By Juan A. Ramirez, A&E columnist
Itâs a shame that people wonât give Lena Dunham a chance. Donât get me wrong, the actress/writer/director behind the HBO series âGirlsâ is often as âpainfully narcissistic, shockingly tone-deaf and just generally one of the most insufferable people youâll ever meetâ as her semi-fictionalized character, Hannah, is described in the show. Beyond her controversial status, though, is an artist too often lost and confused with her art.
A simple look at âGirlsâ proves it is as nimble and essential a work of art as we have ever needed, yet the seriesâ success is often undermined by a hyper-politicized world where you either stand with or against its creator. As the show nears its sixth and final season, I urge audiences to revisit, reevaluate and remember the astute cultural significance of âGirls.â
The most common mistake people make when approaching âGirlsâ is treating it as an eveningâs entertainment. In 2017, you would think viewers would’ve grown accustomed to the dextrous maturity of shows like âBreaking Badâ and âMad Men,â in which richly drawn characters, not flashy plot twists, are what drive the narratives forward. Dunham has created a handful of the most three-dimensional characters ever seen on television, each one imbued with motivations and opinions and allowed to roam free within the show, being themselves. We never sense any contrivances that move characters from point A to point B, but instead are afforded glimpses into what these young (un)professionals are truly like.
We see them in various states of nakedness, both physical and emotional, and see how their personas shift through different social situations. We see them annoy each other, laugh, make bad choices and be obscenely self-absorbed, yes, but when has a work of narrative fiction ever allowed us this much access? And when has a sanitized, family-friendly do-gooder ever been an interesting subject for a long-form narrative?
The main complaint I hear against the titular girls is that theyâre too irritating, too âout-there,â too prone to finding themselves in self-created miserable situations. Iâm not debating any of this. Iâve often cringed away from seeing what fresh hell Hannah and her unrelenting ego have gotten themselves into, but by the time the credits roll, I revel in the satisfaction of knowing and understanding another human, no matter how flawed (or fictional). They might be annoying sometimes, but theyâre what weâve got.
There is much to praise and deride about a show like this; Think pieces for either side of the love/hate dichotomy spend thousands of words debating whether a characterâs actions in any given episode advance or hinder any number of social causes. Too often, though, peopleâs fierce grips on their ideals stop them from honestly dissecting the show piece by piece, as I imagine Dunham expects us to do.
Nothing about the show begs to be unconditionally loved and itâs perfectly okay to take issue with Jessaâs flakiness while praising Shoshannaâs career choices. Much as our opinion of our friends might shift throughout a week, so does our view of these characters. âGirlsâ is a fascinating exercise in authenticity, a multiple character study that shakes us out of complacency with the generic, all-good-all-the-time garbage too often found on television.
A show like âGirlsâ breeds empathy. Though you might be initially put off by its forthrightness, youâll eventually find yourself identifying with Hannahâs delusions, Adamâs manic-yet-controlled demeanor or even Elijahâs aimlessness or Marnieâs sense of displacement. Being in your 20s is not as carefree as we might have perceived, and âGirlsâ does not shy away from this truth. Instead, we are shown vital success stories and grim cautionary tales about what might happen when we let our vanities get the best of us. It might not always be pleasant to view your own flaws expanded and carried out into dramatic scenarios, but itâs certainly cathartic.
If nothing else, the series proves Dunham is capable of genuine creation. I challenge anyone to truthfully say they have ever seen another show like it. Sure, âSex and the Cityâ comparisons are obvious and cheap, but whereas that show presented a fairytale, Dunhamâs series is concerned with our youthâmaybe not all youth, or even a relevant fraction of itâbut youth, regardless. When Hannahâin the first episode, no lessâtells her parents, âI think I may be the voice of my generationâor at least a voice of a generation,â we laugh because she is clearly delusional and out of her element, but arenât we all?