That's just, like, the rules of feminism

Since it premiered on April 15, Girls has illustrated both the pluses and pitfalls of a high-profile debut. The build-up surrounding the HBO series, a candid look at the underwhelming lives of privileged twentysomethings in New York, was so palpable that the hype, from blogs to traditional media, seemed inescapable. It was the kind of information you didn’t have to seek because it somehow found you.

According to a substantial feature in the March issue of Vogue — which hit newsstands in February, two months before the show actually aired – the characters in Girls “present a comical mix of entitlement and insecurity,” Aside from acting as writer and director, 25-year-old Lena Dunham also plays Hannah Horvath, a “hapless intern at a boutique publishing house that refuses to hire her.”

The other members of the quartet — Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke and Zosia Mamet — have the kind of pedigree that Condé Nast publications deem aspirational enough for its readers. (Google them, if you care.) That the piece was written by Chloe Malle, Vogue’s 26-year-old social editor and herself the offspring of famous people – her parents are the late French film director Louis Malle and Murphy Brown actress Candice Bergen — dovetails with Girls’ unique selling point: That it can get hard even for those whose existence is perceived to be problem-free.   

Polarizing

Reviews of the pilot have, quite hilariously, been polarized. On the one hand, Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times television critic, said, “The frankness with which the young women expose themselves, both emotionally and physically, is nothing short of revolutionary.” The New York Post’s Andrea Peyser, meanwhile, didn’t mince her words: “Sex and the City — for ugly people.”

Admittedly I had expected Girls to be the slightly more indie niece of Carrie Bradshaw and company, as Manolos and martinis are wildly dated in today’s climate. I was also thinking that it could be a more female-focused bookend to How To Make It In America, that now-canceled HBO show about jeans. Either way I totally had high hopes for Lena Dunham’s brainchild as I know exactly what it’s like to be a young, urban, coddled and temporarily directionless liberal arts graduate. So after diligently taking note of the blogosphere’s initial reactions — from the show being “too white” despite the show’s Brooklyn setting to allegations of nepotism — I sat through the first episode online. Or more accurately, tried sitting through it.

Hard To Love

It’s clear from the get-go that Girls wasn’t built lazily. The dialogue is real and refreshing, and is thankfully free of annoying, Diablo Cody-style verbosity. (“I think you need to admit something to yourself, which is that you’re sick of eating him out.” Hannah tells her roommate Marnie, a Chelsea gallery girl, as they sit naked in a bathtub. “Because he has a vagina.”) I also spotted Chris Eigeman — who was fantastic in Whit Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco — as Hannah’s ogre of a boss, lending a hint of art-house cred to the Judd Apatow-produced project.    

While the conversations sometimes glimmer with wit, the main characters are hard to love. Girls pulls away from the pack by presenting a non-airbrushed side to quarter life, but at times it can get too unglamorous for comfort. The most obvious bone of contention would have to be how the women themselves look onscreen: Dunham is short and pear-shaped, far from the splendor of an ideal Hollywood body; Mamet, as tracksuit-wearing Jessa, could be Heather Matarazzo incarnate, the token “before” in a teen movie makeover montage. The two prettier ones, Williams and Kirke, are less dowdy but appear uninterested in realizing their babe potential.       

‘Culture Soaked In Photoshop’

“These scenes shouldn’t shock, but they do, if only because in a culture soaked in Photoshop and Botox, few powerful women open themselves up so aggressively to the judgment of voyeurs,” observed New York Magazine. I’ve gotten so used to seeing only bright young things in shows and movies — in everything, actually — that the sight of someone less than stellar puzzles and even infuriates me. (I mean, how dare they?) I don’t watch reality television precisely because of this and Girls, a scripted half-hour comedy, somehow blurs that line. (A deeply unerotic sex sequence involving Hannah and her boyfriend was made more cringe-worthy by the fact that the latter wasn’t J. Crew model material.) 

That said, it’s challenging to empathize with a character that looks like an underdog but acts like a bitch. In terms of self-absorption, Dunham’s Hannah reminds me of Samantha Brick, the controversial British tabloid journalist who penned an article claiming that her life had been blighted by her beauty. Both are plain Janes that could’ve been more endearing had they been less whiny and obnoxious.

Not Woody Allen’s New York

Then again, maybe Girls wasn’t meant to be straightforward. Viewers who, like me, were lured in by the glossy promo pics and anticipated a light-hearted program filled with beautiful beings, clever banter and great music — a post-hipster version of Woody Allen’s New York, a universe where everyone is well-off, overeducated and articulate — will obviously be frustrated. (I can only imagine the number of people who have been so turned off by the first episode that they vowed never to tune in again.) Those who choose to give Girls a chance, however, might just be rewarded with something more graphic, daring and original. This, after all, isn’t the Brooklyn of 2 Broke Girls, another series about downward mobility.

After a repeat viewing of the pilot, I’m still figuring out whether I like the show or not, whether it’s honest or merely out to intentionally anger the public. Girls has been renewed for a 10-episode second season, so I guess I’ll have more time to think about it. Sigh. Or not.

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