GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

plus you could like them in their dislike of each other

when it comes to likeability (and larry david def was likeable, despite being deeply irritating), i dont think they have to be per se, but its hard to be sympathetic to these privileged characters who cant seem to stop moaning about how bad they have it - yes being in your mid 20s is hard, but these girls dont have it THAT bad - ive never seen them have no food in the fridge, or fail to make rent, or do jobs they REALLY hate, or be in relationships that are truly horrible. i know the show also invites us to laugh at their myopic self-absorption, which is one of its plus points, but compelling though the show is (and callow and smug as someone said upthread is right), im a bit sick now of the general fascination not just with unlikeable characters (many of my favourite characters are seemingly unlikeable) but people who act like arseholes (don draper is another one, admittedly one i cant stop watching).

also, re: sex in this show, seems a bit tragic that they never seem to feel anything when fucking. im sure this is the point (and also its funny) but seems a bit weird (unless the point is to show that mid 20s women havent figured out how to enjoy fucking yet/women dont really enjoy sex/whatever).

Banned. You're banned

also, while watching this show, i keep thinking lena dunham must have wanted to be in jackass (surely the only body part of hers we havent yet seen is her vagina - fingers crossed for season 3!)

You're banned

Excited about Gaby Hoffman as Adam's sister.

esp if he greets her like he did when they spoke on the phone

adam actually has probably the best lines of anyone - "would you have fucked me when I was four?" (obv writing it down here, that looks awful)

you can't criticise girls for being full of unlikeable characters who are riding high on self importance & behaving unlikeably & unable to correctly order or process or inhabit their problems or do so with appropriate pathos when this is what the show is about

What if I don't like what the show is about? In fact I think that's my least favorite thing about it.

srsly

unless the point is to show that mid 20s women havent figured out how to enjoy fucking yet/women dont really enjoy sex/whatever

seems to me the main problem is their boyfriends don't know how to have sex

Nice humblebrag there Shakes

ssex with Adam and Booth Jonathon looks downright traumatizing

hey look, we're dads here, we obviously know how to have sex (high-fives shakey)

No wonder you two only identified with the Garbage Bag episode

yr right fucking Hannah in a graveyard or whatever that was looked pretty traumatizing too

No wonder you two only identified with the Garbage Bag episode

oh wait you meant some other episode and some other poster.

ftr as noted upthread the episode I was most moved by was the one with Jessa and her parents. Garbage Bag episode was some silly nonsense.

Shut up Sex Knower

The garbage bag episode was alright but didn't really live up to the hype for me.

I liked the "entire cycle of a relationship in 24 hours" concept.

you can't criticise girls for being full of unlikeable characters who are riding high on self importance & behaving unlikeably & unable to correctly order or process or inhabit their problems or do so with appropriate pathos when this is what the show is about

What if I don't like what the show is about? In fact I think that's my least favorite thing about it.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Thursday, January 9, 2014 11:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like ... that's okay then. you can be one of the people who does not watch it because they do not like it. it's so easy. what i am saying is that to dislike girls because of the parts of it that depict difficult, inconsistent, unexemplary humans is to dislike seinfeld because of the parts of it in which people poke fun at the foibles of everyday things. it isn't to be like 'oh seinfeld huh i never liked the slap bass' or how loudly george's father speaks; it's to dislike a show that just clearly isn't for you because of the things that make it for some people. girls is a comedy about anxiety, this group navigating those various kinda topical, cosmopolitan pressures, kinda freshly conditioning a portrait of certain 'types'' weird portfolios of characteristics, fluctuations in behaviour, things that people might or might not feel worthy of contemplation. i'm not saying don't watch this if any part of it doesn't appeal to you; just that to hate on it for the parts that depict people you find whatever is to kinda complain about the thing you signed up for. there's wishing it was a different show - just the comic parts, just the whatever else - but it isn't that, & it is (/was! first season!) the thing it is.

tbf, I think the show is actually better when it is more purely doing what you are talking about, schlump, and worse when it goes more soapy

yeah i agree; i am sorta swashbucklingly defending this show politically & rhetorically rather than specifically. it disappearing into the soapish chronicles of charlie & turning its face away from like _girls in the world_ in season two was really frustrating.

I feel like all my reactions to Girls are a little bit colored by the impression I got of Dunham from Tiny Furniture, in particular her big "revelation" about being a hostess not being a job she wanted to stay in, as though that were EVER a realistic possibility for the child of an established NYC artist.

That just rubbed me so much the wrong way that I can't help but think she's writing from a little bit of a blindered perspective.

(I mean you know, again, main character isn't literally IRL Dunham, but it seems pretty close to reality)

I don't dislike the idea of ppl in their 20s screwing up (I was a 24-yo nitwit once); it's the WAY these ppl do it.

http://www.thewrap.com/judd-apatow-lena-dunham-get-mad-asking-shes-naked-much-girls

Why is Lena Dunham’s character on “Girls” naked so much?

I don't dislike the idea of ppl in their 20s screwing up (I was a 24-yo nitwit once); it's the WAY these ppl do it.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Friday, January 10, 2014 1:31 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't even mind the way these people do it, it's a vastly different experience than mine so that's why I'm drawn to it. Simply put, I don't think Dunham is good at telling stories because she more preoccupied with others things that in my opinion, get in the way.

xpost facepalm

http://www.thewrap.com/judd-apatow-lena-dunham-get-mad-asking-shes-naked-much-girls

Why is Lena Dunham’s character on “Girls” naked so much?

― StillAdvance, Sunday, January 12, 2014 6:00 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm kind of with Dunham and Apatow here. It's the tone of the question that belies a vague disgust or annoyance with the nudity, not to mention the insulting comparison with GOT.

Although at the same time, I think "because real life" is a complete bullshit answer and I'm sure Dunham has other reasons.

to continue to white knight in ld's defence, the question, however it's phrased, is kinda repulsive enough that it needn't be dignified with any degree of introspection, really. there was a guardian profile of her over the weekend in which the writer mentioned he didn't recognise her at the restaurant they met because she looked unfamiliar with her clothes on, it's just ... so stupid.

Another reporter noted that if Louis C.K. were naked on his show, we would ask about it.

you see his schlong in lucky louie iirc

omg guy who wrote that is such a dick tho LOL

there's definitely a cat and mouse game going on with the nudity and the reporters imo. But the fact that reporters keep biting makes me thing Dunham is right to be provoking.

I checked with my girlfriend. She’s cool with what I asked.

HUH?

quote from thewrap.com article linked that we are talking abt

chick-approved question fyi so don't call me sexist

step 1 - ask "innocent" question
step 2 - told in no uncertain terms question is loaded & offensive
step 3 - "Whaaaaaaat? Me? I was just asking an innocent question jeez"
step 4 - repeat question & reaction to everyone you know ad nauseum to reassure yourself that you're the nicest, most decent guy on the planet while reinforcing the fact that you are a tin-eared self-aggrandising douchebag

fuuuuuuck off

the way that question is phrased & his endless wide-eyed "who me?" faux naivete is ughhhhhhh i want to punch him

srsly

The compairason with Game of Thrones is NAGL.

it's also funny how he conflates artistic purpose with commercial purpose by asking that question. "DUH, THE CHICKS ARE HOT SO PEOPLE WANT TO SEE IT!"

right!?

infuriating

This all reminds me of an anecdote of Paul Newman congratulating Robert Altman giving a nude scene to Cynthia Stevenson, and not Greta Scacchi, in The Player: "You don't show em the tits they wanna see, and show em the tits they don't wanna see!"

Reminds me of an anecdote I am sort of embarrassed to admit but that was a "teachable moment" for me I guess -- in the lunchroom several women were just going to town on Dunham and Girls and talking so much shit about her looks, her clothes, the "gross" stuff she does on the show, etc., and I finally volunteered something like "she looks like she never set foot in a gym, maybe she could just workout once in a while." Oh boy, wrath ensued.

i think theres a valid question to be asked about the nudity, just not worded as dumbly as it was. really, hes saying 'hey you arent very 'hot' so why are you showing us your not-so-hot body all the time? WHY?!'.

he should have asked if she was trying to prove a point, or challenge peoples perspective on what sort of nudity they prefer to see. cos its obv the nudity is OTT, no one is that naked all the time! i think its somewhere between her trying to goad the viewer's tolerance for bigger female bodies (as well as some kind of lack of self respect, or show her characters lack of self respect/awareness, MAYBE)

Right, the wording makes a LOT of difference. And I think probably all of your explanations are partly true -- there's a goal there to challenge perceptions of the female body, of nudity more generally, and there are also character-driven and comedy-driven reasons having to do with Hannah's obliviousness.

"People are naked in real life" is a po-faced answer precisely because Dunham knows as well as anyone that the kind of nonsexual "IRL" nudity she sometimes features just isn't seen much (ever?) on mainstream television. But the way the question was asked doesn't really deserve a better answer.