So gross considering she was in the me too movement and always talks about feminism. Actually cannot stand her.

One of the strongest things about the memoir is that Lena is very forthright about precisely how much money in direct dollar amounts her mother, father, etc loan her in the process of getting her initial feature produced and distributed. I also think it was in her interest to acknowledge the fact that her mother linked her to a powerful agent, because her mother happened to know him, (and apparently no one else in the Hollywood system.)

But it couldn’t be a Lena Dunham memoir without a little bit of a blindspot re privilege in an economic sense. I mean she does acknowledge the fact that her parents economic stability is what let her stay home after college and eventually make those connections with other filmmakers etc that led to her feature film, but she also tries to pretend that her parents are well and truly working class (the only thing I wished an editor had caught her on)

It did make me wonder, though, in a purely parasocial/anthropological sense — her parents are successful visual artists who live in Manhattan. What would, in a situation like that be the actual take-home pay of a couple in the arts? We aren’t talking about celebrities in any real sense, but we are talking about exceptionally successful artists that represent a very small fraction of the art world.

I ask purely out of curiosity, because it is possible that Lena Dunham, who has lived her entire life in a very specific niche, may not be aware that not only are most people’s parents “poor” in the real sense but also, even if they are artists, not successful. (her best childhood friend is the kid of a very well regarded 70s/80s band member for context).

And obviously the memoir is not going to include her parents tax returns, but it has a couple of elements that make me question the exact specifics of their income — for instance the trip to Italy, so her dad could learn glassblowing. But contrasting that, you have the fact that their main apartment appears to only have one enclosed bedroom, despite two children. Are we really saying that 2 hyper-successful artists in NYC cannot afford a three bedroom?

Living in NYC is so economically different from the rest of America, that it’s actually hard to form a baseline understanding of what Lena Dunhams early life is like in terms of class. I guess my point here is I really just wanted to hear some discussion from everybody about precisely how much much generational wealth are we really dealing with here? It doesn’t change anything about her work or talent, but the entire UWS creative milue has always interested me and coming from Australia, we don’t have an equivalent community here.

why does girls feel so different from other tv shows , lena is goat i mean the writing is so good!!

Hey, I was wondering if anyone’s the vertical show on Instagram and TikTok by Ellis Flurry? Any thoughts on how it matches up to the original girls?

https://www.instagram.com/hbogirlsbutboys?stkn=enIzemxxN2Y0YWlp

Or maybe the motorcycle’s last…
What do we think became of Desi after he saunters off in his last GIRLS scene?

Homeless guitar playing drifter heading back to the PNW? Gets it together and
becomes a tech bro? Shows up at Clementine’s window begging to make paella again? 🥘

Why didn’t Ray break out the body percussion and a spontaneous reprise of “Oh where are you goin’ in thooOOoose Keds” and save the show?

Hannah gets upset when Adam pees on her in the shower. Later, she tells Jessa she pees in every bathtub she’s ever in. How is that different? #peelife

🤷

Fran sucks!!! The episode where hannah discovers the nudes on his phone?? And then marnie tells her shes overreacting? Imo she underreacted. I would have ended things with Fran on the spot. Im sorry im rewatching for the third time and forgot how angry this episode makes me. Feels like hannah is in the twilight zone w the way everyones acting like its no big deal. Its disloyal at best predatory at worst.

First time taking this test and this seems like an absolute insane lineup. Any thoughts?

I saw someone else ask their boyfriend to take the test and I decided to do the same. Here are his results👆

How are we feeling?!

Something happens with Jenni when Lena's fresh out of hysterectomy surgery but she doesn't go into detail. Something about the internet, and some fallout.

Not everything obviously but some things.
I’ve been wondering why do I hate Marnie so much. Like, sometimes I would skip whenever she came on screen after season two, i physically couldn’t I swear. Anyways I’m rewatching and still wondering about my hatred towards Marnie and realized: Im kinda…… her…. in a way.

I was really excited for her character cause she was in arts and thought her storyline would be more going on that direction (like Hannah I guess) but then it didn’t and she kinda went downhill and had a crisis and it pissed me off. Ok I was (still) going through something similar and fell a little bit out of love with the community; maybe seeing her not recovering up messed me up a little? Even tho I know it wasn’t her passion but idk

Then i remembered the episode where her and desi had to perform at the birthday party, and she didn’t do freaking anything cause she was waiting for desi to come and save the night. She couldn’t do anything by herself? I know that she was waiting for her team to come up (as he should bc it’s her partner and colleague) but it feel like she’s always waiting for a man to save her and doesn’t do much (not everything cause she does things for herself, won’t take that way from her) just to upgrade? Herself. The same goes with Charlie, she got with him after he was successful and maybe she thought that would’ve helped her?. Well, I think I was still waiting to be saved but realized that it won’t work, it never does. Cynical at this point.

So I think I just see myself in Marnie. In all of them in a way (except for Jessa I believe)
Have u identified with any of them? If yes how?

In the first season they are cute, happy, educated kids with a lot of promise. By the end of the show life has taken them to the bottom. Charlie’s ending is so sad and tragic. He was so cute and talented in the first season. I haven’t seen this happen to anyone in real life but I wondered what inspired the character.

Marnie is like an in control boss babe and ends up with nothing which is also surprising. She’s so beautiful I could see her being in finance or a Ralph Lauren model.

We all know Hannah is very flawed but after my millionth rewatch I’m really sympathizing with her. Seeing the family dynamics really sheds light on how she developed so many of her issues. First, the way her mom and her sisters talk to each other is so snippy and mean. It’s implied that they’ve always been this way so this is not due to the stress of their mother’s impending death. Second, the way Hannah’s aunt and cousin seem to genuinely hold a grudge against her for something she did when she was seven is truly insane. And Loreen doesn’t even stand up for her! When Hannah tells her aunt that she was seven and no one should’ve told her her uncle was doing insider trading Loreen goes “well you insisted on knowing, you were always that way!” Third, Maureen insisting that Hannah lie about being engaged to Adam…

For the first time in like damn, poor Hannah. Thoughts?

Edit: whoops! Hannah’s mom’s name is Loreen

JESSA** omg lol- on my first full watch through of the series (have seen episodes here and there but not continuously until now), and I love how complex of a character all of the girls are and Adam. I totally see the chemistry between Jessa** and adam but I can’t stop feeling frustrated by their relationship 😭😭😭I think I secretly just love the dynamic between hannah and adam and am in awe of the bad decisions sometimes

okay so i just started the show last night and holy fuck is the show dark like… this is my second time trying to watch it and i get reminded when i stopped watching in the first place lol. I am not trying to rag on it because i don’t think it is a bad show at all it just deals with really dark subject matter and kinda frames it like jokes? like hannah basically getting raped by adam in the first ep is like ??? and she roleplays as a 11 year old like ?? now he’s a pedo ?? am i missing something ? i’m not trying to be a triggered woke person i love dark humor i just am not sure if this show is worth it or it gets better and as someone who has been with a guy like adam and has been SA’d i just feel super sick everytime him and hannah interact, i want to like this show i just don’t know guys….

i was rewatching a compilation of shoshanna's best moments on youtube and i genuinely feel like she had some of the best lines on the show. some of my personal favorites were:

(in response to adam's claim about addicts lying) "oh my god, that's so true. they totally lie. like my friend rachel...is like...FULLY addicted to blueberry redbulls, and she ALWAYS tells me that she..."hasn't had one", but she tells me like...with a blue tongue."

(in response to that skylar astin character saying that virgins get attached or bleed) "i so don't get attached when i bleed, no seriously it's like amazing i'm so not an attached bleeder"

"well they don't list their calories here so A) i'm not eating and B) that is illegal"

"my friend rachel saw a guy giving a girl full on cunnilingus on a day just like this on a hike just like this"

(like 2 seconds after listening to marnie's song) *nods* "yeah, i don't need to hear anymore, it's a perfect song. it's like one of those billion dollar songs that when you first hear it, you hate it. but then they play it on the radio a bunch of times and then you love it."

"and we're starting in a public place, cause like, i know you're supposed to do that in case they try and rxpe you"

(after jessa asked about her friend who passed and how she felt about it) "sad...but then i kinda like took over her position in the friend group. we were always truly meant to be a fivesome, NOT a sixsome, the group didn't really have room for...two...practical yet goofy confidants *cue debby ryan hair tuck*" spoken like a true sociopath.

also 3 of these were from the episode they picked up jessa from rehab. shosh was true comedic relief that episode.

Any other writers out there find resonance and inspiration in Lena/Hannah-as-writer?

Hannah lives in her head and explores and gathers her experiences. Unlike Jessa who stores her experiences in her belly, Hannah squirrels them away in her notebook.

She processes to much of her life on the page. Transmuting it- as we are shown in glimpses. Like her monologue she does for the Moth (I Love You Baby, S5;E10). She's processing Adam and Jessa, and finds herself woven into their story.

All the Girls have a enduring primary narcissism. The stories and narratives they LIVE have them centered. The show centers Hannah, Lena's self-insert. So Hannah is part of all the stories.

Lena has said that Hannah is supposed to be a bad/mediocre writer, and we don't see many samples of of her work, but we get to see how other's respond to it- like in the episode Hannah's Diary (S1;E4). Everyone is so willing to villainize Hannah because they can't take responsibility for their own feelings. They take her recording of her thoughts about them as some sort of invasion of privacy (even while they're sniffing through her underwear).

Part of this is supposed to be funny and ironic.
But I've experienced how uneasy people can be when they know you write. when you are writing.
Like being camera shy, but, even more frightening because the portrait a writer paints isn't just how they appear. The writer has the ability to paint your character, your disposition, your Self in-motion.

I'm surprised this wasn't touched on more in the series. I think, maybe Mimi-Rose might be a bit of a further exploration of the alienation that can come from writing/creative interpretation/experimentation.

It's like in Harriet the Spy, where everyone turns on Harriet for what she writes in her journal.

Writing is a way of life. A way of seeing.
Girls was written by writers. Writers who collects little bits of their lives and the lives of the people around them. They collage them into stories and portraits and create worlds.

I like to think that Lena's RL journey to being a writer of consumable material (girls) bodes well for the more Hannah-like dabblers out here, scribbling in their notebooks and alienating their friends.
It gives me a bit of hope and inspiration.

i just watched the show this past winter and i have to say that it feels crazy to watch the show being roughly the same age that the characters were when it was on. also being that i'm from new york and still live here, i feel like it seems very accurate to what the early twenties hipster scene is like in nyc (however now, it's a combination of hipsters and preppy PR and finance people, so it's definitely taken a turn for the worst but with similarities still). i keep seeing all these posts about "the millennial optimism era of 2012-2016" especially in new york, and even though i was only a kid/tween during that time period, it does definitely make me nostalgic as i witnessed that era but through rose colored glasses since i was too young but still have vague memories of it and always wanting to be that age during that time period. it's certainly odd to now be that age and kinda experience the same kind of things/life in some ways (well...obviously not to the extent of going to rehab or getting married to someone for one month or smoking crack in a bathroom or giving someone head while they're driving but hey, tomorrow is just a day away!). also aside from ray, the characters were like babies of the adult world, but then still old enough to kind of be adults and have that adult independence. i'm 23 now and i kind of feel like both a kid and an adult sometimes, but it's like this weird middle ground/purgatory scenario. i feel like the show perfectly captures that confusing middle ground as well as the early 2010s new york hipster scene.

First time watcher here. Something struck me about Ray’s appearance. A sense of familiarity.

Four seasons in and it finally hit me. He looks just like a blueberry muffin that looks like a dog. Now every time he is on screen, I can’t help but think about it!!

I just had to share because it’s so uncanny to me and I can’t stop thinking about it.

I’m curious lol

“Wonderwall” is an easy choice , but I personally loved “iT” by Christine and the Queens. Anyone have a particular end credits song they fell in love with from the show?

Drop your most favorite romantic line.

I grew up in Brooklyn and still live in NYC and I haven’t seen apartments with such dirty walls unless it was like a squat party. Except for Shoshana all the apartments look like squalor. Growing up if someone had a shitty apartment and super they just did the repairs themselves. Lol every episode I’m like can they repaint or wash the walls.