

Allison Williams ... Marnie Michaels (10 episodes, 2012)

Jemima Kirke ... Jessa Johansson (9 episodes, 2012)

Zosia Mamet ... Shoshanna Shapiro (9 episodes, 2012)

Adam Driver ... Adam Sackler (9 episodes, 2012)

Christopher Abbott ... Charlie (5 episodes, 2012)
Alex Karpovsky ... Ray Ploshansky (5 episodes, 2012)

James LeGros ... Jeff Lavoyt (3 episodes, 2012)

Kathryn Hahn ... Katherine Lavoyt (2 episodes, 2012)
Julian Osti ... Julian (2 episodes, 2012)

Clare Foley ... Lola Lavoyt (2 episodes, 2012)
Mackenzie Grey ... Beatrix Lavoyt (2 episodes, 2012)

useful

but plz add brief character synopsis

That is spelling bottle episode to me.

Marnie is astonishingly beautiful even though there's some definite dad-resemblance.

the seinfeld/costanza comparison is otm. these characters are supposed to be funny above all else, and sympathetic to some degree, but i don't think that likeability is at all the point. schadenfreude is the operating principle. were supposed to laugh when they do dumb things, laugh when bad things happen to them as a consequence, and wince when it all becomes too humiliating to bear.

were = we're

NYT profile from over a year ago about adam driver, who plays hannah's gross dude (he's a stage actor who's been in 'angels of america' and an ex-marine who started an arts nonprofit for military personnel)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/theater/22driver.html?_r=1

yeah man marnie and charlie had the worst relationship, they are both way better off out of that nonsense, i hope this doesnt mean the end of his jerky pal as a character though, that guy makes me laugh

― max, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 11:08 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I LOVE this guy. I thought he looked really familiar but I looked him up on IMDB and it seemed like he'd only been in Tiny Furniture which I still haven't seen so I decided he reminds me of an irl person but I can't work out who.

I still really like this show and don't hate any of the characters tbh. Haven't seen this week's ep yet so maybe that'll change.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/07/loves-lena-dunham/

why can't the nyrb just review books

Interesting article. Thanks.

yeah man marnie and charlie had the worst relationship, they are both way better off out of that nonsense, i hope this doesnt mean the end of his jerky pal as a character though, that guy makes me laugh

― max, Tuesday, May 15, 2012 11:08 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I LOVE this guy. I thought he looked really familiar but I looked him up on IMDB and it seemed like he'd only been in Tiny Furniture which I still haven't seen so I decided he reminds me of an irl person but I can't work out who.

he's v good in beeswax, which is great you should check it out

“[Adam Driver] has something of an old-school strong dude’s body,” said Ms. Dunham, whose show begins filming in New York in the spring. “He doesn’t look like a wimp, which in this day and age is who most 27-year-old guys are palling around with: men wearing very small pants.”

Underestimating how much strength required to squeeze into very small parts.