The Triumph of HBO’s “Girls”
HBO’s Girls debuted in 2012 as a dramedy series. The show went on for six seasons and revolved around four 20-something-year-old women navigating life in New York City. The show was created, written by, and starred Lena Dunham, who played Hannah Horvath. The rest of the cast ensemble is as follows: Allison Williams as Marnie Michaels, Jemima Kirke as Jessa Johannson, Zosia Mamet as Shoshanna Shapiro, Adam Driver as Adam Sackler, Alex Karpovsky as Ray Ploshansky, and Andrew Rannells as Elijah Krantz. The show was presented in broadcast high definition and was shot single-cam style. The first three episodes were released at the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in 2012, followed by weekly Sunday releases on HBO. Given that this was released in 2012, this was a show about, made by, and for millennials. Season one showcases the characters using flip phones, but by the season two finale, titled Together, Adam is shown using his brand new iPhone and even calling FaceTime, “FaceSpace or whatever.” The show integrates the up-and-coming creations of technology and social media and shows how an older generation adapts to it. Even though the show is a time capsule of the early 2010s, its themes are completely timeless.
Despite the show’s critical acclaim, it also received major backlash. Remarks about the show’s lack of diversity, constant exposure of Dunham’s nudity, and its continuous comparisons to HBO’s previous show, Sex and the City, fueled people’s hatred and distaste for the show. However, Dunham acknowledged it and was open to the dialogue surrounding it. Especially to the dialogue about the SATC comparisons, Dunham has said, “That was always my hope, was that people watch it and the connections sort of fade away because it's such a clearly different tone... It's a little bit of a different take on female friendship, I think” (Dibdin, 2012). Dunham even plays into the comparison straight away in the pilot, making it clear that the girls were inspired by its HBO predecessor. Shoshanna welcomes cousin Jessa into her bachelorette pad and asks if she likes the SATC poster hung up on her wall. Shoshanna continues to say to Jessa, “You know, you’re funny because you’re definitely like a Carrie, but with, like, some Samantha aspects and Charlotte hair.” Even though I have never watched an episode of SATC, I knew that Girls was nothing like the show. Just from seeing SATC promotional posters and episode stills, I knew that the women from SATC and the women from Girls lived very different lives. And that the overarching comparison between the two shows was that both were about four women living in New York City. The women of SATC lived much more lavish lifestyles and were overall more put together. Whereas the women of Girls were depicted as more relatable because they struggled. Struggled to keep jobs, struggled to pay rent, and struggled with body image, mental health, and drug abuse. Girls take SATC as inspiration on who they aspire to be, but ultimately find themselves in positions they never expected. As for Dunham’s response to the lack of diversity and her constant nudity, she has made it clear that she wanted to avoid any tokenism in casting saying, “but I did write something that was super specific to my experience, and I always want to avoid rendering an experience I can’t speak to accurately” (Carlson, 2012). And to defend her constant nudity by saying, “It’s because it’s a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive, I think, and I totally get it” (Carlson, 2014). Even though I think the criticisms of the show were important conversations to have, the criticisms were also overstated. A lot of the discourse I’ve seen was surrounded by how awful all the women were, but this show reinvented the depiction of the female friendship ensemble. It didn’t follow stereotypes, these women were deeply flawed and it was shocking, and at times, uncomfortable to witness.
Without a doubt, Girls is more so a character-driven show. The cast ensemble’s personalities and dynamics make the show what it is. Season three, episode seven titled, “Beach House” is a perfect example of showing the relationships between the four main women. The events that occur during this episode ultimately lead to the dissolution of their friendship by the final season. In this episode, the beach house getaway in North Folk is entirely Marnie’s idea in order to “prove to everyone via Instagram that we can still have fun as a group.” As well as Marnie wanting to resolve the falling out she had with Hannah in season two, when she slept with her gay ex-boyfriend, Elijah. Elijah also suddenly reappears in this episode with his new boyfriend and group of theater friends. Hannah invites them into the beach house without consulting the others (a selfish act on her part), which annoys Marnie. The climax of this episode starts after a lot of drinking, and after the girls do a dance routine to Harry Nilsson’s “You’re Breaking My Heart” taught by one of the theater friends. Marnie critiques Hannah’s timing to the dance which annoys Hannah. Shoshanna chimes into the conversation and that’s where things really start to get heated. Shoshanna jabs at Hannah, “I’m talking about the fact that you’re a f–king narcissist. Seriously, I have never met anyone else who thinks their own life is so f–king fascinating.” The rest of the conversation is Shoshanna voicing out everything wrong with the others. Telling Marnie that she is “tortured by self-doubt and fear, and it is not pleasant to be around,” and calling Jessa out on her “AA bullsh-t.” Throughout the episode, we see Marnie trying to control the trip from the jump in the cold open, where she is seen placing name cards for bed assignments. Same with Jessa, she guilts Hannah into drinking alcohol as a way for her to not relapse. Only to relapse in the next episode. The group gets it the worst when Shoshanna says, “You guys never listen to me. You treat me like I’m a f–king cab driver. Seriously, you have entire conversations in front of me like I am invisible. And sometimes I wonder if my social anxiety is holding me back from meeting the people who would actually be right for me instead of a bunch of f–king whiny nothings as friends.” It was bizarre to witness the show go on with them remaining friends after this incident. As well as not much character development by any of the girls after these harsh truths. They never addressed their friendship again until season six, episode nine, titled, “Goodbye Tour.” It was very fitting for Shoshanna to call it quits on their friendship at her engagement party (which Hannah didn’t even know about). She was always the odd one out because she was younger, and only friends with Hannah and Marnie because she was cousins with Jessa. From season three to season six, it became evident that these four women were not friends. There was always a lack of empathy and regard for one another as shown through the relationship betrayals of Jessa and Adam, Hannah’s ex-boyfriend, and of Marnie and Ray, Shoshanna’s ex-boyfriend. This show managed to tackle a new angle on female friendships and showed the harsh reality that not everything in life lasts forever.
I could ramble on and on about how I think Girls is the best well-written show depicting young adulthood, despite only watching the show for the first time this past September. I especially liked the depiction of the female characters because they were more than a stereotypical label. The women of this show were very upfront in their behavior and beliefs and people were turned off by that because they’d never seen it before. They’ve seen shows like Breaking Bad and The Sopranos and don’t necessarily have an issue when it comes to morality or likeability concerning Walter White or Tony Soprano. But because genuinely flawed women haven’t been portrayed on TV accurately before, it’s easier to nitpick every detail. I don’t think the main characters of Girls are necessarily unlikeable, they just needed to see other people more clearly and grow up in that regard. As I mentioned before, the themes of this show are completely timeless. The fact that I can watch this show ten years after its debut, and relate to the experiences they have, is very telling of its lasting impact. A big reason why this show is having a renaissance moment all over social media is because Genz has reached the age of the people in Girls. Above everything that these women in Girls are – selfish, insecure, impulsive, etc., they are scared. Most like Genz, we have those same feelings of uncertainties towards growing up. Girls serve as a representative comfort of the good and bad parts of the human experience in the most brutally honest way.
Citation:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/lena-dunham-addresses-girls-backlash-321548/
https://gothamist.com/arts-entertainment/lena-dunham-questioned-about-nudity-on-girls-again
