Girl talk: Lena Dunham’s influence on female comedy
Although I normally talk about women in film, I’m veering off a little bit this week to talk about women in television.
HBO’s famously infamous (or maybe, infamously famous) Girls, premiered the first episode of its fifth season on Sunday. This isn’t a review of the season premiere — rather it’s an exploration of precisely what Girls did for us viewers (and also creators) back at home.
Lena Dunham’s brainchild premiered in spring 2012, and audiences nationwide had pretty much never seen anything like it. Of course, there was CBS’ 2 Broke Girls which debuted in September 2011, but that show read as much of the same basic network comedy that we all have come to expect of the last decade or so — as great network comedies like Frasier, Friends and Seinfeld left our cultural zeitgeist.
2 Broke Girls shared commonalities with Girls of course — both are set in New York and both not only feature the word “girls” in their title, but also star women who seem to be trying to make it in the big city. However, all similarities basically end there, as Girls quickly separated itself and went on to be defined by its “fresh,” “new” and “edgy” — to blanketly quote a legion of articles and thinkpieces written about the show shortly thereafter — take on the female world.
The show is revolutionary in terms of Dunham’s constant state of undress — she got naked on that show probably more than any lead actress on any television show to date, although don’t quote me on that one — and “real” depiction of life as a 20-something. The girls were young, naive and seemingly very incapable of leading any sort of responsible, adult life. Dunham’s character couldn’t hold a job, another couldn’t hold onto a boyfriend, another had never had sex and the last was stuck in a nice relationship she just couldn’t stand. Girls was frank, honest and funny — Dunham was an instant star.
Girls has been on a wild ride since then — it has battled ups- and-downs of both acclaim and criticism, equal parts awarded and snubbed. I started watching it my junior year of high school, and although I enjoyed the initial first season, I quickly lost faith in the series as season two premiered, as almost every episode left me in a constant state of anxiety or panic. I was on the brink of my 20s at the time, and if Dunham was the “voice of that generation” I certainly didn’t look forward to growing into whatever it was they were going through. I know I’m not the only one. The show’s emphasis on both comedy and drama -— often more drama than anything else — alienated viewers and steadily dropped viewership over the years.
However, the importance of the show is that it opened up an entire area of television that previously hadn’t been open to women. Comedy had previously been a man’s job, but with Girls, the comedy business revolutionized. It became OK for women to talk about personal issues — sex and love and drugs — and even more than OK, it became desirable; networks took notice. An entire legion of female-led shows popped up in its wake: Mindy Kaling’s The Mindy Project premiered on FOX, as did Broad City on Comedy Central. Female showrunners and creators became more commonplace as comedy became a woman’s world as much as a man’s. Dunham opened up a new avenue for women.
To be a woman in comedy is a powerful thing now. It’s an area of Hollywood that now welcomes the female voice with open arms. It’s proven not only to be interesting and new but also to draw in ratings like nobody’s business.
All this is great news if you’re a woman who wants to go into comedy. But for me — someone who’s primarily interested in science fiction and fantasy — there’s still quite a long road to be paved for women in those more male-dominated genres. My only worry with the success of Girls is that, while it has proven to be a very good arena for women to make their voices heard, it might be perceived as the only area. Women can talk about sex openly now. But multiple dimensions and time travel and black holes? Maybe not so much.
Only a handful of female directors are given opportunities that are similar to those of a man, and while directors like J.J. Abrams and George Lucas are great — we have yet to truly find, or maybe accept — a woman in those positions of great power. What we need is the Dunham of science fiction in order to open up more genres of writing to women. Until then, it’s slow going.
Minnie Schedeen is a a junior majoring in cinema and media studies. Her column, “Film Fatale,” runs on Mondays.