COLUMN: Girls is a perfectly imperfect show
It is near impossible to watch Girls without constantly thinking of the show’s creator, Lena Dunham, a fallen-from-grace millennial icon whose recent statements push her into problematic territory. There’s the comment she made about Odell Beckham Jr. ignoring her at the annual Met Gala because he, in her eyes, didn’t deem her sexy enough. There’s the comment about not including more characters of color in Girls, which is set in New York City, because she lacked personal understanding of their lives. And then, there’s the comment about wishing she has experienced abortion.
The conversation of whether we can or should separate an artist from her work will go on for as long as art exists. But with the premiere of the sixth and final season of Girls airing on HBO last Sunday, the show is preparing to enter a long, rich history of past television, and viewers are now able to consider not only its merits but also what role it played in the social dynamics of its time. And I believe that after this season finishes, we’re better off that a show like this existed on HBO.
Girls isn’t an honest portrayal of New York; it wasn’t created by someone who gives her full effort in trying to understand how society works, but it’s the first series I’ve ever consumed where the idea of femininity was challenged — where women were not just objects who wanted and were wanted, but who romp through the world as if it were theirs. And it is.
Girls has always been committed to its devilishly honest portrayal of young womanhood, in all its curves, tears and complications. And yet, this season’s premiere seemed more tiresome and inconsequential than most past episodes. It was as if the writers, unsure where to take the sprawling and weaving relationships they had built up for five seasons, instead decided to hit them on the head over and over with dry self-awareness. For example, Marnie and Ray call each other “baby” again and again, Jessa and Adam wrestle nude over a carton of yogurt, and Hannah returns more bumbling and disengaged from reality than ever before. What’s new?
Interestingly, I have never been a fan of Dunham’s Hannah. And actually, I don’t really watch the show for any of the individual characters at all. It’s more the relatable and realistic parsing of friendships and romances that I find worth coming back for. It is always somewhat disconcerting to me how many relationships Hannah seems to dip in and out of, simply because she speaks so bluntly and behaves so selfishly. Throughout the show, she displays narcissism and childish immaturity, and yet also a carpe diem attitude that is hard not to admire. But it seems like Dunham’s character returned from season five almost a caricature of herself: the nuances painted externally instead of internally.
For the first time in Girls I can remember, there was a bounty of body humor the likes of which I haven’t seen on the show before. Part of me wants to celebrate scenes of Hannah struggling, nude, out of a wetsuit or pulling up her dress to messily slather sunscreen on her legs, for normalizing the female body. But that’s what Girls has always done, which is why this season premiere feels a little different — the jokes feel cheap. I don’t want to laugh at Hannah’s foibles around her body, I want to laugh because she makes situations feel honest and organically funny. Girls has proven they can do that. Laughing at female bodies reduces both the writing and the women on the show. And that’s not what Girls has historically been. That’s not what Girls wants.
And yet, that is where the Catch 22 of the show lies. Maybe we don’t like the jokes. Maybe we don’t like Hannah. But we like her for being unlikeable and comfortable with her body and on top of that, having a boyfriend who looks like Adam Driver. This is also why a show like Girls is so necessary, even in its problematic foundations and mistakes. Plainly and confidently, it demonstrates that girls are messy and complicated and flawed. They are not ideals, and sometimes they want something or someone they can’t have. They’re not always the unattainable, aloof beauties decades of television want us to believe they are — girls are individuals. They crave cupcakes and yogurt; they take the reins in relationships. And sometimes, they think only of themselves.
Zoe Cheng is a sophomore majoring in writing for screen and television. Her column, “Wide Shot,” runs Wednesdays.