Did I mention it's a comedy? It's got potential, but after the first three shows were screened for critics to positive reviews, after the first show aired, the audience responded with quite a backlash. People were registering their disdain on the internet within minutes, as they say. The problem is that a lot of complaints were too vitriolic in proportion to the show, and I'm not certain they're worth addressing.
Well, okay. The charges of nepotism against 'Girls' are too stupid to address-oops, here I go- because unless you yourself got your TV show turfed by HBO in favour of 'Girls', and that furthermore, the famous and connected parents of the four leads pulled rank and personally got your show pulled so their precious little darlings could follow their dreams, there is no reason for the 'nepotism' charge to make any sense.
Secondly, the outright misogyny that I'm seeing on comment boards directed at Dunham is the type of attack on someone that tells you more about the attacker than their target. So you hate a TV show because it's populated with the type of privileged, hipster chicks that wouldn't give you the time of day, or if they did, moved you to the 'friend zone'. Someone with an inflated sense of entitlement whinging about a comedy depicting young women with an inflated sense of entitlement is, well...yeah.
As for the 'racism' charge, well. If creator Lena Dunham had made any of the characters ethnic/gay/handicapped, the same people who are levelling charges of racism at her now would, in this alternate universe, be rolling their eyes and sneering at her attempt to cynically appeal to a wider demographic. So it's a double bind for Dunham. Besides, if she had made one of the leads a visible minority, just imagine the shit-storm she'd go through portraying a young black girl as a spoiled, self-involved lout. (Recall, if you will, the complaints aimed at Downton Abbey over the footman Thomas, who is greedy, selfish, social-climbing, manipulative...and gay.) Put it another way, it's like yelling at Spike Lee for not putting any references to the stock market in 'Do the Right Thing'.
The 'over-hyped' charge does kind of stick, because while a subscription cable channel wishes to get people to watch new shows, they have to use any and all media at their disposal to promote their shows. The first three episodes of 'Girls' were screened for professional critics earlier this month, to positive acclaim. When the first episode aired, a lot of viewers couldn't get into the story because they found the characters portrayals as self-involved and entitled hipsters somewhat off-putting. So a lot of viewers felt genuinely misled.
Which ties into another point against the show.. It's not a point I personally agree with, but it's there. And it's the same one that was leveled against Sofia Coppola's 'Lost in Translation'. You can see "lost" as a simple, intimate story of two lonely people in a foreign land who make a connection with each other, told with warmth and empathy.
Or.
You can see "LIT" as the egregious whining of the privileged leisure class, behaving like spoiled children who fuss and fidget because Mummy's trying on shoes in the department store and they want to never have a moment of boredom or anxiety in their selfish little lives, just dripping with an inflated sense of entitlement, because AWWW! Her hubby left her all alone in a five star hotel in Tokyo and AWWW, his career is in a rut and he's doing press junkets for a film he's indifferent to and his wife's redoing the kitchen and AWWW!. If you're trying to keep a roof over your head and food on your table by working a go-nowhere job, and subsequently don't have the resources to follow your dreams, I can understand why you might not empathize with the leads in "LIT". Or with the leads in 'Girls', for that matter.
Like I said, it's a point of view I personally don't agree with, simply because I'm investing my time as an audience member to enjoy a movie starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanson. Also, there's that famous nostrum from Gandhi or somebody about basic human empathy not just being the rich caring about the poor, but of the poor caring about the rich.
I suspect the main theme of Girls is the slow realization of the characters that in spite of their lives of entitlement and privilege, they're not going to get the lives of the characters of 'Sex and the City'. It's a lesson the rest of us shoe-wearing schlubs figured out a little earlier then them. The humor in the show comes from how real life has a tendency to pull down your boutique denims and paddle your American Apparel-underwear clad butt a bright red when you least expect it. At least, that's what I took away from it in the first episode.
Here's my problem with 'Girls', and I think it's a legitimate one: Dunham doesn't have enough distance from her characters to write about them with enough perspective. She doesn't consider the character's relationships to each other in specific scenes, so certain scenes either kinda work simply because of the dialogue, or don't work at all. The opening scene, where Hannah's parents tell her that they're cutting her off from the financial support they've given her for the past two years, falls flat for the audience because no parent in that position would cut off their 'trust-fund' kid so abruptly. It comes across as a contrived plot device. The scenes in episodes one and two where her and her douchey boyfriend- or is he a 'FWB'? knock boots kinda works because it allows us to see the dynamics of that relationship. The 'dinner party' scene falls flat because it needs to let the audience see how all the characters in that social circle function with each other. (They're all trying to be sophisticated 'Sex and The City' types and failing miserably.)
The scene at the abortion clinic works for the same reason. (Shoshanna won me over with her line about being late because she stopped to get gourmet candies. She's clearly the beta member of the troupe.) Hannah's douchey FWB launches into an idiotic defense of McDonald's when Hannah whines that she doesn't want to work there.) The scene where Jessa's on the toilet and Shoshanna comes in and starts talking to her doesn't work because while it's trying to show how comfortable they are around each other, it's performed so deadpan that it doesn't resolve itself. -It would've helped if Jessa had asked Shoshanna, sarcastically, "if she wouldn't mind leaving the bathroom now as I have to flush. Thank you!" I could go on and on, but I think my point is taken.
I think Dunham's improved as a writer since her debut, 'Tiny Furniture'. Since she doesn't have wisdom and perspective on her side, she has the only tool in her toolkit that she can use, which is to be as honest and fearless about it as she can be. She's got the type of skills as a writer and director that can only get better with time. I don't think 'Girls' will last a season, but if she can stick around in the business long enough, she could pull out something really amazing.
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