Shoop and Girls

"Girls" just ended its first season on HBO, and a lot of folks are talking. If you google "Girls" and "HBO" (that should do it), you'll find reviews and comments across the spectrum of love, hate, admiration and disgust. I don't have a huge investment in the discussion, but it might be worth examining--why has Lena Dunham's show kicked up such a fuss?

One reason, I think, is that it covers a subject that we're just not supposed to be interested in: privileged young white women complaining despite their privileges. Add to that the fact that the girls are played by real-life privileged young white women (lots of daughters of famous people). So "whiny" and "annoying" definitely go with the territory.  What the episodes lead to is the question--does the show realize how annoying these characters really are? I think the answer to that, for the most part, is yes--I'd say if Larry David were a 24-year-old girl, he'd be Lena Dunham's lead character Hannah. Just as Curb Your Enthusiasm fans consistently marvel at how obnoxious "Larry David" can be, I think Hannah's mistakes, mis-statements, and occasional dickishness is at least 90% intentional, and the same goes for her annoyingly shallow friends. I base that on two pieces of evidence: 1) Dunham's behind the scenes segments she does following the episodes, and 2) the occasional bursts of wild overacting when Hannah is crying about a "crisis."

What reason #1 accomplishes is what I call the "Ashley Tisdale stays behind to clean up" effect (I never said my names for things roll off the tongue easily). During a showing of "High School Musical 2," the cast is hanging out a pool with the director/choreographer, and they're making plans to take the party elsewhere. Ashley, who plays the flamboyant, self-centered Sharpay, offers to clean up. It's a message to the viewer--"Sharpay wouldn't stay and clean up, but Ashley would. Therefore, Ashley is not really Sharpay." That's an important message for those viewers who wouldn't be able to tell simply from Tisdale's gleefully over-the-top performance that she's not her character. So with Dunham in her after-episode pieces. At first I found them annoying in a kind of "here's what you just saw" kind of way, but I gradually caught on to the importance--Dunham is charming, well-spoken, and intelligent about the stories and the characters in a way that "Hannah" isn't. Mission accomplished.

The case of overacting leads to the second reason--going over the top is a way for actors to tell us that they're not really like that. Denham tends to be very low-key and mumbly as Hannah (as she was playing a variation of herself in her breakthrough movie "Tiny Furniture"), but when Hannah gets really upset over something incredibly stupid, Denham gets hysterical, as she does in the final episode of the season regarding her being 13 pounds overweight. It's her way of telling the viewer, "Yeah, I know Hannah's being a freaking moron about this, and you should go ahead and laugh."

Some critics are down on the acting in general. Of all the elements of a piece of entertainment that are hopelessly subjective, I'm inclined to think acting is highest on that list. In general, I'd say the acting is good enough--what it needs to be. Focuing on Dunham in particular, I think she's good at one-liners and casual conversation, and has some trouble bringing "real" emotion (hence the reliance on overacting), but it all fits what "Hannah" is, so it's fine. The  other actors, in turn, do what is needed, if not much more, with the exception of Peter Scolari, who rocks his occasional appearances as Hannah's dad.

Other reasons people give for hating the show, sadly, perhaps speak to our lesser nature, such as, "It's not funny because Lena Dunham's not hot enough." Remarks like that are just rude, and it's too bad some people feel the need to write them, but that's what an internet is for. And some folks focus on how "white" the show is, thinking that "Girls" is racist. Meh. They're white girls, and they know a lot of white people--it works that way sometimes. So on the whole, I like "Girls" fine, and I'll probably watch whenever the next season starts.

Plus, I'd love to hear Zosia Mamet do a medley of some of her father's coolest lines, like "Put that coffee down!" and "All train compartments smell vaguely of shit." That would be tight.