I kind of love all of them except Marnie and Jessa. And even those two have their moments where they’re a little sympathetic. Hannah’s a lunatic but you end up rooting for her hard time and time again.
Dude Matt Gaetz would think the whole Lena raping her siblings stuff is pretty fucked up.
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Sexual assault and defending it is weak stuff?
But it’s not! It’s presented as a straightforward dramedy. For a satire, it’s certainly not very funny.
I mean, this does not in any way sound like you are describing a satire.
Not that much.
I just didn’t feel that way (and I’m almost certainly some kind of neurodivergent, looking at the evidence over the course of my life, even if I’m not formally diagnosed either). I just didn’t find these people entertaining in any way; I couldn’t relate to their world at all; in the four episodes I watched I saw I think two instances of relatable or funny human behavior.
I mean she didn’t sexually assualt anyone? Who has accused her of anything? Saying she doesn’t believe a specific accusation of someone she worked with might not be great but I don’t think it makes her a horrible person or diminishes her art. In any case, Chinatown is still a great movie and saying Lena Dunham is a HORRIBLE PERSON and her art should be disregarded because she did a bad tweet or whatever is fuckin dumb.
I mean, it for sure is a satire. If you don’t see the satire, then sure, it could suck. Like if people think Robocop is just a straightforward movie about a maimed cop resurrected as a cyborg law enforcement officer, then sure, I can see you not liking Robocop. That’s kind of a dumb movie.
Although Girls is probably the satire that winks the least at the audience I’ve ever seen, right up there with Showgirls. Super brave, because the more sly the satire the more people are going to miss it.
That doesn’t follow at all. You don’t have to feel constant contempt for the characters in a satire. That’s the strength of Girls, that the characters that are being satirized are fully realized and developed, and the satire fades in and out with the show working on a non-satirical dramatic and comedic level as well. That’s crucial to any satirical work: Starship Troopers and Robocop are perfectly OK sci-fi action movies, Dr. Strangelove is a serviceable cold war thriller, etc. It’s even more important for a longer work like a TV show, you can’t sustain six seasons of heavy, constant satire.
I just don’t see any evidence it’s satire other than its fans’ insistence it is. I certainly don’t see any evidence Dunham had (or even has now) the sense of perspective on herself and her life necessary to satirize it.
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A lot of people who like it tell me they relate to the characters in some way or they know people like them. I think that just makes it clear it’s not for me, because I don’t, at all.
You watched four episodes you said? I mean that’s like saying you watched the first five minutes of Starship Troopers and was all, nope, I’m not watching this dumb movie. It’s fine you don’t like it, but shit man, as far as “evidence of satire,” I just watched all six seasons again and it’s satire. Sorry man. It just is. It’s pretty arrogant to insist it isn’t satirical when you haven’t even watched the show. Hell, I don’t even know if the satire is obvious in the first four episodes. Can you tell that Dr. Strangelove is a satire from the first ten minutes? I don’t remember, probably not.
fine with me as long as you don’t try to dispute my LIVED EXPERIENCE that Girls is a sly satire.
Yeah I don’t care about all the narrative questions particularly, and certainly not the central one of “Why” which was never set up as a mystery in the first place. I agree the performances are good but for me the idea that the show involves enjoying the characters is undercut by the writing, which uses cheap tricks rather than characters to get where it wants to go. Like in the ep I just watched, the Reverend ends up naked in the stocks at the end and where some people would be like “wow what a poignant character moment” I’m like “Wait, he just dumped his pregnant wife onto his sister? And he just handed that kid off to the obviously unstable and vindictive guy who used to be in prison?”. Those things aren’t in character. They happen because the show wants to arrive at its big emotional moment. Similarly with the bit in S1 where Kevin kidnaps Patty, the writers couldn’t even be bothered to invent a plausible reason why this might happen so they just have Kevin do it while sleepwalking, or something. I’ll start caring about the characters when the show starts caring about them enough to base the narrative around their actions. In real character-driven shows - Game of Thrones (the early seasons, obviously), Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul all come to mind here - the narrative and the set-piece scenes all unfold as a result of decisions and actions that make sense based on what we know about the characters.
There’s also a glaring lack of arc, like I don’t really feel like Kevin, Jane or Nora are fundamentally any different than they were in the beginning, there are just different stresses acting on them. It’s typical road to nowhere Lindelof shit, I can’t imagine watching anything else he writes again after this. We’ll probably finish watching the show, but I feel like I’m going to regret it.
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I mean… how much time should I spend on a story if I don’t find it compelling and find its characters boring and repellent before I bail? I feel like two hours is a lot, certainly a lot more than 5-10 minutes. I could’ve watched the entirety one of the movies you keep mentioning in that time.
It’s not like all the glowing reviews mentioned that it starts slow then gets really good, either. They were all praising how brilliant and brave it was from the get-go, and saying absurd shit like that the only reason someone wouldn’t like it is if they’re a dudebro sexist who thinks Walter White is a role model, or some such. If it’s supposed to be that good from the beginning, and I found it that bad, I find it hard to think I should invest my time in it getting better.
I’m not trying to tell you not to like it; I’m telling you why I didn’t. I don’t know who it’s for, but it’s not for me, and nothing I saw compelled my interest enough to get me to keep watching.
Again, I don’t care if you like it or not. But insisting that it isn’t satirical when you haven’t watched the show is absurd. Four episodes is enough to know you don’t like it and it’s not for you. But it isn’t enough to insist to people who do like the show and watched the whole thing that it’s not satirical.
The Gray LADY concurs
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“Girls” keeps finding ways of dramatizing its satire so that it doesn’t always seem satirical.
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The best satirical Girls
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Four episodes of a Quibi show is enough to bail.
I think those are valid criticisms for the most part. I also think most of the main characters have an arc / resolution in S3.
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I gave it a good effort, several years after it came out. Probably made it through about 3 seasons. At that point my wife had enough, and I saw no reason to object. I guess I’ll say that it was OK for what it was trying to accomplish.
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I’d say it’s a slight downgrade from Season 1/2. I’m still entertained. Hard to rate it because the season ends before the plot is complete. There is another season that has yet to be released (at least last I checked) that will wrap it up. It might be less annoying to wait until the whole thing is out.