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Lena Dunham's Girls: it's the morning after and the critics have their say Lena Dunham's Girls: it's the morning after and the critics have their say
(40 minutes later)
After weeks of breathless hype and speculation, HBO's Girls has finally aired. So, does Lena Dunham's show warrant the thousands of gallons of ink devoted to it? The critics have weighed in, and the consensus is: on balance, yeah.After weeks of breathless hype and speculation, HBO's Girls has finally aired. So, does Lena Dunham's show warrant the thousands of gallons of ink devoted to it? The critics have weighed in, and the consensus is: on balance, yeah.
Read some highlights from around the web. But don't be so passive about it. You have your own chance to weigh in at 1pm ET Monday during a Guardian live chat: Read some highlights from around the web. But don't be so passive about it. You have your own chance to weigh in at 1pm ET Monday during a Guardian live chat:
Ken Tucker in Entertainment Weekly:Ken Tucker in Entertainment Weekly:
What may prevent Girls from vaulting into top-tier status so far is the absence of one necessary element of the genre Dunham is working in: joy. Consider that even her HBO cousins Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mike White's Enlightened and Lisa Kudrow's mighty The Comeback – none of them Mary Tyler Moore-ish, hat-flinging life-affirmers – have included moments in which their central characters were allowed moments of giddy triumph. But the mere fact that I'm considering Girls among these worthies, based on only three episodes I've seen so far, means this is a series with the ambition and talent to grow ever more potent and varied.What may prevent Girls from vaulting into top-tier status so far is the absence of one necessary element of the genre Dunham is working in: joy. Consider that even her HBO cousins Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mike White's Enlightened and Lisa Kudrow's mighty The Comeback – none of them Mary Tyler Moore-ish, hat-flinging life-affirmers – have included moments in which their central characters were allowed moments of giddy triumph. But the mere fact that I'm considering Girls among these worthies, based on only three episodes I've seen so far, means this is a series with the ambition and talent to grow ever more potent and varied.
Jenna Wortham in The Hairpin:
My chief beef is not simply that the girls in Girls are white. I'm a white girl and not a white girl, identified by other people as black and not black for as long as I can remember – which, in mixed people speak means biracial. But the problem with Girls is that while the show reaches — and succeeds, in many ways — to show female characters that are not caricatures, it feels alienating, a party of four engineered to appeal to a very specific subset of the television viewing audience, when the show has the potential to be so much bigger than that. And that is a huge fucking disappointment.
Tim Goodman in Hollywood Reporter:Tim Goodman in Hollywood Reporter:
The new HBO series from Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) is one of the most original, spot-on, no-missed-steps series in recent memory. For her part, Dunham, who writes, directs, stars in, created and executive produces the series, is a talent as unique and refreshing to the medium as Louis CK — high praise indeed, as FX's Louie is one of the most critically acclaimed series on television.The new HBO series from Lena Dunham (Tiny Furniture) is one of the most original, spot-on, no-missed-steps series in recent memory. For her part, Dunham, who writes, directs, stars in, created and executive produces the series, is a talent as unique and refreshing to the medium as Louis CK — high praise indeed, as FX's Louie is one of the most critically acclaimed series on television.
Richard Lawson in The Atlantic Wire:Richard Lawson in The Atlantic Wire:
Though I guess it's possible the difference really is merely generational – the rich late '90s gave us Sex [and The City], while the wobbly '10s give us Girls, a witty and occasionally touching glimpse into our immediate neighbors' lives. They've got something here, it just remains to be seen how big a thing it is.Though I guess it's possible the difference really is merely generational – the rich late '90s gave us Sex [and The City], while the wobbly '10s give us Girls, a witty and occasionally touching glimpse into our immediate neighbors' lives. They've got something here, it just remains to be seen how big a thing it is.
Verne Gay in Newsday:Verne Gay in Newsday:
Hannah [Dunham's character] and the show are all about internal conflict and so is the humor, while sex – and fair warning, it's pretty graphic here, which may be the handiwork of Apatow – is the metaphor for all that conflict. It's grotesque, malignant, unpleasurable and a particularly devious torture chamber, at least for the women, who still submit to it.Hannah [Dunham's character] and the show are all about internal conflict and so is the humor, while sex – and fair warning, it's pretty graphic here, which may be the handiwork of Apatow – is the metaphor for all that conflict. It's grotesque, malignant, unpleasurable and a particularly devious torture chamber, at least for the women, who still submit to it.
Mary McNamara in the Los Angeles Times:Mary McNamara in the Los Angeles Times:
There is a cool cleverness to the show that is both attractive and off-putting.There is a cool cleverness to the show that is both attractive and off-putting.
The characters are flawed and hyper-aware of their flaws, the stories so bent on covering every angle of self-examination that there is no real role for the viewer to play. Which makes watching it an intellectual rather than emotional experience.The characters are flawed and hyper-aware of their flaws, the stories so bent on covering every angle of self-examination that there is no real role for the viewer to play. Which makes watching it an intellectual rather than emotional experience.
Matt Zoller Seitz in Vulture:Matt Zoller Seitz in Vulture:
This is a rare sitcom about young women who seem like real people (albeit irritating ones) rather than sitcom cutouts. It's not arriving onscreen with a somersault and a "ta-DAH!" It feels precise and aesthetically modest, like a female-centric cousin of movies by Whit Stillman (whose first feature in a dozen years, Damsels in Distress, just opened) and late-seventies Woody Allen. Like Stillman's and Allen's characters, only raunchier and more self-doubting, Dunham's characters live very well (often at their parents' expense). They're educated, privileged, and often petty. They talk to hear themselves speak, even when they think they're having conversations, and miss potentially revelatory moments even when they're right in the middle of them.This is a rare sitcom about young women who seem like real people (albeit irritating ones) rather than sitcom cutouts. It's not arriving onscreen with a somersault and a "ta-DAH!" It feels precise and aesthetically modest, like a female-centric cousin of movies by Whit Stillman (whose first feature in a dozen years, Damsels in Distress, just opened) and late-seventies Woody Allen. Like Stillman's and Allen's characters, only raunchier and more self-doubting, Dunham's characters live very well (often at their parents' expense). They're educated, privileged, and often petty. They talk to hear themselves speak, even when they think they're having conversations, and miss potentially revelatory moments even when they're right in the middle of them.
Maya Dusenbery in Mother Jones:Maya Dusenbery in Mother Jones:
Sorry, haters: Girls lives up to the hype. The aggressively un-glamorous hook-ups in Girls are far more realistic than anything else on television. And such a frank and funny portrayal of young sexuality – at least when it's through women's eyes – is noteworthy enough to warrant props, as well as plenty of hand-wringing articles about the state of sexual politics these days.Sorry, haters: Girls lives up to the hype. The aggressively un-glamorous hook-ups in Girls are far more realistic than anything else on television. And such a frank and funny portrayal of young sexuality – at least when it's through women's eyes – is noteworthy enough to warrant props, as well as plenty of hand-wringing articles about the state of sexual politics these days.
Garrett Martin in Paste Magazine:Garrett Martin in Paste Magazine:
Girls might be an honest look at what it's like to be a recent college graduate living in New York in 2012, but that doesn't mean it's not a fantasy, no matter how dark it gets. The people who live like this in real life, the smug, jobless, self-satisfied twentysomethings of Brooklyn who live off their parents and believe their every creative whim is inspired and worth pursuing, who avoid responsibility and confuse adult life with collegiate aimlessness, live as unrealistically as the socialites of Sex and the City.Girls might be an honest look at what it's like to be a recent college graduate living in New York in 2012, but that doesn't mean it's not a fantasy, no matter how dark it gets. The people who live like this in real life, the smug, jobless, self-satisfied twentysomethings of Brooklyn who live off their parents and believe their every creative whim is inspired and worth pursuing, who avoid responsibility and confuse adult life with collegiate aimlessness, live as unrealistically as the socialites of Sex and the City.
Halle Kiefer in Rolling Stone:Halle Kiefer in Rolling Stone:
But to backtrack to the beginning of the episode: you know how everyone in Seinfeld is a just little bit awful? The Girls pilot wants to make it very, very clear that despite the fact she's our protagonist, Hannah Horvath is… well, kind of a pissant.But to backtrack to the beginning of the episode: you know how everyone in Seinfeld is a just little bit awful? The Girls pilot wants to make it very, very clear that despite the fact she's our protagonist, Hannah Horvath is… well, kind of a pissant.
Andrea Peyser in the New York Post:Andrea Peyser in the New York Post:
As it turns out, Girls is not really about girls at all – a species uniformly presented as neurotic sex toys or psycho man-eaters.As it turns out, Girls is not really about girls at all – a species uniformly presented as neurotic sex toys or psycho man-eaters.
It's about guys.It's about guys.
And the guys in Girls are even less appetizing than the women who love and despise them.And the guys in Girls are even less appetizing than the women who love and despise them.