As a 20-something (at least for a little bit longer-- meep!) writer struggling to make it in the cruel, cruel world (HA!) and a subscriber to HBO (Hello, Boardwalk Empire), I'm probably squarely in the target market for HBO's new show Girls.
So I watched the premiere the other night because, what the hell. Sunday nights are my TV nights and there's been a lot of buzz surrounding this particular show. Oh yeah, and it's marketed toward ME.
Let me just say I was totally and completely unimpressed. No, that's too kind. I was bored silly and totally offended. And NOT because of the paid cable content, mind you.
Honestly, I don't even know where to start. I guess the case as to why it matters. Usually, you don't like a show you don't watch. Simple, right? Except as HBO and a variety of media outlets would have us believe, Girls aspires to speak for a generation. To reveal some sort of greater truth about our times. To provide a realistic view of life-- a sort of by the people for the people TV show. To mean something.
Okay, then what pray-tell is the takeaway? That all Millenials are, like the characters of Girls, narcissists of the worst variety? Because that's pretty much all that I took away. These people are a bunch of aholes and I don't want to spend time with people like that in real life, why the hell would I want to spend TV time with them?
They're all, "Wah wah wah I'm not in college any more and it turns out life is haaarrrd." Excuse me but boo f*cking hoo.
No, seriously.
You're twenty-something and the economy sucks so competition for your dream job is fierce and your parents won't give you $1100 a month so you can stay in NYC. Seriously? I'm supposed to identify with that? Hell, I can't even empathize with it. Here's why: Long before the economy was in the toilet-- when I was like, 8 years old, I figured out a few things, among them how life doesn't owe me a damn thing and if you want something in this world, you have to WORK FOR IT. Sometimes, you have to take the crap job waiting tables or cleaning toilets (I've done both, thankyouverymuch).
It has *always* been that way. And maybe I'm old-fashioned, but I still believe there is value and dignity in a hard day's work. And I firmly believe that in order to graduate from the school of life, everyone should have to work in both retail and food service at least once.
What is sort of shocking to me is that the show's creator and star Lena Dunham has clearly worked her own @ss off to get where she is today. Why not tell that story? The one where all the characters aren't raging assholes?
Oh wait. Because MTV beat HBO to the punch? MTV debuted a new show called I Just Want My Pants Back. I kind of think it wants to be Awkward. and while it totally isn't, it is leaps and bounds ahead of Girls in that it is a) actually funny b) realistic c) features characters who, while capable of stupidity, are easy to empathize with because at the end of the day, they're struggling but they don't fall into that disgusting victimhood trap. Oh, and also? One of the main four characters is *whispers* NOT white.
