HBO's Girls: Problematic Self-Indulgence or Witty Satire?

Warning, this piece may contain spoilers.

I’ve always said there are two kind of people in this world: those who have HBO and those who don’t. HBO has the best shows and movies, so naturally I do not have HBO. So, this is a problem. Especially when new shows, like Lena Dunham and Judd Apatow’s Girls came on the scene and Tumblr basically told me to watch it. This was becoming a big problem and anyway, sometimes I just want to watch Sex and the City and laugh at the bad segues.

But, while Samantha was racking her rack, I began racking my brains. My mother has HBO, I realized, so I can go home on the weekend and while I’m sitting on the couch I can watch this show I’ve heard so much about. Shouldn’t take more than a few visits. I watched the whole thing in one sitting. Now, thanks to the economy, we are now the kind of people who have HBO every…other year? But that doesn’t seem like much of a problem compared to some of the issues I’ve seen on this show.

From She Knows Entertainment

Girls is written,and directed by Lena Dunham who also portrays the main character, Hannah Horvath. Hannah is a 20-something aspiring writer living in New York City, with nothing to show for it except an internship where no one pays attention to her, a journal of essays that she’s never shown to anyone, and an F-buddy with questionable safe-sex practices. Hannah is a little ball of post-college angst and confusion, and she always seems to gravitate to the wrong choices.

Is this because she’s got low self-esteem or is it because she’s narcissistic enough to get into these situations only so she has a story to tell. Perhaps it’s both, but whatever she’s doing doesn’t seem to be working, because the series opens with her parents cutting her off, financially speaking, Hannah now has to find an actual job. Her roommate Marnie (Allison Williams), is also piling on the pressure, as Hannah already owes her a lot of money. Marnie’s a little distracted by the fact that she’s fallen out of love with her super sweet, super cute, and super boring boyfriend Charlie. Though, Hannah’s easily distracted from all of this, because her dear friend Jessa (Jemima Kirk) has returned from a globe-trotting escapade. Jessa is super sexy, super british  and super knocked-up. She makes a fascinating contrast to her tiny collegiate cousin Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) who she’s staying with. Shoshanna is perky and bubbly, and clearly moved to New York in order to replicate the life of the women from Sex and the City.

Here’s the deal, despite the fact that it feels like I wrote this show, I sat in awe of it for the first nine episodes, unsure of how to react. I was watching a group of entitled white girls, who were living a decent life in New York with nothing to worry about but themselves. The second episode deals with an abortion storyline that’ so cavalier it’ll have you laughing from the sheer ridiculousness of it.  This isn’t the only time this happens, and the characters sometimes call each other on their odd and wildly inappropriate actions. As if to say, “hey, shouldn’t we be feeling something else right now?”

So I can see why this series is throwing up some red flags. These people are living at the heart of vanity and snobbery. They’re making the worst choices, and doing dumb things. They aren’t the best role models for their demographic, and I can’t help but wonder as I watch this show: are black people no longer a “thing” in New York? But then comes the finale, where everyone has their hindquarters handed to them. People are forced to check themselves and realize, hey, we’re all kind of dead inside and unless we do something about it-we’re going to end up being really unhappy with our lives. Like, genuinely unhappy, not 20-something existential unhappy.

Of course, it looks like no one will be ready to make those changes immediately. So the season ends with Hannah, alone and lost, sitting on a beach eating cake.  That’s when I fell in love with the series, because despite ourselves we can change. We just might not want to today.