GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

He also wrote the Game Change movie.

And Recount. They are both kind of dire though.

The Adam/Caroline blow-up fight was kind of annoying, the way they staged it so he was on top of her at the end for like three minutes, hitting you over the head with the irony "HAHA SEE LOOK HE IS IN A SEXUAL POSITION WITH HER!" like "Oh I was in my college drama club's production of The House of Yes and I like 'taboos'"

or it was staged so they looked like pre-teen kids fighting

http://www.gq.com/blogs/the-feed/2014/02/03/Girls-07-missionary.jpg

just watched episode 6, feels like this show has really come into its stride imo. the scene with shoshanna and the guy in the library was brilliant.

the getting-out-of-the-city eps have always been classic and this was another.

Charlie's business failed?? is that LD having a subtle pop at the actor who played him for leaving i wonder.. wouldn't blame her like.

Not subtle at all really, but p satisfying

It feels like every ep this season has had a dig at (the actor who played) Charlie.

Yes it is totally unrealistic that a ridiculous startup failed, such a clumsy plot machination must be the result of petty malice

i missed the other digs at him but i'm sure they may have been there. actually she seems pretty laidback about the whole thing

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/ustv/s236/girls/news/a543374/girls-lena-dunham-on-charlie-exit-we-made-it-simple.html

this episode was wonderful and real and it feels like she's kinda leveling all of the ill-conceived flimsy critiques ppl have made of this show

also holy shit ugggghhhh I think the dudes in this episode are literally THE FUCKING WORST type of gay men, like I cringed any time any one of them opened their mouths and one of them actually said the word "naughty" at one point and I wanted to cut my dick off and go live in a temple

irritating shallow characters call one another irritating and shallow wow way to tackle those flimsy critiques

hmmmm, irritating shallow characters call one another irritating and shallow on a show that has been criticized for being oblivious to how irritating and shallow its characters are, hold on, let me think abt this one for a minute

yeah i'm gonna go ahead and say that she's addressing that

maybe we should make you a diagram or something, idk, are you one of those ppl that found the end of Shutter Island satisfying?

i liked the dance scene and the final scene a lot.

i mean if the criticism is lol the writers don't know their characters are irritating then that's one thing.

but i think the more common criticism is the more straightforward "i don't enjoy or relate to these irritating people"

and self-awareness doesn't really help that one bit.

poor all those people who are being forced to watch the show :(

yes this is a valid response to any criticism somebody has of some cultural thing it really shows them oh boy

if you don't like a thing then you don't have to watch it, wow, think of all the time humanity could have saved had i but known this, time devoted to finding a cure for cancer or making giant rubberband balls or writing script treatment for teen movies that slyly (but not too slyly) are in fact based on shakespeare plays

If you find not enjoying nor relating to the characters to impede your enjoyment of the actual show, those criticisms are totally valid, but it's really really easy to stop having the annoying and unrelatable characters show up in your entertainment-holes!

(I do not enjoy or relate to the characters but I think the show is funny and the characters' traits are well-written)

i mean if the criticism is lol the writers don't know their characters are irritating then that's one thing.

but i think the more common criticism is the more straightforward "i don't enjoy or relate to these irritating people"

― eric banana (s.clover), Thursday, February 20, 2014 1:30 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't relate to THESE irritating people but as an Irritating American i appreciate being represented on television, i feel alienated by all the pleasant people on TV

i like pleasant people on tv. its a refreshing change from people everywhere else.

I just watched episode 5 and I don't know if I can continue

That was a catastrophic hole

I checked wikipedia and there are 12 episodes for this season? What could even warrant a 20% increase

I really didn't like the Ray/Marnie fight about "Africa" -- I feel like a few times Dunham has tried to subtly convey this attitude that she thinks people who have political positions about things are full of shit. Again, Apatovian conservatism.

Should I continue?

Will 6 +7 destroy what goodwill I have left towards the show

Finishing up s2, nice to see Rosanna Arquette playing a kook again.

lol shosh

Shosh has been priceless for the longest time, and she was just excellent this week.

btw re year-old interview w/ Dunham about her "parents who decided it 'wouldn't be honest' to stay all the way through school plays that suck"

oh great, you want to parent without suffering like everybody else. fuck you.

do unattached 25-year-olds have this much sex? really?

also even when I was younger and cuter I never ever came close to pulling a Patrick Wilson.

Lena Dunham seems like a bit of an asshole who grew up around assholes, so I don't find it 100% convincing when the show is "self aware" about its characters being jerks, it feels more like this reactive thing following criticism. Ultimately the show strikes me as really buying into the "importance" of its characters' "struggles." This remains a flaw of the show for me, but I enjoy it anyway.

How does she seem like an asshole

i'm kinda with dayo on this; the "kooky girls at the beachhouse arguing and then making up over a choreographed dance number" is a bridge too far for me.
again, i'm trying not to care until there's an ep where dunham has sole writing credit.

basically i think you either watch the episode and like it or don't, all the possible speculations don't seem to go anywhere bc it seems like that's the show's point -- to throw a bunch of shit at you and hopefully leave you wondering what's in store for the next one. i mean the bottom line is that there's a lot of crap in a lot of these episodes. but they're still pretty good anyway, or something.

I don't find it 100% convincing when the show is "self aware" about its characters being jerks, it feels more like this reactive thing following criticism. Ultimately the show strikes me as really buying into the "importance" of its characters' "struggles."

I really don't see this, but I feel it depends on your opinion of Dunham as you go into the show.

oh great, you want to parent without suffering like everybody else. fuck you.

otm

yup

http://bullettmedia.com/article/lena-dunham-shames-jezebel-vogue-stunt/

I really didn't like the Ray/Marnie fight about "Africa" -- I feel like a few times Dunham has tried to subtly convey this attitude that she thinks people who have political positions about things are full of shit. Again, Apatovian conservatism.

― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:59 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I never got the impression that they were incorporated "uncritically," I just don't if the criticism is sharp or knowing enough. I mean maybe I'm just reading in what I know, but it very much feels like a sardonic look at spoiled 23-year-olds from the POV of a spoiled 25-year-old, albeit a very sharp and witty one.

― signed, J.P. Morgan CEO (Hurting 2), Thursday, January 9, 2014 4:17 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

to me this is the most otm summary of the tone of the show's attitudes toward its characters. like, it's self-aware to a degree, but still not standing THAT far back from what it's depicting to have as much perspective as it thinks it does.

It's like when she gets in interviews into the thing about being "celebrities' kids" -- you know, come on, my parents aren't that famous, I can't just walk into HBO and say "I'm Laurie Simmons daughter give me a show," and that's literally true and a funny point, and at the same time kind of not fully aware of how much access she has to that world that other people don't.

lol the quote from Simmons podcast on that was so great

"Laurie Simmons's daughter, David Mamet's daughter, now Brian Williams's daughter is talking to David Mamet's daughter. And it was like, I wanted so badly to get inside those people's heads and go, like, 'Is this really what you think, like, the landscape of Hollywood, is, is like, you walk in and you're like, 'My mother has one photo in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, I'd love to have a TV show'?"

Simmons and Dunham aren't even in the top rank of NYC artists of their generation, so I'm with her on that whole 'name one piece my mom did' thing. Jemima Kirke's dad is a rock drummer who married an heiress - very 'whaddaya call a drummer without a partner? HOMELESS!' - so she's the granddaughter of Jack Dellal and like her cousins over here, is definitely in the 'work optional' category of rich person.

xp It IS a great quote, I lol'd. But it still misses something about how privilege actually works. But at some point I start to feel like a real bore for parsing that so thoroughly. And OTOH Adam Driver is from a pretty ordinary background and an ex-Marine.

I kind of just want to respond, "Is this really what you think, like, the landscape of Hollywood, is, is like, as long as you're talented Judd Apatow will just somehow randomly come across the first film you ever make and get you a TV show?"

Finished season 2; I am NOT gonna discuss the reaction to the "get on all fours" scene cuz I don't need another R*nan Farr*w thread.

Did enjoy what I saw of the DVD extra where LD is talking to the male actors, and she basically says to Christopher Abbott, "Well, your character started out as a pussy..."

haha i mean its a great quote in the sense that you have to live in a very weird world for the sentence "My mother has one photo in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art" to mean what she thinks it does