The Moment You Have All Been Waiting For

Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Moment You Have All Been Waiting For

Last night because I am staying in a hotel room I watched the fifth episode of Girls, which was the first episode of Girls that I ever watched. Generally, my reaction to others’ reactions of that show and other shows on HBO is as following: “Wait, you’re a freelance writer. How can you afford HBO? Oh, you download episodes through torrents! Don’t you aspire to be a cultural producer? And don’t you complain about how much money you make? And how much time you never have? Okay, then! Girls!” (And here I am talking about the folks who don’t get to screen things because they professionally review culture often.)

Anyway, I thought I was giving Girls a chance! I liked everything about Tiny Furniture except Lena Dunham’s character. She got it right: the color, the pace, the framing, the drummer from Bad Company’s daughter (that is what happens when you are the product of “Feel Like Makin Love” and it is marvellously charming) the totally lame-awesome sister, the stupid things dudes say to you when you are 22, and the fact that everybody fucks the hostess. I mostly liked it, except that the main character was a horrible person with no redeeming qualities. Which is why, generally, people shouldn’t star in the things that they write and direct.

But I thought the payoff in Girls was dull. I have no interest in watching it again, unless I hear that it gets better. My reaction to episode five was pretty equivalent to Tess Lynch’s, so I won’t say more, except that I liked the first season of Sex and the City because it was funny. I haven’t watched the other seasons, but I would. Girls was not really funny. It was only smirky. I won’t go out of my way to watch it again.

Another thing that is more funny than Girls is my own recollection of the hilarious things I did when I was 21-28 and the uproariously stupid mistakes that I made, and the conversations I had with my friends, who were much cooler than those friends on that tv show. I know that you are not supposed to fall into the trap of seeing yourself in Girls, but I see myself in Girls because I was the girl off camera, having way more fun. After college, I stopped writing about my own encounters because I thought that someone would always one-up me in sex and party stories, or in sad depictions of cleverness, and also there are plenty of other things to write about! Now I am the one doing the one-upping! I have a tv season’s worth of way better stories!

Watching Girls and doing other “girls” things like reading lady websites makes me think that I should be writing about my own experiences instead of having a legit writing career with another type of writing, and all of those feelings are not good feelings to follow. And anyway I haven’t thought of myself as a Girl for years. (It is totally cool to be a woman, y’all.)