Televisiony things: Girls
May. 31st, 2013 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerGUYS GUYS GUYS has anyone seen Girls? I am dying to discuss this show with someone, even though I've only seen the first half of season 1, which is like a trainwreck - a thoughtful, well-filmed, exquisitely considered trainwreck, which kicks off when main character Hannah's parents tell her that they're cutting her off financially, having supported her for two years on her quest to find herself in New York City.
Hannah is naturally horrified. She'll have to find a job! And so she does what any self-respecting twenty-something would do: she goes to have unpleasant sex with a man she's too embarrassed to admit she wants a real relationship with. (Girls' sex scenes would not be out of place in a high school sex ed class. "Sex is boring and unpleasant" would probably put teenagers off sex more effectively than "Sex is dangerous.")
Then she gets wasted on opium tea, goes to her parents' hotel room, and begs them to keep giving her an allowance.
This is what I mean by an exquisite trainwreck: most of the characters are exactly this bratty and immature, this strange combination of emotionally clingy and emotionally dishonest, with occasional sudden moments of kindness and humor to make them seem real. Except for Shoshana, who still seems sort of flat, much as I want to like her.
I don't really like any of them, except Jessa - because, though Jessa is generally drunken, drug-addled, and more than happy to sleep with men who are dating someone else, she's making bad life decisions because she wants to, damn it, not because she's too chicken to talk honestly with her fuckbuddy (like Hannah) or to face the emotional adjustment of breaking up with a boyfriend she can barely stand (like Hannah's roommate Marnie).
But there's something refreshing about the fact that Girls doesn't noticeably give a damn if I like its heroines. It's much more concerned with making them interesting, even though interesting is not always likable, and that's not something I see a lot of in American TV.
Hannah is naturally horrified. She'll have to find a job! And so she does what any self-respecting twenty-something would do: she goes to have unpleasant sex with a man she's too embarrassed to admit she wants a real relationship with. (Girls' sex scenes would not be out of place in a high school sex ed class. "Sex is boring and unpleasant" would probably put teenagers off sex more effectively than "Sex is dangerous.")
Then she gets wasted on opium tea, goes to her parents' hotel room, and begs them to keep giving her an allowance.
This is what I mean by an exquisite trainwreck: most of the characters are exactly this bratty and immature, this strange combination of emotionally clingy and emotionally dishonest, with occasional sudden moments of kindness and humor to make them seem real. Except for Shoshana, who still seems sort of flat, much as I want to like her.
I don't really like any of them, except Jessa - because, though Jessa is generally drunken, drug-addled, and more than happy to sleep with men who are dating someone else, she's making bad life decisions because she wants to, damn it, not because she's too chicken to talk honestly with her fuckbuddy (like Hannah) or to face the emotional adjustment of breaking up with a boyfriend she can barely stand (like Hannah's roommate Marnie).
But there's something refreshing about the fact that Girls doesn't noticeably give a damn if I like its heroines. It's much more concerned with making them interesting, even though interesting is not always likable, and that's not something I see a lot of in American TV.
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Date: 2013-06-06 12:38 am (UTC)