Girls - Perseverance and Pithy Tweets

So I haven't written in this for a great many months, clearly defying the first of my many important rules. I would make excuses, but that seems like a great deal of effort that I'd rather spend pretending that I've been doing a bang-up job at this 'blogging' nonsense and carrying on about my business. Seeing as how you're all eager and gleeful followers, I know you won't mind. (You're all super gracious too. And pretty.)

I'm going to spend some time talking about "Girls," because that's what everyone else in TV land has been doing, and I'm nothing if not a slave to trends. (Crocs, snuggies, irony. I have been helpless in the face of their respective siren songs.)

I started hearing a lot about "Girls" around a month ago, and I got very excited for a very silly reason. See, I heard that the show was going to be about four twenty-something ladies living in Brooklyn, being piss-pot poor, and mostly put-upon. Best of all, it was going to be written, directed, and staring Lena Dunham, a real-life 25 year-old with a distinct (hilarious) voice and something to say, dammit.

"At long last!" I cried to my 14 Tumblr followers, "This is will be a show about MY LIFE by someone who GETS IT."

Minor spoilers under the cut for the first three episodes of "Girls."



Then I watched the pilot and found myself annoyed. Not because it wasn't a good episode - it was. The acting is solid all around, the direction fine enough, the writing,while not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny*, sharp with a distinct sense of humor. No, all of that was great, but I was bothered because this couldn't possibly be my story.

* For the lolz watch "Veep" - it's hilarious and you'll like it. Honest. 

Dunham's character, Hannah, is a spoiled brat living in the city off of her parent's money. After graduating two years previously, she'd spent her time working an unpaid internship while writing her memoir. When, at the start of the episode, her parents decide to cut her off financially, she has the audacity to be indignant, as if she was entitled to all the help she could ever need. The poor impression isn't improved when she meets up with her decidedly slimey fuck-buddy, quits her internship, and proceeds to be an all-around brat. At one points she even dares to voice that she's "the voice of [her] generation." Which she then quickly amends to, "Or at least a voice of a generation."

And that statement bothered me. Because, really, when I heard about the show a week earlier, that's what I had told my avid cadre of Tumblr followers it would be - my story, my voice, at long last represented in the throng of TV land.** But if that was true, and if "Girls" really was reflective of my experience, why did it have to be told through such an unlikable jerk of a character? Hannah hadn't worked hard to get where she was, she hadn't been through any discernible strife, and it didn't look like she was about to do anything particularly meaningful to improve her circumstances any time soon. Granted, the rest of the cast and personalities on "Girls" seemed nice enough (although a little cookie-cutter in the case of Shoshanna), but they were clearly the trimming on the cake that was the Hannah character, and I didn't know if I could stomach an entire show based off of such an irredeemable wreck.

** My oh-so-under-represented story being that of a college educated, middle-class white twenty-something lady 'struggling' in New York. More on that later.

She, frankly, sucked. As a person. Not as a fictional character, mind you. Oh no. Not anymore. Hannah - and to a much larger extent, Dunham - had made this personal by letting me believe that her show would be about my life, having the nerve to say she was speaking for me in her script, and then making her protagonist shitty.

I was offended, dammit.

Suffice it to say, it was a very individual reaction to have after watching a half-hour of television. An annoyance that stung all the more because Hannah's experience really does mirror my own closely enough to cause discomfort. I would have hoped that when I came across a fictional character that at all embodied my (so very unglamorous) life, she would be a bad ass rather than a self-indulgent child.

After stewing for a bit, I quickly realized that I wasn't the only person in TV land who was upset - granted, most people had better reasons than me. Few people liked Hannah, or Dunham, all that much for a whole lot of reasons. Because she was too graphic. Her humor too offensive - both in the show and in real life. Because she and all of her co-stars were daughters of movie stars/academics/TV personalities/etc. Because her show was about privileged white girls in one of the world's most diverse (racially, economically, etc.) cities. And finally, because everyone wouldn't shut up about her stupid show that no one liked anyway.

I'm a contrary person by nature. If everyone loves a particular book, I avoid it like the plague on principle. I wear cardigans and knee-socks in part because I think they're awesome, but also because I take comfort in knowing that I am the cheese that stands alone with my fashion 'sense.' Playing devil's advocate has become a great way for me to stumble my way through awkward social situations, with me rarely realizing that I'm pissing people off by being so damn argumentative, leading to more awkwardness. So, after hearing everyone else's complaints about "Girls," I immediately wanted to rush to the show's defense out of habit.

Because maybe Dunham really was just trying to tell a story of a generation. Maybe she wasn't trying to speak for everybody, but trying to speak to this particular (yes, very privileged) experience. What's more, if she hadn't tried to write a show around that experience but around something else, wouldn't people be even more pissed off? Hell, I was peeved that she tried to speak for me, and I am her demographic in virtually every way. And it's a fairly standard demographic at that. When faced with an experience so common, it's understandable that Dunham would try to do it in a way that hadn't been done before. Why shouldn't that 'new way' be through a miserable main character?

After all, how many shows start off with unlikeable protagonists? Not how many shows have protagonists who became unlikeable over time, but how many start off - from episode one - as absolute shit-heads? And out of the characters you can think of, how many those are women? (I've got Nancy Botwin. And that's a stretch, since I thought she was awesome when "Weeds" started. And then once she pissed me off one too many times, I stopped watching the show.)

But, I'm changeable in nature, and I really hadn't adored the pilot, so I thought I'd keep my mouth shut until I had an actual firm opinion about something. Episode two came around and I liked Hannah. Not a lot, mind you, but I certainly liked her more. She was still insensitive and bumbling and entitled, but she was also funny. And not a totally despicable friend. And rather clever in all of her inappropriate behaviors and ignorance, because her callous remarks and observations were seated in a skewed sort of truth that was both hilarious and insightful. Eventually, whether or not I liked Hannah became less important than what she was going through and how she reacted to her various mishaps and miseries. And for all that she was still obnoxious, it became clear that she was also resilient. Which may not be very flashy in terms of exciting qualities for your hero to embody, but damn if it isn't admirable, important, and very relevant to anybody trying to pick themselves up by their bootstraps (however unsuccessfully).

Three episodes in, and my misgivings have diminished even further. Both because it was an excellent episode, and because of one scene in particular.

Hannah is back home after a long, miserable day. After finding out that she has HPV, her slimey fuck-buddy gets insulted when she accuses him of giving it to her and kicks her out, and she discovers that her previous boyfriend is now dating a guy. She has every right to pout, cry, punch something in the face, etc. Instead she sits at her computer trying to sum up her day in a pithy 150-words-or-less tweet.

"You lose some, you lose some."

Deleted.

"My life has been a lie, my ex dates a guy."

Deleted.

"All adventurous women do."

Posted.

It's an oddly triumphant tone to take after a shit-storm of a day, and the episode ends with Hannah jamming out to some terrible music and laughing at her sorry set of circumstances with her roommate.

And hell. If I can't get behind a show (and a show-runner) that is willing to put itself out there, piss people off, embarrass itself, and then remain gloriously defiant and happy at the end of it, then what am I doing writing these long-ass blog posts anyway?

(The correct answer is wasting away my youth.)