Monday, April 16, 2012

Quarter Life Crisis On the Set of HBO's "Girls

HBO and just about every media outlet out there has been promoting the new show "Girls"for the last couple weeks. The show, created by Lena Dunham and produced by Judd Apatow from 40-Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up fame, takes a brutally honest look at the life of a quartet of underpaid and overprivileged girls living in Brooklyn two years out of college. The show has drawn comparisons to Sex and the City, but with more beer and fewer cosmos, and tackles issues of money, jobs, sex, relationships, and the respective lacks thereof.

While its refreshing to see an honest look at how unglamorous life after college actually is, many of the audience reactions after the first three episodes called out the "Girls" for leeching off their parents and blaming the economy two years after it imploded. I also get the feeling that the sex and relationship depictions are pretty realistic in their awkwardness, but pretty degrading in the way these girls let guys kick them around. This might be part of the reason why a lot of critics are panning "Girls" for lacking a sense of "joy." As a young semi-professional and a person with a solid amount of friends in Brooklyn (and comparable places like Somerville in Boston, Columbia Heights in DC, and The Mission in San Francisco), I can identify with the daily struggles of trying to figure out what the f*ck I should be doing with my life, but I also know that there are a few small victories sprinkled in there that perhaps "Girls" doesn't capture. What are your reactions to this depiction of the quarter life crisis?

No comments:

Post a Comment