It's really getting on my nerves.
To be fair, I haven't watched this show. It's on HBO, and seeing that I don't even have regular television, it would take some effort to acquire it and watch it. Also, none of what I've heard about it so far motivates me to make said effort.
But it seems that everywhere I turn, someone is talking about it and they won't shut up, so I am adding my two cents.
So in the very first episode, main character Hannah is at dinner with her parents, talking about her internship. I have dinner with my parents frequently, and usually quite enjoy it, especially when they are kind enough to pay for my food. Hannah and her parents are discussing her internship. Personally, when I was 24, I had moved past internship and was working full-time, sometimes 40+hours a week. However, internships can be very useful, positive things.
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| WHSAD Senior Student at Summer Internship (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Hannah's friend is bored with her relationship. That's fine, all relationships can get stuck in a rut and such. She tells Hannah that "His touch now feels like a weird uncle". I guess I should be glad that I don't have any weird uncles. At least not weird like that. Ugh. Anyway, continuing, Hannah's friend says "...I can feel him being so nice to me, and it makes me so angry." Um...what? Someone being nice to you makes you angry? You're going to have a horrible life, dear. Being bored in the relationship doesn't necessarily mean that something is wrong with the person you're dating. Sometimes it just means that you need to switch up your routine a bit. I mean, give the poor guy a chance. Have you even considered talking to him about this? Of course not. Communication in a relationship? Madness!
Hannah then replies to her friend with some nasty language that I won't even bother quoting here. Even when I do talk to my friends about sex (which I do) I do NOT talk like that. I know very few people who do and those are not people I want to be around. I also do not talk to my friends while either of us is in the bathtub. Sorry guys, most girls don't do that sort of thing together.
Hannah's friends eat dinner at 7pm. I have totally done this, seeing that I sometimes don't even get off work until 6:45pm. Now, the more important part of this is the diversity, or lack thereof. I hear that Dunham has already been criticized for this, but I have to admit, given where the show takes place, it's a little odd. I am of the same race and sexual orientation as Dunham, but I live in the American South. It could arguably be called the opposite of New York City. My husband is half-Hispanic, my best friend (though she doesn't live here) is Chinese, and my other best friend is homosexual. Seeing that Lena Dunham is a reasonably intelligent person who should be aware of the demographics of the setting she has chosen and the overwhelming propensity of the media to focus on homogenous people, this could easily have been averted. Perhaps simply with colorblind casting, or not just casting her friends.
So all that said, I just don't see what people love so much about this show, I really resent it being presented as 'the voice of a generation' (especially MY generation), and I am sick to death of hearing about it.
But maybe I'm just weird. Maybe I don't fit very well into my generation. That's okay. I'm cool with that. I'd rather be a grown woman than a girl anyday.
