Bitches Be Trippin'

I've avoided writing about the HBO show Girls so far because a) it's hard enough maintaining the facade of my machismo when you're already reading my innermost thoughts in what is for all intents and purposes a diary and b) from my calculations, up to 14% of the internet is already devoted to discussing the pros and cons of the show in forensic, microbial detail with a mystifying amount of totally unjustified passion.

I'm not saying the show doesn't deserve to inspire enthusiasm or rancor in any way, I'm just saying that when the show's creator is inspiring denunciation as a Satanist, I'm not sure there's a whole lot of ground left for me to cover.

Also, there's point c) I forgot to mention which is that I'm not 100% sure I haven't written about it already. Given the show's dominant position as a hashtag whore of the Bieber-esque variety, cross-indexed against the number of words I have extant on webpages and Facebook already, the statistical unlikelihood of me having already covered this approaches zero. If only some sort of mechanism existed through which I could simply and quickly scour my previously published works for mentions of it but pah, alas, some things are doomed to be the stuff of speculative science fiction, like machines operated by our minds or jetpacks you wear on your feet.*

The main reason I feel OK writing about the show now is that before it was too early. It would have been a lot of either effusive panting written as though I were a 14-year-old girl or an uncritical rehash of things said elsewhere by people better** than myself. Because there was a point when I loved the show. Loved it. But luckily there was an episode a few weeks back about (and this is true) a couple of guys trying to return a dog to Staten Island and arguing about a copy of Little Women. That episode was terrible. Which is all I really needed to gain the right perspective to find the headspace to say something about it.

The main criticisms of the show are: 1) that the ethnic and socio-cultural subset it reflects is too narrow to provide the kind of generalized associative empathy (let alone sympathy) that is capable of transcending the immanent and self-imposed borders of setting and style and even subject (as the best shows do) to impart upon its viewing audience the kind of kinetic, connective emotional experience the show aspires to.

And 2) Lena Dunham is fat.

Both points of discussion have their obvious merits. On the one hand, the microscopic focus on white, pseudo-bohemian privileged hipsters in the fictive, hyper-realized Brooklyn of 20-Now automatically puts the show in a hole it has to fight out of every week in trying to make self-obsessives not only palatable but the kind of acquired taste that lingers in a way that draws one back to the board for a second (or third, or twentieth) helping. The effort of watching it fight that creative fight is in itself exhausting.

And on the other hand, that girl is also chunky. How am I supposed to take in the crushing back-side-of-the-axehead satire and observational realism from a person who won't commit to the occasional lemon juice cleanse diet? It's clearly a sign of runaway and deranged ego and sense of entitlement on her part. Just because she has the ability to write, direct and sustain the quality of a show like this doesn't mean she should be allowed to do it however she wants. I mean, she could have the same scenes with the same dialogue and outcome, but cast, say, Blake Lively in the "Hannah" role so we could see a more toned ass and more fulsome fun-bags in the meantime. The impact and entire point of the satirical elements, I'm sure, would be exactly the same. Wouldn't they?

Also, as a man and the father of three future men, I have to say I object to most of the male characters on the show. They're all portrayed as one-dimensional, defined by a single character trait, which they'll conveniently then abandon when the situation dictates it because all they really do is stand around and wait until called upon to justify and/or react to the choices and actions made by the conveniently more fleshed-out*** lady characters or to emptily or mechanically fulfill some narrow writer fantasy. They can mess around with that as much as they want to I guess, but there's no way this show, television in particular or popular media in general could ever sustain a gross and arbitrary inequality like that for any period of time. And it would be criminal of them to try. You know, again.


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*WARNING: It's an internet video that includes 20-something women on a beach, none of whom either make out or remove their tops. It's disorienting, I know, but the dizziness goes away. Try breathing through a paper bag. With your penis.

**Feel free to read that as "with an audience topping my plateau of what sometimes approaches a dozen."

***This is not a fat joke.