Girls

A wise woman ( cough Beyonce cough) once asked, "Who run the world?"

Trust me, it is NOT these bitches.

Girls seems to have caused something of a furor on the internet. I haven't actually been a party to any of it, but people whose blogs I read keep talking about it so it must be true. Apparently people are ragging on Girls for being racist (in that there are no non-white characters), and about a bunch of spoiled, entitled, hipster assholes.

Here's the thing: all those criticisms are correct. BUT I LIKE IT.

Girls follows the lives of four twenty-somethings living in New York City. Sound familiar? It should--the Sex and the City comparisons have been flowing fast and free, and the show makes no qualms about treading familiar territory. For goodness sake, one of the characters has a Sex and the City poster up in her bedroom. If I may shamelessly crib from two of my favorite bloggers and reviewers, Tom and Lorenzo:

Everyone needs to shut up about how Girls is nothing like Sex and the City when anyone with half an eye and a functioning nervous system can see that it is. Four characters so distinctly different from each other that they’re close to archetypal, navigating through New York City via their careers, their friendships, and the men they sleep with and date. Puh-leeze, bitches. It’s younger, hipper, and less focused on material pursuits, but it’s totally Sex and the City.

So I guess you could bill the show as Sex and the City for the hipster generation. But that makes it sound...well, pretty terrible. But it's actually a good show. Yes, the characters are spoiled, entitled, and assholes. But you know what? So are a lot of people. Including people that I know and am friends with. And I am sure there are people out in the world who think of moi as a spoiled entitled asshole. And how much would love to watch a show about me??

Seriously though, the reason I like the show is for its black humor, the raw and real quality of its plots and dialogue, and the juxtaposition of characters that are at one time painfully self-aware and also so utterly unaware. These ladies act like they totally have their shit together and yet keep making such obviously self-destructive decisions that it kind of boggles the mind. Unless you happen to have been a girl who was at one time in your mid-twenties in which case you totally get it. And trust me, I am SO HAPPY to not be at this point in my life anymore. Perspective is a wonderful thing.

Remember when Dawson's Creek came out and people couldn't believe how adult all the teenagers sounded? And then they proceeded to make horrible decisions like sleeping with their teachers and going out with Chad Michael Murray? Girls is like that--the characters talk a big talk, but at the end of the day they are just as self-doubting and clueless as the rest of us.

A word of warning though: if you are the kind of person who finds frank and explicit conversations about sex, relationships, lack of employment, and living off mommy and daddy offensive or gross, this is not the show for you. 

Nothing like stopping for some fro yo and relationship advice on the way to your abortion. Seriously. This happened in the second episode.

Girls airs on HBO Sunday nights at 10:30 (after Game of Thrones and Veep)