Girls in the NY Times
The NY Times previews the upcoming season of Girls on HBO:
Last year some critics got traction with complaints that none of Ms. Dunham’s main characters were African-American — even though the cast is small, and mostly made up of insular, middle-class Oberlin alumni living in bohemian Brooklyn. Ms. Dunham dealt with the diversity dust-up by giving in — to a point. Her character returns to the screen with a sort-of boyfriend, Sandy (Donald Glover of “Community”), a good-humored, hip black law student who happens to be a Republican. Hannah can’t believe he actually likes her, but she also can’t believe he is actually a conservative.
I am glad that they are adding political diversity to the show, because it was unfair to Republicans that every character on the show was a Democrat.
Who cares if, in reality, Brooklyn is overwhelmingly Democratic outside of the Hasidic neighborhoods? This is television, it’s supposed to show a better version of reality.
This new character is also a smart move to increase ratings, because I’m sure a lot of Republicans from the Midwest will now tune in.
A black conservative is a really lazy comedy technique IMO.
“good humored” means, “he takes all of the liberal characters snippy remarks about conservatives lying down”
“hip” means “pro-gay, pro-abortion — not one of ‘those’ republicans”
anonymous
January 11, 2013 at 4:10 pm
Of course there’s not one chance in a quadrillion that HBO would ever dare show a white male character with a black girlfriend. Even leaving outside the fact that such a pairing would be very rare in real life, it would be way too controversial to show on TV.
Peter
ironrailsironweights
January 11, 2013 at 5:28 pm
Um, you don’t remember The Jeffersons?
Lion of the Blogosphere
January 11, 2013 at 8:46 pm
That was a lighthearted comedy and made no pretense to being true-to-life.
Peter
ironrailsironweights
January 11, 2013 at 9:14 pm
Also not on HBO.
Don't look at me
January 12, 2013 at 7:38 am
“such a pairing would be very rare in real life” Why do people say this when I see at least one daily? However, I do live in New York. I also grew up in England (London to be specific) where such relationships were common enough and people there don’t seem so hung up on interracial dating as they are in the states. Also, I’m black and my boyfriend is white, we live in real-life Brooklyn not Lena Dunham’s.
rhondacoca
January 18, 2013 at 9:13 am
Whoopie Goldberg in her short-lived tv series did this first: her sibling, a brother, was supposed to be an uptight Republican lawyer, with a statuesque blond girl friend who spoke pure black ghetto. An amusing show. I was disappointed it wasn’t renewed.
Mike Eisenstadt
January 11, 2013 at 5:48 pm
Curious: was the blonde supposed to be an incongruous prole mate for the black Republican, or was she blithely unaware her boyfriend wasn’t himself “ghetto” just because he’s black? Or was she assuming demotic speech in a befuddled attempt to prove herself to him somehow?
Anyway, the “Girls” casting reminded me of Woody’s “Melinda & Melinda”, with the Classical musician black boyfriend. Not quite Branaugh-level stunt casting, but felt a tad forced (then again, the whole film felt a tad forced, so–)
Lucius Somesuch
January 11, 2013 at 8:57 pm
Here’s Howard Stern’s opinion on “the little fat girl who kind of looks like Jonah Hill “
The little fatty responds.
Rifleman
January 11, 2013 at 6:18 pm
I stand by my prediction the the alt-right will turn on Girls in season 2.
Bill
January 11, 2013 at 6:44 pm
Don’t you think Dunham added Glover not to capitulate to demands for diversity, but to mock them? I’m excited to see how he’s written in.
crobus
January 11, 2013 at 7:13 pm
Yeah, that is how read it. The black republican is retaliation, not submission. Dunham is using a Brooklyn accent to tell critics, “I got your diversity right here!”
not too late
January 11, 2013 at 8:56 pm
He’s her Barack Obama. Remember he political ad about how you should vote for Obama because you want to have sex with him.
None of these girls have actual policy positions. They vote for whatever they believe is “cool”. If they are told being liberal is cool they will be liberal. If tommorrow they are told some new set of policies is cool they will vote for that. They are loyal to the party (not necessarily political party, but the movement) not the message.
The new character, while being Republican, will be an SWPL Republican that only supports roughly liberal ideas that happen to be out of sync with the democractic party today but you could easily see them supporting them either in the future or in the past because they don’t conflict at all with the core liberal philosophy.
your first time
January 12, 2013 at 7:54 am
Can’t bring myself to read that NYT review (though I’ll watch the show). Does it mention highlight the irony that each of the actresses playing “middle class” bohemians comes from an affluent (Dunham) to extravagantly wealthy (Kirke) background?
DaveinHackensack
January 11, 2013 at 7:38 pm
“This new character is also a smart move to increase ratings, because I’m sure a lot of Republicans from the Midwest will now tune in.”
That was tongue-in-cheek, right? Right?
Saint Louis
January 11, 2013 at 9:01 pm
Absolutely tongue-in-cheek…
Forbes
January 12, 2013 at 3:48 pm
Lion: here is a good example of the kind of ridiculous philanthropy you make fun of, and which gets the seal of approval from the media:
http://www.theworld.org/2013/01/ballet-school-still-open-despite-violence-in-syria/
A Rhodes Scholar from New Hampshire who runs a ballet school in Damascus. She’s 25. She’s probably never have kids. She’s wasting her prime fertile years in this ridiculous venture.
This stuff used to bother me. I laugh at it now.
JayNE
January 11, 2013 at 9:52 pm
Hey, now that the comments to this blog are formatted all nice…such that replies are nested beneath…maybe a “Have the Lion ascertain your class” entry wouldn’t be such a silly idea. It could be enlightening.
RBG
January 11, 2013 at 10:45 pm
They had an interview of her yesterday on Fresh Air and she comes across as thinking she’s brave and open and all that but there’s a level of pretension there that is way up there. She’s more successful at 26 than I could come close to and there is no sense of gratitude or understanding, I think that’s because she understands on some level she’s become the standard bearer for certain type of people and as such she has to deal with beta proles like me and it is a real burden.
S_McCoy
January 12, 2013 at 9:29 am
I think I’ve read her elsewhere where she’s exhibited gratitude and understanding, but her success holds some worthwhile lessons. For starters, you’ve got to be in it to win it. How many people have dreamed about making an indie movie? Lots – but she actually did it, on a shoestring ($50k, IIRC). And that movie showed that she had some talent.
Imagine if she had applied to a big 3 law school instead, got rejected, and then spent her time blogging about how the odds were stacked against her?
Of course, luck came in to play, with Apatow seeing the movie and offering to mentor her. But that would have never happened if she didn’t have the gumption to make her indie movie in the first place.
DaveinHackensack
January 12, 2013 at 4:37 pm
I’ve got a better idea for HBO: a series named “Guys,” featuring four mid-20′s men, double-E’s from Stanford, who are living and working in Silicon Valley. They’re all buying houses and getting married. Alternatively, they could have petroleum engineering degrees from Texas A&M and be working in North Dakota, or Wharton MBA’s at a financial company in suburban Atlanta. It could even be a mixed-gender group with a young woman or two thrown in.
There’s a serious point behind all this. When our economy is in recovery mode, gloom-and-doom attitudes that focus solely on the negative side do no one any good and even may be self-fulfilling prophecies to some extent (“The payments on this new car would be completely affordable, but everyone’s going on about how we’re in another Great Depression, so maybe I should hold off a bit.”) Consider the way that any bit of good economic news is immediately greeted by the firestorm of denunciation. For instance, the fact that for quite some time now weekly initial unemployment claims have been below the 400K level that indicates economic recovery is completely drowned out by anecdotes about all the long-term unemployed who’ve given up hope and dropped out of the labor market.
Whatever its merits may be, Girls focuses on showing hardship and tough times, with many of its characters marginally unemployed at best. This is only going to get worse in the upcoming season, as apparently Marnie has lost her job at the art gallery. I just don’t see anything good coming out of this constant obsession with the negative.
Peter
ironrailsironweights
January 12, 2013 at 10:02 am
hahahaha, our economy is in recovery mode?
Anonymous
January 12, 2013 at 1:57 pm
My point exactly. No one is able/willing to admit that things aren’t completely grim. Which isn’t to say that the economy’s in good shape, or anything close, but we aren’t in as dire condition as just a few years ago.
Peter
ironrailsironweights
January 12, 2013 at 6:02 pm
People who are well-adjusted and successful generally don’t make the most interesting TV characters. Unless you throw them into did functional situations – there are more interesting dramatic possibilities for an oil engineer in Nigeria than North Dakota. But I can’t see an American TV series set in Nigeria.
DaveinHackensack
January 13, 2013 at 11:53 am
“The Jeffersons” was in a Pre-Racial America
Today, we endure the Post-Racial amerexica
Where whites are now the subjugated class
And their New Masters, not so munificent
Woe that it be “Girls” is the 21st Century variant of SATC
Where at least a YOUNG Carrie Bradshaw
Had appeal, albeit in a wooden body.
She smoked – you’ll NEVER see
Antother InChargeGRRL
Smoke on TV
Again
Firepower
January 12, 2013 at 3:06 pm
God Dunham gets fatter every minute it seems. For an upper class woman, she’s fairly physically repulsive, with ugly tats and a prole body; imagine Roseanne Barr as upper class, and you get well, Lena Dunham. For a professional actress, you’d expect she’d get in shape and be somewhat attractive on screen. If she were a writer, that’s a different matter, get as fat as Bruce Vilanche, who cares?
But good God! She’s full on Whale Wars sized now.
Whiskey
January 12, 2013 at 10:48 pm
Tattoos are inherently unpleasant, but I’m flummoxed at how she wound up with so unfortunate an example as that one. Was a crack pipe involved? It could’ve been a tramp stamp, mostly out of sight; it could’ve just been a star inside her wrist, but no– that sprawling monstrosity that doesn’t even attempt visual sense. Surely to God she must repent of it.
Lucius Somesuch
January 13, 2013 at 9:35 pm
For an upper class woman, she’s fairly physically repulsive, with ugly tats and a prole body; imagine Roseanne Barr as upper class, and you get well, Lena Dunham.
1) Upper class American men & women are fatter than upper class Europeans because of our disastrous low-fat, high carbohydrate diet guidelines. This isn’t problem isn’t unique with Dunham.
2) It’s time to outlaw giving tattoos to women and impose dress guidelines on students and adults. The lower classes are too stupid to dress themselves and they’re now dragging down higher background women like Dunham down to their level.
The Undiscovered Jew
January 13, 2013 at 10:16 am
Concerning item #2, you could have a point.
http://images.thesartorialist.com/thumbnails/2013/01/10813Denim6386Web.jpg
aandrews
January 13, 2013 at 8:40 pm