Girls: You'll Hate it Til You Don't

I was semi-bullied into watching the first season of HBO’s headline grabbing Girls. Seriously, someone offered me a full refund on the entire season if I watched it all and then still hated it. And from the articles I’d read and vitriolic reaction I’d seen on social media, this was money for jam people.



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The pilot episode and even the second episode were horrendous. Not in a reality TV awful way, but an acutely self-aware, central characters despising, epically smart annoying way. Flashy moments of ‘look how real and non-conventional we are’ with characters talking to each on the toilet, pissed me off to the point of wanting to smack my computer screen. How would I survive a whole season of this bullshit? And when I queried people on whether to keep watching, the reactions were so strong either for or against – here was a TV show that truly polarized people.

But then a funny thing happened. Actual depth and layers started sneaking into the characters. Sure, they are still at times utterly detestable and the choices they make are still eye bleeding offensive but I managed to see the show more for what it was: an examination of how girls are in their early twenties and I stopped hating the characters and started pitying them.

The central character is a wannabe essayist (not writing her memoirs, she’s writing essays) who in the pilot episode demands her parents support her financially and cracks the absolute sads when they refuse this - seriously, you already want to smack her in the first ten minutes, she is that pissy. James Franco wrote in opinion piece, declaring this girl should shut the fuck up and get a job like everyone else has to. It’s not often that I would agree with James Franco, but in this point I did whole heartedly.

However, as the episodes continue on, I’ve came to pity Hannah. Her light a fire to get attention in her social life behaviour, her delusions of literary grandeur and superiority were all so twenty four and painfully so. Her fundamental operandi is ‘I am so right in my life and I will reflect on my personal relationships in a way no one ever has before and it won’t be long before the entire world will marvel at my insightful observations.’

The mistake is to believe that this is the show’s agenda as well, that it believes itself to be a voice of a generation and we will marvel at its amazingness when in fact, it’s in on the joke. Girls, and the title is a big clue, in their early twenties are in fact often stupid, arrogant idiots and the show understands this.

Sure, it’s a generalisation and sure, the portrayals we’re given here from uber-aware Hannah, wannabe sophisticate Marnie, the too cool for cool British girl (with her affected accent and general smugness that is SO Madonna in London) and the hilariously naïve Soshanna, miss a whole bunch of girls who never behaved like this.  But in New York, you’re more than likely going to find a greater concentration of these pretenders than anywhere else.

So what started for me as a hate-watch show and a way to possibly make easy money on my critical analysis has now become interesting and intriguing, uncomfortable and oddly hilarious viewing. And while I can’t offer a money back refund, I encourage those who’ve watched only the first few eps to push through – it’s ‘officially’ worth.