GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

Okay an episode like that (and really the last one) is where my comparison of this show to Workaholics falls apart hah.

I have a friend from college who is a writerly type and all the stuff lena/hannah says about wanting to experience it all just to be able to write about them ... is that some platitude they teach in creative writing classes

it's not something that's taught in writing school, it's just that writing school attracts people who think like this, i.e., the majority of young writers.

The best and most candid conversations I've had about this show have been with my female writer/artist friends (I am a writer too) and we all can see bits of our younger selves in Hannah.

But xp to self: in my experience it was rare for anyone to express that sentiment out loud even tho everyone knew we played fast and loose with the consequences of reality while still remaining neurotic enough about it to not necessarily deeply damage ourselves.

(I recognize this privilege)

I have a friend from college who is a writerly type and all the stuff lena/hannah says about wanting to experience it all just to be able to write about them ... is that some platitude they teach in creative writing classes

it's not something that's taught in writing school, it's just that writing school attracts people who think like this, i.e., the majority of young writers.

― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Monday, February 11, 2013 11:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

hah yeah that feels right.

as I was falling asleep though I had a thought, deeply platitudinous but I thought I'd share all the same, that if you want to become a good writer you don't need to write about something new, but rather write something that's true

*becomes high school english teacher*

As a former writing (or at least journalism) class person -that feeling definitely strikes a chord with me, shallow as it is. Although for me it was the opposite -- I wanted to write as an excuse to experience different things, not the other way 'round. Although maybe that's why I quit working as a writer!

I did like this episode, but I'm not sure it told us anything about Hannah we didn't already know.

I wanted to write as an excuse to experience different things, not the other way 'round.
yeah, i think a lot of young writing-class/writers feel this way too, like it's not one way 'round or the other but a murky mix of the two... i don't even think it's ultimately all that shallow because, funnily enough, what it seems to really be about is consciously "acquiring" depth as a person, like ways of getting to a place where one "really gets it, really nails it" with storytelling/artistic panache, wise words, "the truth," etc., as in, the road to being a successful writer/artist is to experience life at all costs. I'm certainly not saying this is the case with all writers/artists nor that writing/art school creates this, only that it can reinforce something that is already there in some creative people. It's kind of fucked up, but combined with youthful naivete and seemingly nebulous consequences/sense of immortality, it's understandable. Somewhere along the line, life (usually in the form of recognizing that other people are people, with feelings and experiences too) steps in and says "hey, quit it." Or it doesn't.

this also i think touches on how even though there's always hype around amazing young writers and artists, most of the really great writers/artists do if not their "best" (subjective, culturally contextual term), their most deep/investigative work after age 40.

or 35, obv depending on what's been done before, obv generalizing

it's funny that the drive to fill yr early life with experiences is ultimately what causes the later realization that oh wait this stuff comes from inside me anyway, and somehow the schism between the two becomes that creative force

hooboy I may need more coffee for that to make sense

I guess I just enjoyed writing (as a reporter, not an personal essayist) because the variety of stories I got to cover were so interesting, and got to meet lots of interesting folks. It was less about filling an internal void that filling a giant external void with more interesting stuff.

I eventually quit because it became exhausting, and because I realised I was more interested in the experiences than going home to write about them ("or really nailing it"). I guess this is a long way of saying that I was too lazy to be a journalist.

Anyway, great show this week. Surprised some people didn't buy the Wilson/Dunham pairing. The only red flag with me was Ray's obnoxiousness in the first scene, which I didn't buy at all, except for the fact that it was funny, which I suppose is good enough.

I was secretly hoping it would be a Watchmen crossover episode

:D

I didn't see the ep, but there's /*\ INTERNET CONTROVERSY /*\ brewing around the Wilson/Dunham thing, which, afaikt boils down to "that's not realistic" vs. "are you saying she doesn't deserve a guy like that just because she doesn't look like a model"?

i dont think it *quite* boils down to that

The only red flag with me was Ray's obnoxiousness in the first scene, which I didn't buy at all, except for the fact that it was funny, which I suppose is good enough.

― Chuck_Tatum, Tuesday, February 12, 2013 11:34 AM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah this felt really forced

personally thought wilson looked like a serial killer when he was first introduced

I kinda knew what the Jezebel link was about before I clicked but didn't expect to find mainstream critics suggesting the hook-up was so unrealistic that the whole episode must have been a dream sequence. I mean Jesus.

the last three episodes have all been really good imo

i feel like their horribleness really shouldn't color my response to this show. like i don't want to embrace it as particularly good in certain "empowering" ways, just because some critics are characters in mad men or the like.

Oh man, I thought Ray was totally realistic! I've had customer service like that.

i.e. "is this empowering" is i think a very boring and not useful conversation about this show. but "was it a dream" is an insane conversation. i'd rather not have either.

Ray was out-of-control, though tbf the coffee shop *is* called "Grumpy's."

it's a real coffee shop in greenpoint, and it's "Grumpy" *scoff*

To be fair, I am totally out of Mrs Chuck's league, so I did sympathise with Wilson on that point.

Oh man, I thought Ray was totally realistic!

yeah. and the character's m.o. has pretty much been that he's a dick to most people, not sure what's not to get about that scene

The way I interpreted it at first when I watched was that Ray was being overly defensive b/c he was the one dumping the trash (related to his homelessness/not wanting anyone at work to catch on) and then Hannah, knowing his secret & seeing how much this threatened him, went to apologize and cover for him as a solid. But I didn't see anyone else interpreting it that way anywhere so maybe not. Can't recall if it was established that it was actually Hannah.

^ I had that thought too

I thought Ray's m.o. is that he's a dick, but mostly only to people who are also dicks, and Wilson didn't seem like he deserved that response.

But I don't think it's really that big a deal if a sitcom character acts out-of-character for five minutes in a joke scene.

yeah felt like they probably just needed a 3 minute sequence to explain how hannah ends up in this dude's brownstone

Also I kind that fact that the characters are inconsistent and dickish for no reason sometimes, which actually strikes me as kind of realistic.

fwiw she showed up at his house - which I don't remember him saying the exact address of - which made me change my mind from "it's Ray, something to do with being homeless" to "Hanna was doing it." xp

Can't recall if it was established that it was actually Hannah.

I thought that when she dumped Joshua's garbage in his bin (presumably for the last time) after she left his house, it was both apt and poingnant

The way I interpreted it at first when I watched was that Ray was being overly defensive b/c he was the one dumping the trash

think his reaction was more like I have no idea what you're talking about, thus it didn't happen, thus gtfo of my store

I don't think calling this episode a kind of "fantasy" is all that incredulous or misogynist. The entire mood of the episode was different and unreal. Has the show ever used music like that? Hannah doesn't just hook up with a guy who might be out of her league, but he's some cartoon stereotype of the Perfect Male who lives in this gorgeous apartment and they have a beautiful, story book two days together before it's all undone by her own "issues". It does feel kind of like a dream, and not simply because THERE'S NO WAY SHE COULD SCORE A DUDE LIKE THAT or w/e.

I'm not suggesting Hannah literally is ~having a dream~ and she wakes up the next episode, but it's built like a fable or something. I liked it a lot.

LOVED THIS EPISODE

Also totally identified with the lame "I need to have experiences" thing because half of my actions in life are motivated by whether it'd be a good story to tell. REAL DUMB, I realize.

A bit like Louie looking at the $13M house.

there's a huge difference between "this episode works as a fable" and "it was all a dream"

the "out of her league" argument is so stupid I can't even be bothered to seriously think about it but everything about this episode seemed sensible and real
watched it again and it improved. I think this individual episode might be more realized and accomplished than Tiny Furniture.
In fifteen years, most of Girls is gonna look as dated and bizarroworld as Sex and the City does now but this one episode would make perfect sense if it had been made fifty years ago and will make perfect sense fifty years from now.
It's as much an accomplishment as the Louie Melissa Leo episode IMO.

I need to rewatch this, but what's sticking with me are the little serene moments - Hannah watching Joshua reading the newspaper, or waking up naked on the white bedsheets. They have a character that I don't recall really being present before in what's maybe a kind of grubby, impactful show in general, and I think because of that Hannah's freakout resonated a lot.

I did think the sex-out-of-nowhere did seem a bit fictive (maybe I'm just too dull to conceive of real world instasex), but besides that I don't know what angle those people are coming from other than 'I'm a misogynist btw'.

I knew as soon as handsome Patrick psychokiller showed up that it was Hannah dumping the trash. I had no idea why except that it TOTALLY fit Hannah's usually facepalm bullshit, bless her heart.

To be honest I freaked a little when she kissed him. Like I half thought he was going to pick her up and throw her out into the street. But I was still thinking mostly about the trash thing, lol

Tbf, Hannah freaked a little when she kissed him.

I expected it to be some kind of daydream sequence (ala Louis CK and the townhouse) the entire time - it was too magical realistic, including Hannah unburdening her soul, etc.. Glad that it wasn't, though.
Hannah's line about "the feedback she's received" and the unburdening and the guy's reaction (I'd be freaked out, too, after 24 hours of hanging out) felt like the most honest moments the show has had yet.

I've stayed with this show 'cause it's funny, maybe generationally funny or whatever, and I'm (more or less subtly attuned) to what my gf thinks/says, but we both agreed afterwards that it was, literally, fantastic or fabulous (it's a rather exquisite fantasy, which I think she absolutely meant), but both funny and quite moving.

I have to admit that seeing Hannah fiddling with the controls in the improbably large shower and then passing out in the quite real 'fog' of the consequences and then being rescued/comforted by Joshua was quite good writing for me.

i think the "feedback" line actually points to a rather more nuanced way to take the "reality" of the encounter--it definitely seems like a safe and enclosed place (maybe not-quite full on wish fulfillment) apart from the regular world hannah inhabits. i mean, we're certainly supposed to be a little surprised he's so into her and it seems disingenuous, and maybe a little dismissive of the complexity of the encounter, to think he acts in an entirely "realistic" way in accepting her into his home so readily.

And the tension between her lust for his beauty, status, things, serenity and her appreciation (compared to his disapproval) for the shenanigans of the kids in the backyard next door almost broke my heart a little.

haha wow, i never once took it as fantasy or a major confabulation of the truth or whatever. these things happen to "regular people" all the time and i could definitely see how this event could happen to Hannah. i mean, just for example as this is the first thing among others that popped into my mind, did people talk about The Graduate as fantastical? Because seriously.

yes they did