GIRLS talk (the Lena Dunham thread)

I hate the 2010s

best years of my life tbqh

I don't hate her, I think she is a talented but underbaked writer and i probably just wouldn't have given her another thought for at least the rest of 2018 had this thread not been bumped. But I don't think there's any doubt that she gets a disproportionate amount of media attention compared to the sliver of her generation, or any other, that actually gives a shit about her let alone thinks she's some kind of avatar, and that's not just because conservatives made her a target.

Social media is not her friend.

social media is mob justice that brought trump to power

Oh, I meant her oversharing on social media is not helping her health.

probably, yeah.

i just meant i am fatigued with the current impulse to divide the righteous from the wicked all the time. she is just an individual person in my mind. critique her, sure, but the failures of like, all privileged feminists shouldn't be hung around her neck all the time. this kind of censure bothers me. you get to a ridiculous situation where people are ready to believe anything about someone, even that she molested her sister, because she made some offensive comments about odell beckham once.

or to a less extreme extent, that she faked a dog bite. like, what?

Treeship, your prewoke period must be a slaughterhouse

i never even got that woke dude. i'm obviously a man of the left but i don't go in for the whole discourse.

thread is making me regret not going to see Lena’s incredibly brief appearance campaigning for Hillary in Des Moines

it was at a popular store that prints whimsical or sarcastic things on t-shirts

can we finally fucking ban infinity

What confused me about Lena and "Girls" was that it seemed to me to be such a perfect representation of my own experiences in coming to NYC in my early 20s (2002-2006) and doing I-guess-typical things like listening to Magnetic Fields in the car ride down and then going to MisShapes and The Metropolitan and reading Blue States Lose and Gawker with a hangover the next day, and all the characters on that show had that exact balance of energy and cavalier selfishness that I'd come to associate with NYC-dwellers in their 20s and I was surprised that other people didn't watch that show and feel the same bizarre sudden recognition

can we finally fucking ban infinity

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Monday, November 26, 2018 4:31 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Makin u a mod when I make my own ilx someday

xpost I lived in williamsburg 2003-2013/14? I think a lot of the williamsburg/greenpoint people from that time frame liked Girls ( I mean I smashed my hand bloody in Grumpy's heavy ass door and an ilxor adjacent did the costumes for the show) but then you know, people moved on, grew up. She seems like she didn't.

it came out before i moved to new york but, in hindsight, i agree with that. a lot of it rang true. especially how the characters talk about their own lives--everything is part of a dramatic narrative. there are so many people around, so many big personalities, and it sometimes seem like you have to fight, with yourself, for a sense of identity.

basically the narcissism/self-involvement of the characters that so many people have noted seemed, to me, seem to come from a kind of desperation that i associate with new york. (it's not exclusive to new york, though obviously.) anyway, i thought it was the strongest aspect of the writing.

associate it with americans tbh

fair

Lena and said costumer Oberlin folk too yerac.

yeah, i know. I almost called dan selzer to thread.

Ok love you guys but lol @ responding to criticism of girls for being too narcissistic and myopic with “it perfectly represented my experience and I was shocked that not everyone felt that way.” Honest but still funny.

lol

it's kind of amazing how much attention she's gotten and continues to get six and a half years after Girls premiered. that list is nuts. I love the half-kidding suggestion by the author that Lena Dunham's whole life is a performance piece.

yea that list is outstanding shes an icon

there's something weird where i find her annoying or whatever but also find the virulent reactions to her to be annoying

my man

yes

it's fascinating though how volatile the persona, whatever she represents, is - because the article also (accurately) positions her as nobody's daughter: find me someone who loves Lena Dunham's work & persona without reservation. there's also something to the Groundhog Day aspect, it's the same conversation every time. and people go off! still! I get it of course, the Cut profile is wild even for her.

Dunham begins to remove her hoops and gold rings. “This is what I do right before my naps. I take off my jewels. I get ready to snug out,” she says, gently dismissing me so she can get back into bed.

I also do that

who doesn't?

Snugs out with a gravity blanket. At least that's what I overheard her saying when I had breakfast at the Hollywood Diner on 6th ave one table behind her and Gillian Jacbos a few weeks ago.

https://kgw.me/track/like-lena-dunham

“She looked like Lena Dunham…

…but nobody could tell.
They just don't know her work that well
outside of London.

So all references fail.
She's just another white female –
but it's Lena Dunham!

What, they can't subtitle her show?
I mean it's hardly hyperlocal,
though Lena Dunham

desires not to be universal.
Someone should let her editors know.
Heyo!

“I built an empire out of blood and sweat
and life's little disconnects,
and I ain't finished yet.

I've dealt with my fair share of ignorance
So what's the difference?
I mean, in a bigger sense,

I could be a shitty neighbor or a brilliant fence,
like Lena Dunham.

I thought I had a story to tell.
Now I think maybe I don't.
But also, ‘Hey, what the hell?
What's life but suffering?

I guess she just looks like anyone else.
I mean, I kind of look like her myself –
who, Lena Dunham?!

Oh God I actually totally do!
And wait a minute, why am I totally nude
like Lena Dunham?!

I feel like this could be misconstrued.
I should probably read a few interviews
with Lena Dunham

and learn about her cultural baggage.
I mean, I'm not a fucking savage!
To wit:

“I watched the liquid dribble down my chest,
feeling powerless,
wondering ‘God, what next,

another thousand hours of profound regret?
Perhaps a breakdown on set,
or just a pound of flesh

for the dogs or the press?
Or just a long slog to my death?
There must be somethin'...

...if I had a mind like an elephant,
maybe I could fly like a god-damned pelican.
Like, “Hey, I'm just being playfully irreverent
kinda like the time i went on Letterman on mescaline and dexedrine!

So I look a little like a lesbian.
So I read a little too much into instant messages.
So I have a voice and an agenda and I'm not afraid to leverage them.
So I'm belletristic and ephemerally relevant –

everybody knows:
no one cares which way the wind blows
until it fucks them.

And in the end, the love you steal
has no connection to what you feel,
like
Lena
Dunham.”

https://io9.com/dear-woman-hating-comic-store-employees-eat-a-bowl-of-1582628453

Ehh, slow clap gif

is there no complete series boxset of Girls?

Everyone who'd buy a Girls box set already has HBO Now.

Though commentary tracks with Dunham would be priceless.

would prefer commentary from Kirke and Mamet tbh

would prefer a commentary track from the Gallaghers

wld be hard to get liam and noel to collaborate on something

I'd like to watch the show (only ever saw the first season) and am winking at my loved ones re: this boxset but looks like the seasons are all piecemeal and most aren't even available

lol Simon

for Xmas xp

rewatch of the whole series is mostly just confirming my initial impression - there is a severe dropoff that sets in around season 3, and by season 4 we are in largely joke-free melodrama territory where every episode gets at least one terrible "emotional" musical montage moment of people being angst-ridden in bed or walking down lonely streets or whatever. Really goes off the rails by expecting us to have an emotional investment in a cast populated almost entirely by delusional narcissistic jerks.

Really goes off the rails by expecting us to have an emotional investment in a cast populated almost entirely by delusional narcissistic jerks.

https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2018/11/07/always-sunny-dance/07-always-sunny-mac-9.w700.h467.2x.jpg

yeah I didn't like that episode either

yeah it's not so much that it obsesses on inconsequential things (which plenty of good entertainment and fiction does) as that it asks the audience to treat those things as much more consequential than they are

https://forward.com/schmooze/415469/lena-dunham-apologizes-admits-she-lied-to-discredit-alleged-rape-victim/