GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

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

that level of unselfawareness is the least palatable part of her

my primary reaction to Marnie's crooning of "Stronger" in last season's finale was that in isolation I wouldn't know if it was sposed to be good or bad. Now finding out it's by Kanye West I still wouldn't know.

The whole Hannah OCD arc was kinda Cronenbergian.

i just thought Marnie did such a good job with that song lol

definitely my favorite character.

I loved that it wasn't clear if the room was too cool for her or if she was giving a bad performance. I think it was her sincerity that came through, and the show is all about misguided sincerity from all the gals.

OR if she was actually just putting on a good "show". and tbh not many people could pull that off on key.

but yea ppl's looks around the room were priceless

Really? I thought that scene was pretty clearly about her oblivousness and self-centeredness. It kind of didn't matter if the performance itself was "good," so much as that it was really embarrassing and uncalled for that she did it all.

but then again, it was in a "killer app" HQ, so the most appropriate thing to do for a party would be to bring a locked and loaded Uzi.

or at least use Ray's line "Are there prostitutes here?"

kinda. but it was also about the fact that she just didn't really give a fuck, and did something that no one else would do, and had a p good voice too

well she had two semi-breakdown scenes right after, so it prob was fully intended as a misstep, however sincere

i basically read it in 2 ways: like she was making fun of the party, and what's his name. and that she wanted to "misstep." in public. by doing something completely embarrassing, but smiling and staying on pitch the whole time. kinda cute.

essentially i wish i had done that at a stupid yuppy party

I don't know, I think my interpretation is backed up by her later embarrassing youtube video, and the scene at Hannah's birthday where she cluelessly forces Hannah to come up on stage and sing with her -- something Hannah clearly does NOT want to do but that Marnie does solely for her own benefit (get attention, show off her totally awesome voice).

lol true enough. apparently an acquaintance of mine was in the same a cappella group in college with her or something.

but yea you're right, she was basically just taking Ray's advice to "just sing" in every inane way she could

I think I said upthread that it works much better that she has a pretty good voice. If she was just genuinely bad it would be easy comedy. Instead, she's like just good enough to make it through a couple rounds of American Idol or something, but probably not good enough to make the bigtime.