Girls on HBO

Everyone has been talking about this. I watched both of the first two episodes, but I have nothing really deep or insightful to say about it.

It’s sort of humorous, but never comes remotely close to being hysterically funny.

The dialog is extremely stilted. I think that’s a combination of bad writing and trying to be humorous in a Woody Allenesque type of way.

The writer may have been reading the blog formerly known as Roissy in DC, because one of the lead female characters has a beta male boyfriend of four years who is wonderful to her, and she hates him for being too beta, and she can’t even look at him while they are having sex.

The main character (Lena Dunham’s character) has a boyfriend (really a guy she sees twice a month to have sex with) who’s not especially good-looking, and he makes her indulge in pathetically beta sexual fantasies, but she puts up with it because--well it’s not clear why she puts up with it. She doesn’t appear to enjoy the sex very much. If there’s any message to the show, it’s that young women have lots of sex but don’t really enjoy having sex. They force themselves to be slutty because it’s expected of them.

One thing I like about the show is that the girls look and talk (accent-wise) like real SWPL girls you would see in Brooklyn. They don’t look like Maxim models or like Snooki. The actresses are all untalented daughters of rich parents, so they are just playing themselves; that's why it's so realistic.

There was an uproar at the NY Times this week about how the show is racist because the four lead characters are white, but the show is about SWPLs living in Greenpoint, so they wouldn’t be SWPLs if they weren’t white. Anyway, it’s pretty realistic that an apartment in Greenpoint shared by twenty-somethings would be all-white. Greenpoint is very strictly divided into three categories of residents: working-class Polish people who are white, poor Hispanic people living in rent-controlled units in multi-family houses that the Polish owners can’t kick out because of the rent control laws (the Polish owners would prefer to rent to SWPLs), and SWPLs who fall into two distinct sub-categories: white hipsters, and white professionals. Greenpoint doesn’t attract Asian professionals who prefer Long Island City. There is probably one black Oreo type living somewhere in Greepoint.

Comments

[The Engineer]

"If there’s any message to the show, it’s that young women have lots of sex but don’t really enjoy having sex. They force themselves to be slutty because it’s expected of them."

What a fucking stupid culture we have. Chicks in particular are stoooopid.

[sabril]

"There was an uproar at the NY Times this week about how the show is racist because the four lead characters are white"

As someone asked on Sailer's blog, was their an uproar about "Friends"? About "Seinfeld"? About "Sex and the City"?

I haven't watched the show, but I would assume it's basically just a ripoff of previous TV shows about single people in New York City.

[HS: While the idea of young people living in NYC is not original (Friends, Bosom Buddies, That Girl), it's VERY original in that the characters look like real SWPLs of the hipster variety. If you randomly were to bump into some girl in Greenpoint, she would much more likely look like one of the girls in the HBO show than like Courtney Cox or Jennifer Aniston. It's also quite original to graphically depict unenjoyable sex. Or to glorify having an abortion. Or to have characters with rich parents play at being poor.]

[sabril]

" it's VERY original in that the characters look like real SWPLs of the hipster variety."

Why should that trigger outrage over the show's racial composition?

[drole prole]

The seems too close to reality for comfort, which is ironic because I often wish shows were more realistic. I can no longer stomach sitcoms filmed mostly in some indoor studio accompanied by the annoying laugh track. I thought that sort of sitcom would be extinct by now, but humans seem to still enjoy such annoying shows. I think I just don't care much about hipsters and have a mildly visceral disdain for them.

[Peter]

I started watching an episode last night. While I didn't catch the beginning, from what I gathered one of the girls was preggo and decided to have an abortion. On the way to the clinic, where her friends were waiting to lend moral support, she stopped at a bar and ended up making out with some guy - who then discovered, right on his fingers, proof that she wasn't preggo at all.

I then turned to the farming channel, RFD TV, and watched a show about people who restore vintage farm tractors. It was far more interesting.

[Frank Stein]

Peter, you need to watch the show - I hear SWPLs in Greenpoint don't shave down there. They let it grow out ironically.

[not too late]

Show sounds nasty.

Chicks aren't funny.

They weren't selected for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7izJggqCoA

[Peter]

Girls like those on the show were pioneers of the hairless look.

[Half Canadian]

Sabrill,

Seinfeld did get flack for not having black characters. Then they did a show where George was defensive about not having black friends.
Didn't follow Friends closely enough to know if they got flack, or SITC.

[asdf]

Friends is a fiction. Everyone knows that most people aren't like that.

Girls is also a fiction. However, it's supposed to be "realistic" fiction. People don't like the idea that a realistic drama points out that SWPLs mostly just hang out with SWPLs, because well it's realistic and that hurts.

Also, I think age has something to do with it. Sex and the City and Seinfeld are all middle aged people, so like your grandparents you excuse a little racism. But girls is supposed to be about the Obama generation.

I like girls because it shows how worthless SWPLs are. The Asian girl getting the job over the lead because she actually took the time to learn photoshop was also a good touch.

[CamelCaseRob]

Yes, "Friends" also got flack for having no black characters.

[Firepower]

Here's the problem: writers steal from bloggers -

get paid good money -
yet STILL churn out garbage.

That is NOW a deep, structural problem with American "intelligentsia."

[BlogRaju]

I have not seen the show. I do remember reading an article that said the show was racist because it not have black characters. That is ridiculous. White people are under no obligation to include blacks in every television show.

[DaveinHackensack]

"If you randomly were to bump into some girl in Greenpoint, she would much more likely look like one of the girls in the HBO show than like Courtney Cox or Jennifer Aniston."

The Jennifer Aniston of the first season of Friends was pretty but plausible as an NYC girl next door. Then she dropped 20lbs and got some plastic surgery and started to look Hollywood.

[Matt in RTP]

How about a show about male HBD bloggers living in NYC, "Race and the City" or something?

[Conquistador]

"The writer may have been reading the blog formerly known as Roissy in DC, because one of the lead female characters has a beta male boyfriend of four years who is wonderful to her, and she hates him for being too beta, and she can’t even look at him while they are having sex." - Half Sigma

The film Blue Valentine was similar as well. I recall women leaving the theater with horror on their faces. Truth hurts.

[Camlost]

"The Jennifer Aniston of the first season of Friends was pretty but plausible as an NYC girl next door. Then she dropped 20lbs and got some plastic surgery and started to look Hollywood. "

I'm glad that someone besides me noticed this...

[Peter]

"While the idea of young people living in NYC is not original"

The understatment of the century.

[Pinandpuller]

All the 'Girls' on that show sound like Michael Cera.

[faggy baronet]

Seinfeld did get flack for not having black characters

Here are the black Seinfeldians I recall: Rebecca Dee-Mor-Nay, the thrift shop clerk who threatens to go upside George's head over book that had been in bathroom; arrogant neighborhood parking specialist who assumes nobody else can do his job; coffee shop owner who threatens to beat up George and Jerry because they're talking too loud; airport skycap who mis-directs Elaine's luggage over too-small tip; Yankees executive who's in charge of large white staff and has jealous wife.

Basically, all the major stereotypes covered. Always wondered what Larry David was doing there.

[tito]

Seinfeld was pretty good about having random ethnics as minor characters. Which is pretty much how it is living in a "multi-cultural" city: you hang out mostly with your own and bump into others by-the-by. In fact, the only way to have a culture is to have certain people who associate with others similar to themselves. Otherwise, how could cultures exist?

[EdAngerJr]

So it's kind of like Friends and Sex and the City but with uglier women and more bad sex?

Sounds like a winner. Thanks for the heads up HS.

[Kiwiguy]

As Sailer has noted, there was also controversy because of a sarcastic tweet by one of the writers complaining "What really bothered me most about Precious was that there was no representation of ME."

re: Seinfeld - I recall Larry David in his next series "Curb Your Enthusiasm", had an episode where a black chick is angry with him because she didn't get a role on Seinfeld.

[Dr. Anonymous]

You call these harpies women?

SWPL hipster women are the worst kind, they are so unfeminine, pseudo-intellectual, unhygienic, unstylish, and vulgar.

No wonder American men with options are marrying foreign.

Globalization will do what it did to Detroit Automakers.

[Flico]

By the way, what is an SWPL Brooklyn accent?
I don't know, I've never been to New York.
In California, New York accents stand out clearly, but many Angelinos are not conscious of their own accent.

[Flico]

In your description of Greenpoint you mention Hispanics, what are we talking about in this case? Puerto Ricans?, Dominicans? Ecuador, Peru, Mexico? Mestizos, Mulattoes or Spanish Criollos?
Immigrants or US born? Are the SWPLs Jewish, WASPs, Irish-Americans? Any German-Americans involved? I'm curious.

[Kiwiguy]

***About "S*x and the City"? ***

They tried to remedy that in the first movie when Carrie chose an african-american lady to be her PA.

[Ode]

"There was an uproar at the NY Times this week about how the show is racist because the four lead characters are white,..."

I look forward to the day when somebody makes a TV show with a cast of all white characters and instead of even bothering to make a logical argument in defense they simply say "F-you" to anybody who has a problem with that.

[ice hole]

Brooklyn Hipster Mating Ritual:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVZYLRvZKkA&feature=related

[Peter]

"In your description of Greenpoint you mention Hispanics, what are we talking about in this case? Puerto Ricans?, Dominicans? Ecuador, Peru, Mexico? Mestizos, Mulattoes or Spanish Criollos?"

I'm not certain about Greenpoint, but in Williamsburg, immediately to its south (the 'hoods pretty much blend together), most of the Hispanics are Puerto Rican. In recent years the proportion of Dominicans is on the rise. Both Puerto Ricans and Dominicans are predominately mulatto, but the latter tend to have a higher proportion of African ancestry and look notably darker.

My best guess is that Greenpoint's Hispanic population is not radically different from Williamsburg's. There is, however, one big demographic difference between the neighborhoods: Williamsburg has a large Hasidic population, while Greenpoint does not. It's unlikely that there'll be much movement of this group because Hasidim are geographically limited by eruv requirements. Williamsburg also has a huge hipster population, much larger than Greenpoint's.

While Mexicans (and other mestizo/Indio Latin Americans) can be found throughout the city, for the most part they are concentrated in central Queens, several miles from Greenpoint.

[DaveinHackensack]

"They tried to remedy that in the first movie when Carrie chose an african-american lady to be her PA."

They also had prominent gay characters in SITC, which insulated them from criticism.

[Peter A]

Unhygienic? where did that come from? These are SWPLS, not hippies.

[Kurtosis]

this show can't last. the women are so ugly. especially the shosanna one. holy god, why not pick a natalie portman type at least? shows like this are fantasy projection: aspirational, for women, and situational, for men (as in: "i would like to have sexual intercourse with that woman i see on tv").

half sigma, you are probably right: this is probably nepotism in casting at its absolute worst.

[Kiwiguy]

I see "Girls" writer Lesley Arfin is mentioned in Jezebel's A Complete Guide to ‘Hipster Racism’.

http://tinyurl.com/csxag4x

[Dr. Doak]

"Here are the black Seinfeldians I recall"

There was the woman from the reading to the elderly program when kramer takes his records

[superdestroyer]

HS,

I cannot understand producers and directors creating a show with such unlikable characters. Do the executive at HBO really believe that more than a handful of people will tune into a show with such unlikable characters.

If the show does anything, it reinforces the idea that NYC residents are insufferable.

[Simon]

"One thing I like about the show is that the girls look and talk (accent-wise) like real SWPL girls you would see in Brooklyn. They don’t look like Maxim models or like Snooki. "

Two of the four girls look like Maxim models - Allison Williams and Jemima Kirke are both good looking. Allison Williams has got that New York lupine thinness. Kirke looks good considering she just had a baby.

Are 50% of the girls in Brooklyn of this standard? Too bad I didn't leave Manhattan when I visited NYC. Maybe it IS worth the rent?

[Tanizaki]

"this show can't last. the women are so ugly. especially the shosanna one."

I saw this show last night for the first time. The topic was an abortion party. I did not recall any of the characters' names, but after checking a cast reference, I must say that Hannah is the worst one.

Marine and Jessa are good-looking enough, with my preference being for Allison Williams. All of the characters are insufferable.

The NY Times expresses its SWPL outrage about the racial demographics of the casting here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/arts/television/hbos-girls-is-hardly-the-only-example-of-monochromatic-tv.html

[ArtisteNextDoor]

From: http://www.vulture.com/2012/04/girls-jemima-kirke-interview.html

How do you react to the criticism that the show doesn’t have people of color?

Kirke: [Nods in agreement.] I know.

And that it’s this rarefied white hipster chronicle?

Kirke: I mean, I kind of get it. I get it. I totally get it. It’s true, this isn’t every girl. This isn’t … the title is misleading because it’s not all girls. This is a very specific demographic. You know, we’re not talking about girls living in projects, which there are millions. We’re not talking about, you know, girls who live on the Upper East Side with, like, loaded parents who have no idea how to leave home. You know? There are all kinds, and we’re just a very specific … We’re not the average. So I get it. I don’t think there’s any sense in getting mad at it; it’s just a show. It’s just a show about this type of girl. And I think when it claims to be something else, it’s a mistake, but that’s what it is.
---

LOL.

[Flico]

kiwiguy

I just read the lunacy on Jezebel.
Such a degree of ethnomasochism, white guilt, double talk and contradictions is hard to imagine.
Can anybody write a well argued rebuttal?

[Underman]

@Flico

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like to him.

Proverbs 26:4

[Kiwiguy]

I finally had a look at some of the actresses. I think David Mamet's daughter is the cutest.

[Doll]

Forget the racism claims and all that. The show is not worth a peek simply because all the "girls" and yes even the guys are so beyond pasty, pudgy, and fugly! I have to look the other way...they all are gross. People always made fun of SJP on SATC but even she is hotter, sweeter, and more stylish. Everyone should just wait till the slot after with Veep starring Seinfeld alum Julia Louis Dreyfuss. Unlike these girls, she is funny, smart, and sexy at the same time. She is in her what 50's and looks better than these chicks. Plus the show is really good. Great writing too. Way better than this.