jamie are you still watching this? i've only seen like the first four episodes, but i was curious why you've connected with/praised the believability of multiple characters. from the ones i saw i got the impression that most of the characters outside of the main one herself (and her love interests i guess) are sort of peripheral in the sense that they mostly seem present to interact with dunham's character and little else. like, her three friends all have much less fleshed out personalities than her and her roommate in particular seems... pretty one dimensional.
i stopped watching because a) dramedy detailing the lives and struggles of upper-middle class white people whose problems are limited by the sheer amount of resources thrown at them their entire lives seems a little self-indulgent, particularly when all the characters are deeply oblivious and self-involved, and i'm a little suspicious the only reason it's on the air is because its target demographic has enough money to buy things and is self-indulgent enough to think it's raw and insightful, and b) for a show about women most of the female characters seemed pretty flimsy. does it get better? because my girlfriend kept watching it and she says the characters more or less continue to be tropes used in service of dunham's character development.
idk maybe it is raw and insightful. but it's also a lot of other things that i can't really get past, and it seems sort of ironic to me that a show championed as a response to the disenfranchisement of women in television (which is, to be clear, something i agree merits a response) manages to so thoroughly disenfranchise, ignore, or otherwise alienate virtually every group/experience outside of the exceedingly narrow slice of life it represents. i'm not saying their problems aren't legitimate, but i wanted to know how you watched it and thought "yeah, good. good." instead of "finally, a show about REAL women. who are white. and have money. and college degrees. and robust support systems."
i don't think raw is a word i'd ever use for anything, and it isn't necessarily that it is insightful than i think that two characters on the show in particular just really remind me of myself. it makes me laugh when hannah is acting like a big spoiled baby, and i feel like I'm gonna be able to work through my weird bullshit if there is someone else out there who has it. the two characters are hannah and adam. adam by far the most, but hannah's narcissism is relatable and funny to me. i like ray, too. i could myself ending up like ray, so it's nice to have that held up in front of me so i can try not to end up like him.
i don't think it needs to do anything politically admirable in order to have a right to exist. it just has to not be despicable, and it isn't. there are ways it could be better, and i think it is good, not the best. it's funny sometimes and it makes me feel less alone when i watch the good episodes, that probably sounds stupid, but it's true. it's an accurate reflection of a certain section of society, and it doesn't matter how narrow it is. the problem isn't that rich (and they aren't all rich) idiots are represented at all, it is that other people who aren't are not being represented. so it isn't about shutting down things which i don't find to be perfect in their political content, especially when not everything in that area is bad (nobody seems to understand that this show is self-aware, or for some reason think that is remotely a justification for how terrible hannah is when it totally is). it's about widening what gets represented - here's a show about people who are 20-25 years old, want to do something creative and important with their lives, but don't really know what, and are slowly coming to terms with the fact they aren't special or maybe one of them will get lucky and be a success. yes, they're surrounded by opportunity but i'm surrounded by opportunity and that doesn't mean i don't give a fuck about my life. it's like dietcoke said, when people are getting really pissed off at the show for being about basically themselves. it isn't an important show, well okay, it's important to me because of adam.
i totally understand 'this isn't really for me' because i think it's a specific kind of show not just because of blah blah white rich women but because there's a particular type of self-loathing to it that if you've never really experienced then you probably can't really bring yourself to give a fuck about it. it annoys me when it just bristles people up, and i've got my own ideas about why that is but i can't really be bothered getting into that.
the reason it is on air is because lena dunham made a movie called tiny furniture about post-art school ennui and it resonated with enough people that judd apatow helped her get a show on hbo which is basically the same thing. lena dunham is like 26 or 27 years old, this bullshit is all she knows and she's written some good stuff about it. some of it not so good, but that's tv. not even breaking bad or whatever is always good. there's no conspiracy, there's nothing to be suspicious about, she's just a mildly intelligent film student who got lucky with a marketable sensibility. i think she'll might get more interesting as she gets older and lives more/makes more thngs.
well i've written this now. i can't really be bothered defending this show, i just like parts of it.