Since James Franco’s infamous Huffington Post response to the first season of “Girls,” there’s been quite a bit of criticism surrounding Lena Dunham’s award-winning HBO series. Accusations of racism and unrealistic situations have surrounded the show.
But, the real question is, why are the masses obsessed with the disparaging concept of a group of postgrad women wallowing in self-pity?
It seems as though every character on the show plays the victim — Hannah can’t finish her book because she’s having an emotional crisis, Shoshanna can’t be with Ray because his career aspirations aren’t enough for her, Jessa has intense daddy issues and so on.
The victim card wouldn’t be so bad if the women of “Girls” would actually do something about their respective situations. If Dunham’s protagonist really wanted experiences to write about, she wouldn’t be sleeping with random men, doing lines of coke at night clubs and rupturing her eardrums with Q-tips — she would (gasp) get a real job.
That’s the thing that probably confuses and frustrates me the most about “Girls” — why do absolutely none of the characters have actual career aspirations? And why aren’t they doing anything about it?
In addition, nearly every character on “Girls” is indecently arrogant — so arrogant, in fact, that it becomes difficult to feel sorry when a character has a crisis (which is all too common on the show).
This brings me back to my main point — why are we so obsessed with “Girls”?
Maybe we watch “Girls” because we’re happy our lives aren’t as seemingly bad as Hannah and company’s. Maybe the surprising amount of cringe-worthy awkwardness the show brings just makes us rejoice that certain moments in our lives really aren’t all that embarrassing. Maybe we’re watching “Girls” because we get some sort of sick fulfillment from thinking our lives are better than those of the characters.
That being said, I don’t think “Girls” is necessarily bad. It’s an entertaining way to spend half an hour on a Sunday evening, but it isn’t something the world should think too hard about.
Rebecca Docter is a 19-year-old mass communication freshman from Brandon, Miss.
