What a bit of twisted analysis this is, and from one who says he likes the show. So "Girls" proves that a liberal lifestyle fails? That's really your point, isn't it? I'd say that it proves that the world is full of flawed individuals, and that is sometimes a funny and touching sight. But it also showed that this generation is, luckily, facing the world gratis the insights of feminism. In case you missed the point of Hannah's/Lena's nudity, the nudity of a non-Barbie-Body, pick up some feminist texts and read them. In case you missed the point of Hannah's final choice--to not have an abortion, because she realized she wanted the baby, feminism can help you there too. That's what the "Pro-Choice" movement is all about. - And if you think "true" Brooklyn is diminished by white liberals living in Brooklyn, you don't know much about the history of that place--so full of immigrants of all types. Take the A Train, man. Live a little.
48
"...the official narrative of social liberalism, in which prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality are supposed to lead smoothly to health, wealth and high-functioning relationships."
Actually gender (and general) equality is itself the goal. Nobody said that other stuff is easy.
"...the only involved and caring [father] came out as gay midway through the show..."
So?
Actually gender (and general) equality is itself the goal. Nobody said that other stuff is easy.
"...the only involved and caring [father] came out as gay midway through the show..."
So?
10
"You do not have...this figured out".
You and your patriarchy don't get to talk about figuring it out. Daddy and his buddies killed 160 million people in the last century and are off to a good start in this one. The dystopia is here, right now. Patriarchal churches, governments, militaries made this. And you refuse to own it, and point your finger at a TV show.
What is underneath all of this is fear. The same familiar fear that men down through the centuries have plowed over with a tough-guy act, with mucho macho.
You dig down into that. You're on to something.
Otherwise just shut up. You are known by your works.
You and your patriarchy don't get to talk about figuring it out. Daddy and his buddies killed 160 million people in the last century and are off to a good start in this one. The dystopia is here, right now. Patriarchal churches, governments, militaries made this. And you refuse to own it, and point your finger at a TV show.
What is underneath all of this is fear. The same familiar fear that men down through the centuries have plowed over with a tough-guy act, with mucho macho.
You dig down into that. You're on to something.
Otherwise just shut up. You are known by your works.
16
Damn fine article, Mr. Douthat.
7
Oh, Ross, you just had to do it, didn't you? You loved the show -- created by liberals, about liberals, mostly for liberals, expressing liberal values that you yourself seem to be praising here -- but you just can't end the valentine without one of the usual condescending jibes. You're like that Tea Party conservationist lady who said, "It's not a Republican earth, and not a Democrat earth, it belongs to all of us," but couldn't even express what she thinks of as a non-partisan moral imperative without using a partisan slur. Do you hear yourself talking?
8
I'm not a millennial. I'm not white. And I'm not from the NE. However, I loved Girls for simply what it was for me ~ an escape. I loved the whining. I loved the bad decisions & bad behavior. I especially loved Adam Sackler & Elijah Kranrtz. Hannah was the queen of all baby girl but I never ceased being fascinated. I've watched the finale twice & cried both times.
37
Lives in NYC, is an immature, full-figured narcissist that ends up in a job for which they're not qualified, Hannah Horvath seems more like Trump than a face for liberal ideology.
1
I've felt for a long time that all of us participants in mostly-liberal, mostly-urban-professional modern society "do not have this alternative figured out." Thanks for articulating that, Ross.
6
The "NYT Picks" of comments to this piece are atrocious selections that all make the same mistake. Mr. Douthat is not criticizing the moral messaging of "Girls" because it rejects patriarchy or Catholicism. Rather, Mr. Douthat's criticism is rightly based on the show's absolute lack of humanity, empathy, or values that could sustain a functioning civilization or social-based species. That last point might be the most important.
If all or even most people lived like the characters in Girls, our society would fail. Not because women "wouldn't be beholden to men" or "fit the ideal of men" as P Palmer from Arlington faux-laments. Society would fail because, for us human beings to succeed, we must operate through productive thoughts and actions geared, at least in part, to the betterment of those around us. This is a fundamental aspect of our evolution. And to that extent, the characters of Girls are reflective of what happens when our basic humanity fails us. It just so happens that in this case they are women. There are male examples. Aaron Hernandez might be one.
So please, spare us the self-victimization. These characters are not beautiful, capable, or intelligent women. They should not be embraced merely because they are women. They are horrible people that should be shunned.
If all or even most people lived like the characters in Girls, our society would fail. Not because women "wouldn't be beholden to men" or "fit the ideal of men" as P Palmer from Arlington faux-laments. Society would fail because, for us human beings to succeed, we must operate through productive thoughts and actions geared, at least in part, to the betterment of those around us. This is a fundamental aspect of our evolution. And to that extent, the characters of Girls are reflective of what happens when our basic humanity fails us. It just so happens that in this case they are women. There are male examples. Aaron Hernandez might be one.
So please, spare us the self-victimization. These characters are not beautiful, capable, or intelligent women. They should not be embraced merely because they are women. They are horrible people that should be shunned.
8
I found the show fascinating for a few seasons, precisely because it seemed as erratic and mixed-up as its characters. How did the show regard these "girls"? It exploited them with age-old sensationalistic gimmicks (outrageous depictions of sado-masochism, abusive sexuality, in-your-face nudity), celebrating them and condemning them and (most of all) packaging and selling them as the show's hottest commodities. It all seemed so confused and immature and pathetic and exasperating -- very much like a lot of privileged East Coast white women in their early twenties.
How much of the confusion and ambivalence the series displayed was intentional, part of an artistic design, and how much was just a desperate ploy for attention, or an honest depiction of a recognizable brand of twentysomething malaise itself? I'm not certain if the confusion is mine or the show's. Maybe that's a valuable part of the experience. Maybe not.
How much of the confusion and ambivalence the series displayed was intentional, part of an artistic design, and how much was just a desperate ploy for attention, or an honest depiction of a recognizable brand of twentysomething malaise itself? I'm not certain if the confusion is mine or the show's. Maybe that's a valuable part of the experience. Maybe not.
1
Leave it to Douthat to find a critique of liberalism in an HBO series about young women trying to figure their lives out. I'm half amazed that he seems to be a fan of the show, but I guess this explains it: in it he sees the downfall of civilization left to women who, doing what they want, realize that maybe they didn't want that after all. Because that's so different than anyone else ever. Haha?
2
I found "Girls" fascinating, at first just because I've never ever seen someone as determinedly comfortable in her own body as Lena on camera, and that was a good thing to see, wheather or not it was real. But the rest of the elements were remarkable, too; was that narcissism, nihilism or despair conquered, one horrible gaffe at a time? No, young women seeking freedom don't have much figured out yet, but the certainties guaranteed by past hierarchies of paternalism and religion are not any more capable if providing a recipe for happy human life. There were believable moments of lovely life in this series, and I think I'll remember them.
10
"The only character to actually have an abortion was extraordinarily blasé about it, and then over subsequent episodes revealed as a monster of self-involvement."
Which is a really, really, really good reason not to become a mother. Sounds like she made a wise choice.
Which is a really, really, really good reason not to become a mother. Sounds like she made a wise choice.
12
The arrogance in these columns lately is simply breathtaking. The strong implication, that Douthat shoehorns in at the end, is that the patriarchal traditional model has it "figured out" and the "egalitarian alternative" has not.
Both statements are ridiculously, transparently false.
Both statements are ridiculously, transparently false.
6
Douthat is in way over his head here. A nuanced foray into the narrower issue of feminism in the context modern liberalism would best be left to a more qualified analyst.
3
I'm struck by the virulence and viciousness of several of the preceding comments. People who have no talent tend to post things like this. Perhaps it exemplifies a truism. Those who discredit someone's achievement (by Lena Dunham, Ross Douthat) do so to make up for their own stunning lack of achievement.
7
Quite a remarkable and critical understanding of Girls as a cultural signifier of our post-traditional era. I think Mr Douthat could have also commented on the poverty of moral and ethical moorings the characters had-- an absence of religion, political ideology, and "family values" to hold on to and wrestle with. Instead the characters are individuals adrift in their own "Sheilaisms," as Robert Bellah analyzed in Habits of the Heart to describe extreme American individualistic spirituality where each person is one's own authority.
6
I actually disliked this show immensely after watching the first three episodes. This review/summation makes me sort of want to watch it. I don't think I will, but I did want to say that I actually enjoyed this article. It was well-thought out, and critical, not a typical puff piece. Thanks for the enjoyable read. Glad I subscribed to the NYT -- plenty of very different topics to read about.
11
I'm a liberal New Yorker who loved Girls from start to finish. These comments by readers are embarrassingly, reflexively mean-spirited and self-absorbed, and add little to the discussion of what Girls illuminated about millennial urban culture. The column is a fine analysis.
19
Mr. Douthat, liberal and libertine Midwestern ex-Catholic 50 something woman here. "Girls" never appealed to me--why would I care about a bunch of upper middle class young women living in NYC (of course they live in NYC) complain about their faux drama-infused (but actually comfy and cosseted) lives? That & not the typical risque 20-something antics you complain about (we can see plenty of that stuff from our own kids, thankyouverymuch) is what turned me off from it.
5
Have not watched Girls. Won't, for various reasons. Too busy, at present, with work, the main reason. But anyone that thinks Breaking Bad was mainly about the "...Albuquerque drug trade" did not appreciate the series, I think.
5
Douthat has written a nuanced homage to _Girls_ yet many of this column's critics seem to have mistaken that nuance for unfair criticism, mainly (it seems) because they refuse to listen to a writer who self-identifies as a conservative. As a left-liberal gay man, I often disagree with Douthat's opinions but I respect him because: he is a polymath, well-versed in politics, high culture, and popular media; he writes clearly and eloquently; he is fair-minded; and he has a keen eye for detail and a nuanced understanding of contemporary social life. All those virtues are evident in this column. If you can't see that, read it again.
23
This is the stupidest take on "Girls" yet and that's saying a lot. "The fall of patriarchy had basically happened, the world had irrevocably changed" NO. The entire show was about young women leaving the privileged bubble of a liberal arts college where you could believe that claptrap, and slamming into all the nuances and confusions and contradictions of power dynamics between men and women in the real world. Way to 100% miss the point. Maybe NYT should try having some actual female columnists under 60 on their opinion page.
12
Meanwhile, in Maryland rapists can still seek parental rights over the children their attacks left with their victims.
The war's not over. It's never over.
Hannah and her sisters need to get a clue.
The war's not over. It's never over.
Hannah and her sisters need to get a clue.
5
As any decent writer does, Dunham laid out the thesis of "Girls" in the very first episode: to be "A voice of A generation." And she succeeded in doing just that.
This show never meant to represent or speak for all millennials, nor all young women, nor all liberal elites, but rather, to present one particular take on the world through Dunham's eyes.
I'll miss it! Thanks, Lena, for the entertainment!
This show never meant to represent or speak for all millennials, nor all young women, nor all liberal elites, but rather, to present one particular take on the world through Dunham's eyes.
I'll miss it! Thanks, Lena, for the entertainment!
5
"Let’s concede that the media loved to talk about the show in part because it was set among young white people in Brooklyn, a demographic just possibly overrepresented among the people who write about pop culture for a living."
Hey, I think I actually with Douthat for once.
I have not seen Girls, so I am in no position critique it. I have nothing against it. I would only say, when it comes to culture, it's usually navel-gazing when we think something we like contains some universal message and speaks to everyone. There was a fascinating article in NYT (either magazine or Upshot) about what are the favorite TV shows around the country, divided by region. Sometimes there were surprising similarities, and usually there were predictable differences. Overall, it was a reminder, like most things about the Trump era, that even people within the same country think very differently and believe in very different things.
Hey, I think I actually with Douthat for once.
I have not seen Girls, so I am in no position critique it. I have nothing against it. I would only say, when it comes to culture, it's usually navel-gazing when we think something we like contains some universal message and speaks to everyone. There was a fascinating article in NYT (either magazine or Upshot) about what are the favorite TV shows around the country, divided by region. Sometimes there were surprising similarities, and usually there were predictable differences. Overall, it was a reminder, like most things about the Trump era, that even people within the same country think very differently and believe in very different things.
2
An interesting take on a show I belabored through initially but managed to finish with some interest, until its mediocre finale.
I think calling the series "genius" is a bit hyperbolic, as the characters, like those in "Sex and The City", don't really seem to have any genuine arcs or growth, even though the tone resonated with me in some places more than others. It just confirms existing sentiments on this whole "white liberal privileged isolated hipster Brooklyn bubble" that, yes, also contributed to current administration's existence. Save for some witty dialogue and memorable scenes, it left me feeling empty. I was also growing really tired of Ms. Dunham's lack of versatility as an actress and her annoying personality.
That being said, I'm sure she will go on to have an illustrious career of writing, directing and producing more sardonic, narcissistic millennial material, occasionally starring in a Blockbuster or two and then in three or four years, "Girls: The Movie" followed by "Girls 2" etc.. at which point they would have hopefully grown up..
I think calling the series "genius" is a bit hyperbolic, as the characters, like those in "Sex and The City", don't really seem to have any genuine arcs or growth, even though the tone resonated with me in some places more than others. It just confirms existing sentiments on this whole "white liberal privileged isolated hipster Brooklyn bubble" that, yes, also contributed to current administration's existence. Save for some witty dialogue and memorable scenes, it left me feeling empty. I was also growing really tired of Ms. Dunham's lack of versatility as an actress and her annoying personality.
That being said, I'm sure she will go on to have an illustrious career of writing, directing and producing more sardonic, narcissistic millennial material, occasionally starring in a Blockbuster or two and then in three or four years, "Girls: The Movie" followed by "Girls 2" etc.. at which point they would have hopefully grown up..
13
At best an average show of no artistic worth.
1
Well, I think there are plenty of alternatives figured out Mr. Douthat, since plenty of people are not as narcissistic as Lena Dunham's characters. Our choices are not between Westeros/Mafia/Draperville and Brooklyn's spoiled hipsterkids.
That's insane. It's fairly simple. Respect is the alternative.
Yes, those last years of growing up look messy because until you find the right path technically you're lost. But it is simply part of the process. But its fine for most normal, well-adjusted people.
However, people like that who have it figured out don't make for good drama do they?
That's insane. It's fairly simple. Respect is the alternative.
Yes, those last years of growing up look messy because until you find the right path technically you're lost. But it is simply part of the process. But its fine for most normal, well-adjusted people.
However, people like that who have it figured out don't make for good drama do they?
6
"...mostly liberal viewers" (conservative code for "elite", which you and your fellow whatevers know means well educated, creative, very hard working and generally prosperous) may not have this alternative totally figured out.
But they have a whole lot better idea than than the resentful right.
But they have a whole lot better idea than than the resentful right.
4
Pure and simple: after watching a few episodes, I decided I wasn't interested in watching wining, wining, wining young people who were so narcissistic they could not see outside of themselves, take care of themselves, or respect themselves. Admittedly, I am from a much older generation who had to face reality by solving life's problems, not mire them. There are too many challenges today in reality, why waste my time watching failures.
9
Dang. I should have watched the finale before reading this.
Was there a spoiler alert I might have missed?
As to liberal( cultural) v. libertine v libertarian l'm going with, to the degree that the characters portrayed hold a mirror to their valiant but flawed attempt to find meaning in life... it's a clear reflection.
Was there a spoiler alert I might have missed?
As to liberal( cultural) v. libertine v libertarian l'm going with, to the degree that the characters portrayed hold a mirror to their valiant but flawed attempt to find meaning in life... it's a clear reflection.
1
Freedom is not a trivial matter. And abortion is a moral issue; it's the individual woman's moral choice.
2
I's her choice to have sex. And then all decisions must be made with the nonvoting party's welfare in mind - EVEN if you are beset with white liberal guilt (WLG).
Why do our progressives obediently hate it when juries and judges recommend death under due process but then LOVE this death penalty is only one person thinks it is the way to go?
WHERE is the child's legal representation? That is where this is heading.
Oh, she DEMANDS the power of life and death over somebody? Hmm
Why do our progressives obediently hate it when juries and judges recommend death under due process but then LOVE this death penalty is only one person thinks it is the way to go?
WHERE is the child's legal representation? That is where this is heading.
Oh, she DEMANDS the power of life and death over somebody? Hmm
4
Most of us seem to have traditional values much more than we like to admit.
I see young people struggling mightily with social pressures to be what they're not, and are afraid of each other as a result.
I see young people struggling mightily with social pressures to be what they're not, and are afraid of each other as a result.
8
The show was a fascinating and funny view of the struggle it is to be young, female and wondering what to do with your life. I was that age in the 60s and it all rang 100% true for me. I loved every minute!
13
The dystopian images portrayed by this series has nothing to do with social liberalism; it is the way things are for a lot of females: black, white, latino... everybody. In fact, it was sugar coated: life for a lot of people is far worse.
2
What I glean from this shallow take away is how Girls leaves some men threatened and confused, not entirely different from what ambitious girls are facing out in the post-grad "real world" of role ambiguity. Meantime, it resonated with feminist mothers and empowered daughters, seeped in that perpetual dance of survival. When is it ok to let go, to latch on, or rely on the formula as a default system?
As a parent who broke with tough love last summer to spring her own young writer from a bed-bug infested room rental in the Village, I know Dunham's yarns are spun of painful truths. The series opened with a struggling Hannah in a hug of war with her parents to keep the allowance flowing until she could make it in the City. It went on to depict the harsh realities of finding men who can withstand our transfer of roles from sexual object to conqueror. Hannah and her cohorts learned quickly partners who might measure up can be lacking the stability and chivalry of the princes of our sexist past. It's the flip side of the bounty; the punishment for trying to be president.
Girls closed the way women's lives now close as we outlive men, surrounded by the women of our village. Hannah's mother and closest friend try to teach her to mother; when to let go, to latch on, or rely on the formula. The milk of wisdom would be more palpable to men who can locate the Girls inside of them. Why not submit for a change? It could be the very key to our survival.
As a parent who broke with tough love last summer to spring her own young writer from a bed-bug infested room rental in the Village, I know Dunham's yarns are spun of painful truths. The series opened with a struggling Hannah in a hug of war with her parents to keep the allowance flowing until she could make it in the City. It went on to depict the harsh realities of finding men who can withstand our transfer of roles from sexual object to conqueror. Hannah and her cohorts learned quickly partners who might measure up can be lacking the stability and chivalry of the princes of our sexist past. It's the flip side of the bounty; the punishment for trying to be president.
Girls closed the way women's lives now close as we outlive men, surrounded by the women of our village. Hannah's mother and closest friend try to teach her to mother; when to let go, to latch on, or rely on the formula. The milk of wisdom would be more palpable to men who can locate the Girls inside of them. Why not submit for a change? It could be the very key to our survival.
15
Give it a rest! This pretentious piece, and the unbelievable comments that support or attack that pretense, all miss the main point of "Girls." Yes, we've had lots of flawed men on TV series, as mentioned, from Tony Soprano to Bill Henrickson to Walter White and Saul Goodman. They are all seen as flawed characters trying to cope. That's all this series was, but from a woman's perspective. The four protagonists and their retinue are a dysfunctional mess, and will never change, despite all the external forces, good and bad luck, and attempts to normalize. That's neither liberal or conservative, religious or atheistic -- it's just life in the 2010's, inflated and distorted by social media and based on never-ending narcissism. Don't pick on "Girls" for just being one slim slice of our self-centered culture.
By the way, I found the whole series to be immensely funny, totally unpredictable, and as entertaining as any of the man-centric soap operas.
By the way, I found the whole series to be immensely funny, totally unpredictable, and as entertaining as any of the man-centric soap operas.
17
Well said.
1
A fine and thoughtful analysis.
8
A show about white girls with luxury problems in Brooklyn circa 2017! Please.
7
Ross
You are happy that Hannah didn't have an abortion
Len Dunham would have done her sisters a service by trying to pursue a termination in her home town and show how she was thwarted at every turn even though the baby was not viable- that would have been real story
But instead she gets a great job, cheap housing, health insurance and the gift of a non participatory father who makes no demands or intrusions.
A real girl in the same situation would be in poverty and homeless with no health insurance
You are happy that Hannah didn't have an abortion
Len Dunham would have done her sisters a service by trying to pursue a termination in her home town and show how she was thwarted at every turn even though the baby was not viable- that would have been real story
But instead she gets a great job, cheap housing, health insurance and the gift of a non participatory father who makes no demands or intrusions.
A real girl in the same situation would be in poverty and homeless with no health insurance
23
I must admit that this show was lost on me. I found it totally un-funny, over-acted, vulgar, and full of silly stereotypes and boring characters. I gave up. I strongly disagree with the author that it was funnier than Friends, which boasted a rare chemistry among the cast along with hilariously witty banter. 'Girls' was not witty at all.
I didn't like Sex in the City, either, for different reasons -- the glorification of materialism, the constant focus on clothes (which were sometimes ridiculous to the point of being offensive), shoes, and drinks, the non-credible characters --- and most of all, the whiny childlike voice of the lead narrator, and the way style and shock-value sex stood in for anything genuinely edgy and subversive.
I didn't like Sex in the City, either, for different reasons -- the glorification of materialism, the constant focus on clothes (which were sometimes ridiculous to the point of being offensive), shoes, and drinks, the non-credible characters --- and most of all, the whiny childlike voice of the lead narrator, and the way style and shock-value sex stood in for anything genuinely edgy and subversive.
13
Creepiest TV critic EVER. Excuse me, I have to go wash now.
1
"You do not this alternative figured out"
Ha, there we go again with the false equivalences, straw men, and other paraphernalia of the right leaning pundit, from Charles Murray to our man Douthat. There was NEVER a moment in the six short seasons of this show when any magical alternative was proposed, just the opposite in fact. That's a fantasy leached out of the conservative echo chamber.
For me and other Xers who watched Girls and were likely its core audience - HBO famously fudged the demographics on this one - the show was a paradoxically nostalgic look back at our 90s and early aughts below 14th street, faithfully transferred to a Brooklyn which was then what Tomis was to Ovid, the place of exile. No surprise there: Dunham was a Soho/Tribeca native until she followed her generation's forced diaspora across the river.
If there was entitlement it wasn't born from a trust fund - last I checked all the girls safe for perhaps Shoshanna scrape by - but from the desire to define our lives, gay as much as straight, separate at least in part from tradition, family, and church. That "arrogance", centrally urban, is just what people like Ross resent. So be it.
Ha, there we go again with the false equivalences, straw men, and other paraphernalia of the right leaning pundit, from Charles Murray to our man Douthat. There was NEVER a moment in the six short seasons of this show when any magical alternative was proposed, just the opposite in fact. That's a fantasy leached out of the conservative echo chamber.
For me and other Xers who watched Girls and were likely its core audience - HBO famously fudged the demographics on this one - the show was a paradoxically nostalgic look back at our 90s and early aughts below 14th street, faithfully transferred to a Brooklyn which was then what Tomis was to Ovid, the place of exile. No surprise there: Dunham was a Soho/Tribeca native until she followed her generation's forced diaspora across the river.
If there was entitlement it wasn't born from a trust fund - last I checked all the girls safe for perhaps Shoshanna scrape by - but from the desire to define our lives, gay as much as straight, separate at least in part from tradition, family, and church. That "arrogance", centrally urban, is just what people like Ross resent. So be it.
2
In response to your closing line, a freshly tilled field just looks like an expanse of dirt until the seeds sprout.
Girls, Shameless, etc. . . . Hollywood's hopefully premature victory celebration for the demise of the traditional American family. Does anyone truly want to applaud what has emerged as its replacement -- odd, unhappy little assortments of mediocrity and resignation? Does anyone believe that alternative lifestyles and snarky attitudes will help our country win the future? Doesn't anyone want to aspire to something better than mediocre lives, lived with victim-posturing mediocre friends?
One commentator said that Lena Dunham is a genius. Her skill is making American social failure entertaining to those who wish to live or celebrate it. If that is what counts for genius today, our future is dim. Learn how to speak Chinese so that you can communicate with your masters.
One commentator said that Lena Dunham is a genius. Her skill is making American social failure entertaining to those who wish to live or celebrate it. If that is what counts for genius today, our future is dim. Learn how to speak Chinese so that you can communicate with your masters.
8
The most self indulgent show on television and it certainly never met the criterion of "all the news fit to print."
4
There is something really icky about a man of your age being so into this "Girls" tv show.
2
Wow Mr. Douthat, that was the best eulogy of a show I think I've ever read. I have never seen a full minute of the show "Girls" as I don't have HBO, I loathed "Sex in the City" (an ex-girlfriend forced me to watch about a season of it), and I've never been enticed into making the effort to catch up. But now I think maybe, someday, when I'm really bored and there's nothing to watch for a few months, I might get around to seeing this.
Great analysis of the usual Big TV shows out there; embattled patriarchy all the way. Better shows aren't about that cliché plot, but all the ones mentioned were. I recall watching a lot of "Mad Men" and really hoping that in the last season Don would finally leap off a high building, hammering home the vacuous pointlessness of advertising, and living up to the opening credits.
Anyway I'm sure better shows than "Girls" will come along, and more accessible ones. As a non-girl, I don't think most guys would find it interesting enough to binge watch. But it will probably go down as an important step in major TV shows getting more honest and less cliché.
Great analysis of the usual Big TV shows out there; embattled patriarchy all the way. Better shows aren't about that cliché plot, but all the ones mentioned were. I recall watching a lot of "Mad Men" and really hoping that in the last season Don would finally leap off a high building, hammering home the vacuous pointlessness of advertising, and living up to the opening credits.
Anyway I'm sure better shows than "Girls" will come along, and more accessible ones. As a non-girl, I don't think most guys would find it interesting enough to binge watch. But it will probably go down as an important step in major TV shows getting more honest and less cliché.
3
I never watched "Girls." So thanks for the column, Mr. Douthat. Interesting.
Old Testament time. If I offend anyone, I'm sorry. But it's where the Lord (somewhere in "Deuteronomy") is laying down His Law. For the second time. Hence the title--"the second law." A thought springs (as it were) into the mind of the Almighty:
"Oh that there were such a mind in My people to keep my commandments that it might be well with them forever!"
Why were these commandments given? To make us miserable? To screw us up? To impede and hamper our liberty as free and independent human beings.
No. A thousand times no. They were given because (down deep) we are simply not MEANT to live the way these young ladies do. Mr. Douthat, you speak of "liberals"--hey! come on! It's not only "liberals" that live that way. It's lots and lots of people. It's a huge chunk of America that lives that way. It's MOST of us that live that way.
And it doesn't work. It simply doesn't work. The "promised land" of sexual freedom, sexual liberation to which my generation (I was born in '49) has been slogging for half a century is a salt waste. Nothing there except cacti, scorpions--and Dead Sea fruit. Fruit that, when you bite into it, is full of dust and ashes.
Turn back to the real Promised Land. Overflowing with milk and honey. "At my right hand are pleasures forevermore." "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me. . . ."
Amen and amen!
Old Testament time. If I offend anyone, I'm sorry. But it's where the Lord (somewhere in "Deuteronomy") is laying down His Law. For the second time. Hence the title--"the second law." A thought springs (as it were) into the mind of the Almighty:
"Oh that there were such a mind in My people to keep my commandments that it might be well with them forever!"
Why were these commandments given? To make us miserable? To screw us up? To impede and hamper our liberty as free and independent human beings.
No. A thousand times no. They were given because (down deep) we are simply not MEANT to live the way these young ladies do. Mr. Douthat, you speak of "liberals"--hey! come on! It's not only "liberals" that live that way. It's lots and lots of people. It's a huge chunk of America that lives that way. It's MOST of us that live that way.
And it doesn't work. It simply doesn't work. The "promised land" of sexual freedom, sexual liberation to which my generation (I was born in '49) has been slogging for half a century is a salt waste. Nothing there except cacti, scorpions--and Dead Sea fruit. Fruit that, when you bite into it, is full of dust and ashes.
Turn back to the real Promised Land. Overflowing with milk and honey. "At my right hand are pleasures forevermore." "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me. . . ."
Amen and amen!
7
Ah, just to be clear, these direct quotes are in English, and that didn't exist when the Bible was written, so Lord only knows what was said and by whom. A lot of the commandments make good logical sense, except the very first one, which is roughly 'worship no other god except me'. Why would a universe-creator need some scruffy primates on a tiny, unimportant planet to worship them?
So it seems to me the basis of your theory is based on nothing but somewhat nonsensical hearsay. No offense, but 'good Christian living' has never worked out really well for anyone in the end either.
So it seems to me the basis of your theory is based on nothing but somewhat nonsensical hearsay. No offense, but 'good Christian living' has never worked out really well for anyone in the end either.
7
As it happens, I never have watched this show. And the NY TImes has plenty of writers who know about plays, opera, TV shows, and film and who write insightfully about these if I want cultural criticism of the arts.
I thought Ross Douthat was an intelligent columnist who could comment on political thought from a perspective different from that of most other NY Times opinion writers.
But in today's piece he asks, about this TV series, "Was some of this coverage excessive?" When you ask this question while writing a column about something, the answer is "yes." 'Nuff said.
I thought Ross Douthat was an intelligent columnist who could comment on political thought from a perspective different from that of most other NY Times opinion writers.
But in today's piece he asks, about this TV series, "Was some of this coverage excessive?" When you ask this question while writing a column about something, the answer is "yes." 'Nuff said.
1
Girls began with defiant nudity & crude sexuality, decadent values & NYC privilege. It seemed the courageous confessions of Lena Dunham- unflichingly raw, showing every flaw & hypocrisy.
The finale may be disappointing in that motherhood emerges as the crucial maturational awakening- but the absence of patriarchs seemed incidental. Maybe for Douthat the marginalization of Butch was most glaring; many sorts of men played roles in the series...mostly flawed. Elijah, Ray, Desi, Adam,Jake, the millionaire--these guys were complex without being heroic. None of the women were particularly heroic either.
Isn't this worthy realism, true reflection of Dunham's world- not polemical feminism ?
The finale may be disappointing in that motherhood emerges as the crucial maturational awakening- but the absence of patriarchs seemed incidental. Maybe for Douthat the marginalization of Butch was most glaring; many sorts of men played roles in the series...mostly flawed. Elijah, Ray, Desi, Adam,Jake, the millionaire--these guys were complex without being heroic. None of the women were particularly heroic either.
Isn't this worthy realism, true reflection of Dunham's world- not polemical feminism ?
4
Walter White and Hannah are the same person. After two and a half seasons of Breaking Bad I had to stop watching. It wasn't because the show wasn't outstanding. It was because watching White turn from a self destructive world beaten narcissist to a destroying monster.
Hannah and her group were narcissistic but never truly destroyed the masses. Being older and having done some stupid things in my twenties I always had hope for these characters. Girls asked some tough questions about how we behave as women. After years of feminism what do we have? We've torn down some of the old structure but what replaces it?
Hannah and her group were narcissistic but never truly destroyed the masses. Being older and having done some stupid things in my twenties I always had hope for these characters. Girls asked some tough questions about how we behave as women. After years of feminism what do we have? We've torn down some of the old structure but what replaces it?
4
NOPE. Walter white murdered people. He addicted them. He did terrible things. Hannah Horwitz was just selfish. There is a huge, huge, huge moral difference.
If you can't figure that out, well...
If you can't figure that out, well...
I hated Girls. I caught it occasionally, usually in hotel rooms with free HBO, and would slog through it just to keep up with what the women in my twitter feed were obsessing about. Also, I usually don't love your columns. But you really have found your niche here, as a critic. You're always going to struggle as a pundit -- too much cognitive dissonance between your decency and your need to be right. Stick with criticism -- this is so well-written and persuasive that I will never need to try to watch an episode of Girls again. I never got Girls, and the women I know who love it never got why I hated it so much. You gave me a foundation for appreciating it, and for understanding why my friends love it, and the words to understand why I hated it so much. All of this without my having to suffer a full season of it. Thank you!
7
Ross,
I am a liberal I guess. Lately I find your writing compelling although I'm not always sure what your bottom line is on any given day. I think I got this one.
You can tell from the comments that you touched some nerves. Good for you.
I hated "Friends" and "Sex in the City". I tried watching "Girls" a couple times but it made me uncomfortable which was most likely the point. I may just be too old. Maybe I'll try again.
I am a liberal I guess. Lately I find your writing compelling although I'm not always sure what your bottom line is on any given day. I think I got this one.
You can tell from the comments that you touched some nerves. Good for you.
I hated "Friends" and "Sex in the City". I tried watching "Girls" a couple times but it made me uncomfortable which was most likely the point. I may just be too old. Maybe I'll try again.
1
I have never agreed with you but you are right - the show does demonstrate that liberals don't have it "figured out." Like Lena Dunham, and her character, we are all human. Contrary to what the "libtard" haters assert, most of us do not think we are perfect, or place ourselves on a moral pedestal, Dunham included (follow her on instagram and you will see). To me, the best part about the show was her - her body, her character, her writing, her partnership with her actors and her co-producers, and, yes, her life beyond the show. I love that she made it okay not to have the body of Carrie Bradshaw, or the face of her costars. I love that she is funny, smart, weird, herself. I wish this show had come on the air when I was a few years younger (I really needed Lena in my early 20's) but I am grateful that my daughter will have her.
5
"Girls" is a show about growing up, about particular girls, about narcissism and immaturity, and vulnerability. It is also ironic and satirical. It does not represent the political philosophy we call "liberalism". It is consequential in the way art is; it tells us something about ourselves. Sadly, the Trump government is real, and chaotic in a way that can harm many.
Lena Dunham has a father who, with her mother, has raised two brilliant daughters. Other actresses on the show are the daughters of famous fathers (Brian Williams and David Mamet). Just because the show backgrounds male characters doesn't make it post-patriarchal; it is a Fiction about four young female characters that highlights issues they face.
Lena Dunham has a father who, with her mother, has raised two brilliant daughters. Other actresses on the show are the daughters of famous fathers (Brian Williams and David Mamet). Just because the show backgrounds male characters doesn't make it post-patriarchal; it is a Fiction about four young female characters that highlights issues they face.
5
As much as I intensely disliked all of the characters in "Girls" (aside from Elijah, whom I loved), I still, for reasons I can't articulate, loved this show from the very first episode. I think it felt like a guilty pleasure peek into a world that I never inhibited and that I will never understand.
I will miss it.
I will miss it.
2
I was not a big fan, or a regular watcher, but for all the criticism of self-involvement it is the only authentic involvement we have- for the experience of self in isolation, relation, pleasure and pain are what we really have. The external only matters to us because we are capable of finding significance it it. Friends, lovers, family, god, churches, and columnists are connected to us only by personal experience. perhaps they would exist if we, individually, did not but they could have no meaning for us. Still, there is more to life than subservience to religion and wall street.
I rarely agree with you, so it is interesting to see that you appreciated the series. Bravo to Lena Dunham for showing us that they "do not have this alternative figured out;" though it also may be a sop to the predictable lament of older generations. As a baby boomer. the series highlighted the things that make me wonder why these millennials can't simply copy the ideals of my counter-cultural generation. That's my norm. Mr. Douthat, you have told us many times that your norm is something different. Yet, we would probably agree on our irritation with many of the sometimes magnified failings of her characters. Kids today!
4
It seems that every "liberal" commenter is compelled to disagree with Douthat. But as a progressive who questions liberal capitalist culture, I think he's on to something. The freedom that feminists and others have rightly fought for has been warped by market culture into individualism that often falls into narcissism. That's not to agree with Douthat's implied alternative of a return to patriarchy. But he rightly notes that the characters in Girls "do not have this alternative figured out." Anyone who knows millennials knows how often that is true. Our mainstream culture, stuck as it is in modern capitalism, doesn't offer any alternatives besides individualism and self-centeredness. But it is possible to imagine a culture that values community and responsibility as much as individual freedom.
2
I love it: " how the freedom to make a mess — sexually and otherwise — is the central freedom that feminism sought to win." and "the striking thing about “Girls” is how the mess it portrayed made a mockery of the official narrative of social liberalism, in which prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality are supposed to lead smoothly to health, wealth and high-functioning relationships." and "a tribe of refugees waiting for civilization to reform". Beautiful and more.
You're wonderful, Ross Douthat. I'm probably a liberal. I very much enjoy reading your columns, and I especially appreciated your thoughts on Girls this morning. You're an intense thinker and a great writer. Thank you.
3
"You do not have this alternative figured out."
Yes, that is the truth of liberalism. Conservatives, at least American ones, persist in the pre-enlightenment delusion that life is like a math problem, something fixed that can be "figured out." Douthat takes this one step forward and seems to think liberalism is just conservatism with some new made up rules instead of old made up rules. This is not the point at all. Science took off like a rocket when the goal became not for perfect understanding but just something better than yesterday. To liberals life is like that except the the thing we seek to understand, how to lead a good life, is itself not a fixed thing but something that can have multiple solutions that evolve as we examine them.
Yes, that is the truth of liberalism. Conservatives, at least American ones, persist in the pre-enlightenment delusion that life is like a math problem, something fixed that can be "figured out." Douthat takes this one step forward and seems to think liberalism is just conservatism with some new made up rules instead of old made up rules. This is not the point at all. Science took off like a rocket when the goal became not for perfect understanding but just something better than yesterday. To liberals life is like that except the the thing we seek to understand, how to lead a good life, is itself not a fixed thing but something that can have multiple solutions that evolve as we examine them.
2
I'm 57 and loved this show start to finish. It was really funny in unexpected ways and could be somber and introspective in others. Kind of like the real journeys of people stumbling toward some kind of life as they grow up and through their 20's - although I've witnessed clueless, selfish behavior in people of all ages. The 20-somethings hardly have the market cornered on obtuseness. I am immediately suspicious of anyone like Dothat who claims to have figured out the 'truth' about anything, particularly human behavior and what it should be like at any age. This kind of high-horse moralizing, whether about TV characters or people IRL, is astoundingly judgmental and narrow-minded. About the only thing in this essay I agree with is the author's willingness to allow that young women in Brooklyn deserve to have their point of view represented as much as drug dealers in Albuquerque, mobsters in Jersey or 1960's ad men in NY. Which is the point that Lena Dunham, et. al. seemed to be making all along: they don't need anyone's permission to explore the subject and don't care what you are anyone else thinks about the end result. That's exactly why I loved the show and why it was groundbreaking.
7
I am 46 and loved this show from start to finish. And it's interesting how Dothan is so offended that some some young women decided to tell stories and about females that were complicated human beings. The show was funny in peculiar surprising ways and I hope Lena Dunam continues to develop her craft because she is a very exciting artist. Most of all, I love the fact that folks in their 20's do all kinds of things, and for me I felt a lot less shame about my own experiences in that decade after watching this show. Also, the idea that anyone "has it figured out' or even should is absolute nonsense. And I can tell you as a divorced woman, 'pathetic' men are everywhere because they can't seem to 'figure' out masculinity without toxicity.
1
It continues to amaze me how much attention grownups pay to television.
1
Not having the alternative figured out is the beauty of liberalism. Refusing to succumb to a no-nothing patriarchy is the promise of liberalism.
1
I never watched a minute of Girls over the years, but I tuned in on Sunday while waiting to see Veep. At the time, I did not know it was the last show. I found it a bit disconcerting and felt little empathy for a dysfunctional character who was clearly in over her head (caveat: I am a 64 year old male). But the vibe was of a new beginning and I am surprised to find out that it was the last show. I guess the ending makes more sense to loyal viewers.
Girls is splendidly provocative. I think a great deal of the intense emotional reaction around the characters is that these are not young people that would inspire any one to rely on them for anything outside of the narrowness of their own self absorbed world. Making a difference in the world and leaving it a better place , never seemed to be an agenda item.
2
Ross likes to link "Girls" to liberalism because the characters come off as shallow and unlikable, not because they represent any sort of political stance. Of course those aspects of the characters were heightened for dramatic effect, not because that is how liberals always end up.
3
"Girls" will be remembered as the most interesting and important television show of the years in which it ran, to which cultural critics will inevitably return when they argue about art and society in the now-vanished era of Obama."
Really Ross? Or maybe "Girls" is just a show, not even a particularly good one, which ran its course and will be remembered as just another, angst-ridden young adult melodrama. I couldn't even get through one episode and never understood the appeal of the show. But I'm black, and grew up in the South Bronx, where the reality and legacy of self-destruction and poor decisions makes it almost impossible for me to watch programs that romanticize these issues. In the real world, Duhnam and her baby, sans father, would likely living in a crummy tenement and struggling to make ends meet with 2-3 jobs and food stamps.
Say what you want about "Sex in the City", but I think Carrie and her "girls" did a better job of portraying the often difficulty and at times disastrous realities of relationships, careers, money, children, and friendship. And they were at least funny. But really Douthat, it's all just fiction. If you genuinely want to analyze the "travails of life under social liberalism" there is more than enough reality out here if you just turn of the TV.
Really Ross? Or maybe "Girls" is just a show, not even a particularly good one, which ran its course and will be remembered as just another, angst-ridden young adult melodrama. I couldn't even get through one episode and never understood the appeal of the show. But I'm black, and grew up in the South Bronx, where the reality and legacy of self-destruction and poor decisions makes it almost impossible for me to watch programs that romanticize these issues. In the real world, Duhnam and her baby, sans father, would likely living in a crummy tenement and struggling to make ends meet with 2-3 jobs and food stamps.
Say what you want about "Sex in the City", but I think Carrie and her "girls" did a better job of portraying the often difficulty and at times disastrous realities of relationships, careers, money, children, and friendship. And they were at least funny. But really Douthat, it's all just fiction. If you genuinely want to analyze the "travails of life under social liberalism" there is more than enough reality out here if you just turn of the TV.
5
"Girls" has very little to do with promoting the ideological belief that government should be involved in helping to solve deep rooted, intractable societal problems, or liberalism for short.
The whole point of the show is to have a bit of fun getting offended by millennial narcissism.
The whole point of the show is to have a bit of fun getting offended by millennial narcissism.
4
Oy, Ross. I just finished listening to "The Isles of Unwisdom" by Robert Graves. Like his book "I, Claudius" it tells the story of real people -- in this case, devout 16th-century Spanish Catholics sailing to the Solomon Islands in search of gold and land to settle.
Trust me, Ross -- they didn't have it figured out either. Liberal or conservative, patriarchal or feminist, devout or irreligious, human beings live messy lives filled with errors, conflicts and secrets.
There have been lots of TV shows where women serve only as fungible props and plot devices to tell the men's stories. You are simply experiencing the flip side of that, and it is new to you, not seeing yourself represented as the focus of women's lives. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Xena Warrior Princess -- I was in my 40's, and it was the first time I ever saw a TV show depicting women simply as heros and comrades, without the implicit message that a woman's real quest is always marriage and children, and everything else is just a lead-up to it.
Trust me, Ross -- they didn't have it figured out either. Liberal or conservative, patriarchal or feminist, devout or irreligious, human beings live messy lives filled with errors, conflicts and secrets.
There have been lots of TV shows where women serve only as fungible props and plot devices to tell the men's stories. You are simply experiencing the flip side of that, and it is new to you, not seeing yourself represented as the focus of women's lives. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Xena Warrior Princess -- I was in my 40's, and it was the first time I ever saw a TV show depicting women simply as heros and comrades, without the implicit message that a woman's real quest is always marriage and children, and everything else is just a lead-up to it.
19
"Girls" is the fantasy of a certain type of urban white female, and out of line with society in general. It is one where people are comfortably diverse, but still whiter and more homogeneous than Brooklyn, where people only look different but share her views, where the unattractive and otherwise mediocre character gathers more attention than she deserves. It is "Friends", but tragic rather than funny.
6
This show, like everything on HBO is about money. Stop making it out to be something it's not. Just look at how much each of these people were paid per episode.
5
They should have done it for free? Did you say that to the Sopranos cast?
3
It's a bit contradictory to think Girls will be remembered as one of the most "interesting and important" shows of the decade, while also calling it ". . . a niche taste with a niche audience . . ." and saying that ". . . nothing substantial in American culture or the television industry was altered by its episodic story."
11
What an original and thoughtful take on Girls! Thanks.
4
"the now-vanished era of Obama."
Of all the many, many, many words in this column, the above (which probably unconsciously sprung directly form your wish life) leaped out.
The Era of Obama will be resonating long after you and the present metamorphosis of the Republicans into a cockroach with a little action figure of Trump embedded in its back are nothing but an example of the great Psychosis of the early part of the century.
And Ross "You do not have this alternative figured out."
Of all the many, many, many words in this column, the above (which probably unconsciously sprung directly form your wish life) leaped out.
The Era of Obama will be resonating long after you and the present metamorphosis of the Republicans into a cockroach with a little action figure of Trump embedded in its back are nothing but an example of the great Psychosis of the early part of the century.
And Ross "You do not have this alternative figured out."
18
After a pretty long and accurate description of "Girls", Ross gets around to his ideological point in discussing this show at all:
"the striking thing about “Girls” is how the mess it portrayed made a mockery of the official narrative of social liberalism, in which prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality are supposed to lead smoothly to health, wealth and high-functioning relationships."
If we drop the gibberish insertion of "of social liberalism" , this statement is pretty accurate. But the inclusion of this phrase is Ross' attempt to enlist "Girls" in his ever ongoing diatribe. I guess his view is that "Girks" is a reductio ad absurdum of abandoning a rigid pre-Pope-Francis Catholicism which provides believers the rules that would lead "Girls" down an ideal and more satisfactory path to their self-realization, and ultimately of course, to heaven.
More probably that antediluvian rigidity would simply make it impossible for the girls to confront who they are and what paths they need to examine to realize their individuality.
"the striking thing about “Girls” is how the mess it portrayed made a mockery of the official narrative of social liberalism, in which prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality are supposed to lead smoothly to health, wealth and high-functioning relationships."
If we drop the gibberish insertion of "of social liberalism" , this statement is pretty accurate. But the inclusion of this phrase is Ross' attempt to enlist "Girls" in his ever ongoing diatribe. I guess his view is that "Girks" is a reductio ad absurdum of abandoning a rigid pre-Pope-Francis Catholicism which provides believers the rules that would lead "Girls" down an ideal and more satisfactory path to their self-realization, and ultimately of course, to heaven.
More probably that antediluvian rigidity would simply make it impossible for the girls to confront who they are and what paths they need to examine to realize their individuality.
6
I read this column because I thought for once I would agree with Ross, since I anticipated that he would be critical of "Girls." However, my track record remains unbroken. Of course he doesn't get it. "Girls" does not portray liberalism, it portrays narcissicism. Liberals care about other people. Narcissists do not. Narcissicism is embodied in the selfish fallacy of trickle-down capitalism (of course if you're a religious conservative like Ross you can always comfort yourself with the thought that you're praying for your less fortunate brethren). As a liberal and a feminist I saw nothing of value in the show, unless you consider flaunting a body that is not what society considers ideal to be useful, which it may be, but that point was made and got old pretty quickly. As a send-up of narcissicism, "Seinfeld" was brilliant and hilarious. No comparison.
20
I am an aging Yuppie but relish this show's brilliance. Lena is my hero.
4
Girls was a niche show because of Ms. Dunham's limitations as an artist and a person. She is a talented, but supremely narcissistic woman who has faint interest outside of her own views, desires and little pocket of Brooklyn. This made the show feel repetitive and claustrophobic to many.
The far superior quality of The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad is not because they represented the collapse of Patriarchy, but because they created worlds that were more complex and expansive. They are the true Golden Age of television. Girls will have to settle for the Bronze.
The far superior quality of The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad is not because they represented the collapse of Patriarchy, but because they created worlds that were more complex and expansive. They are the true Golden Age of television. Girls will have to settle for the Bronze.
19
I watched Girls in the same way one's eyes are attracted to a train wreck.
Vulgarity described glowingly as grittiness.
The lives of the self-absorbed with little concern for anything other than self.
Vulgarity described glowingly as grittiness.
The lives of the self-absorbed with little concern for anything other than self.
15
Hunh? Why all the haters in this comments section? I thought this was a great column. One of Ross's best. Thoughtful, incisive, and on the nose!
9
In a way Dunham carries the legacy of Lucille Ball. Like Lucy in "I Love Lucy", Hannah takes over and runs things, breaks TV rules about how women should look and act on TV, and, ultimately, influences real world social norms to evolve to a better, more equitable place. Bravo, to that.
1
Sounds like hell on earth. In Texas we still 'Cling' to our families and our families "cling' to us.
2
Sure but some of that clinginess results in family members shooting each other, every day or so. Every system has good points and bad points.
3
Judging from all the comments,
articles written over the last
five years, and passion evoked
by Girls one can conclude that
it is thought-provoking tv.
A pretty good legacy....
and platform for the
future of the writers, artists,
and crew.
articles written over the last
five years, and passion evoked
by Girls one can conclude that
it is thought-provoking tv.
A pretty good legacy....
and platform for the
future of the writers, artists,
and crew.
2
Girls, like anything emitted from Judd and Lena, is the death of comedy. The only good thing that can come from them is that more people will turn off their televisions and read.
4
I can't figure out why any NYT columnist would write about fictional TV shows. There's enough reality out there to report on for a long time.
4
Friends was not "hip."
18
What a great review! Ross might have missed his calling as a TV critic.
3
Among the NYT Picks, I see a lot of self-identified liberals saying that they never liked Girls and then going on to say that Douthat didn't understand the show. I find myself in the very odd position of being a liberal who loved the show even though I'm 25 years older than the characters on it, AND agreeing with almost everything that Douthat says about its significance in his requiem. I once had a lengthy conversation with a very conservative friend about Lena Dunham and why he couldn't stand her. He felt she had made it her "job" to attack the right-wing. I countered by saying almost exactly what Douthat says in this article, that no, she doesn't give a whit about the right-wing and barely even acknowledges that it exists. She lives for its exact opposite and in an entirely different universe devoid of the right-wing.
3
As an older woman, I loved Girls, and don't consider it all that different from the angst I grew up with, except that it's portrayed honestly, sex, warts and all, on a comedy show, sans commercials. I don't see the show as having a political ax to grind as the writer does, or expect "liberalism" to solve, fail to solve, or accurately portray political conflicts in a created-for-drama television show. That's the writer's ax; however, I think the show and Douthat accurately state that the male role is and has been undergoing a change of status for quite some time. In essence, despite Trump's last gasp, the patriarchy (fighting back or not), is still toast. women have mixed feelings about this reality too.
4
I started watching an episode of this, or at least of something starring and written by Lena Dunham. At first, it had some unique quality that made me curious. I quickly became bored with the show, and moved on. Douthat describes something that might have been a clever mirror of our times, but also a confusion and isolation that confounds any story telling that might really move its audience. What I took away from what I did see as a show about young people in an era and place where the old rules have all been abandoned was that their lives were not of interest to anyone other than themselves. So what he says seems right to me, though I don't share his interest in the show and could not know if he was correct in saying that it was a work of genius. I read his column because I like his writing, and tend to agree with him, and I read the comments to see how much vitriol Ross has drawn by reminding a certain sector of our nation that Catholics still exist and what sorts of things they will say to criticize Douthat and by extension other Catholics. I found comments on this article oddly disparate in their takes on what Dunham stands for, and mostly united by their hatred of what they seem to think Catholics/religious people are. I think they are unwittingly corroborating him to some extent at least.
3
It's always interesting to read your column. But your view of liberals is so different from my experience of being one. I am 68, a liberal, and live a conventional lifestyle. I've been married 46 years this spring. My liberal friends are similar. My husband and I also raised two girls in the current atmosphere that is frequently toxic for young people. I tried to watch Girls because of the rave reviews. Frankly, the number of poor decisions the young people make in this series was more than I could bear. From one who disdains the patrimony in series like Mad Men and Sopranos, I think there needs to be an alternative out there that is not Girls. Liberals are not all like these Brooklyn men and women. We are progressive however, in that we look forward, not back. We want all people to enjoy civil rights and health care and education. But we don't live libertine life styles, we wouldn't have an abortion though we don't want the state or federal government making that decision for us. Conservatives often ask for nuance when being described by liberals, we ask the same. I've started reading many more conservative writers to understand that point of view better. I suggest you get out and meet more liberals who live outside NYC. Cheers!
21
I tried to watch girls, and grew disenchanted with the chronic self-involvement of the characters, and left. I think this piece is a metaphor for the show, chronically self important. Whether we want to learn them or not, life teaches us lessons, and most of us grow up. We learn we have to compromise in relationships and jobs if we want to stay independent and solvent. We learn how to share and listen if we want anyone around us. We learn how to give to get back. None of these lessons were ever learned in Girls, which make this more of a negative fairy tale than a show based on reality. At the end of the day, a show has to have relatable characters that go through relatable experiences. Self involved bourgeois Brooklyn will not be any more relevant 20 years from now than is now to most people struggling to figure out the meaning in their days.
I wish this article was not trying to make such a self-important grandiose statement on a show that was so very small in the grand scheme of things.
I wish this article was not trying to make such a self-important grandiose statement on a show that was so very small in the grand scheme of things.
16
If "Girls" embodies a stronghold of the egalitarian alternative that cultural liberalism aspires to spread to everyone, then the Trump administration, with its high level of experience in creating reality TV and low level of competence in governing, embodies the cultural stronghold of conservatives.
3
a generous, open minded and insightful take on the show. and what an unlikely source for that. as strongly as i've railed against your writing (and your mind) in the past, i can just as easily praise you for showing up today, monsieur douthat. naturally i wonder, why doesn't this guy show up every day?
Huh? What's your point? Obviously you watched it I guess. Or maybe not. But a whole essay blathering about it and somehow trying to link it to "liberals" which you consider a nasty word? Have you even paid attention to Lena Dunham as she has discussed the show? You are the king of self involvement as you somehow try to make Girls about you and your world view which you don't seem to realize that everyone else does not share. Get over yourself. Lena Dunham is a genius and you are not.
41
Another Douthat reader waiting to pounce without bothering to open her mind.
4
That show was nasty and vulgar............didnt' rep any young women I know..............no morals or filter...............glad it's gone.............so low rent
7
And all this time I thought Douthat watched the Hallmark Channel. Who would have guessed? Douthat, the conservative intellectual, slumming through the liberal wasteland of television so that we don't have to.
25
Would love to see a piece by George Will on GIRLS.
13
Funny, that a self-described conservative like Douthat regards "Girls" strictly as a cultural product, mirror of the present, but ignores traditional values usually associated with drama -- you know, like, art.
On the other hand, Girls is a natural product of the world Douthat most desires: where inherited wealth, authority and privilege govern. It doesn't to Douthat that Dunham is an uninformed neo-liberal a few ticks to his left. As long as privilege rules -- those four young women pictured in the photograph are unique in that respect only -- with the backing of corporate America, in the person of Judd Apatow, everything is dandy.
On the other hand, Girls is a natural product of the world Douthat most desires: where inherited wealth, authority and privilege govern. It doesn't to Douthat that Dunham is an uninformed neo-liberal a few ticks to his left. As long as privilege rules -- those four young women pictured in the photograph are unique in that respect only -- with the backing of corporate America, in the person of Judd Apatow, everything is dandy.
4
Life is not only about politics.
1
Notice the framing arrived at in the final proclamation: "You do not have this alternative figured out." It implies a single, normative, static, pronouncement of what the "Girls" alternative could ever be. Contra the actual show, which described and portrayed individual lives as process--a very common theme in liberal circles--Douthat is searching for a message of failure against his imagined ideal of authoritative pronouncement on how life is to be lived. Douthat mistakes "Girls" as a message to its mostly liberal viewers. It wasn't news. It was a meaningful reflection of aspects of life that anyone could recognize, if they just **paid attention**.
10
"It was a meaningful reflection of aspects of life" is all in the eye of the beholder.
2
Puhleez. I'm a liberal and I've never seen this show. Not one episode.
Never watched "Friends," either. Not one episode.
Never watched a single episode of "Sex and the City" nor the movie. Or were there two?
I didn't watch these shows because they looked to me like a colossal waste of my grey matter and time.
Read a book, Ross, and stop stereotyping. That's not journalism.
Never watched "Friends," either. Not one episode.
Never watched a single episode of "Sex and the City" nor the movie. Or were there two?
I didn't watch these shows because they looked to me like a colossal waste of my grey matter and time.
Read a book, Ross, and stop stereotyping. That's not journalism.
51
Me too.
Me neither.
I agree.
Me neither.
I agree.
2
How can a show be the decade's most important when almost no one watches it or cares about it? Just because a few NYC elites think something matters does not mean it does matter.
20
Hate to tell you Dan but we NYC elites don't think it matters either. Maybe we all have something in common after all.
7
...so...all these "liberal" girls need is a Father or a Republican to tell than how to live in accordance with the bible. Isn't that Pence's role?
15
Exactly why I never became a Christian (am now age 76) and will go cheerfully to hell if that is my fate!!!
2
Happy to see a positive take on "Girls" from Douthat. I loved the show from the beginning (my husband had to be in a different room while I watched it as it annoyed him so much). I was just hooked on these characters from the get go. Each one was incredibly believable and interesting to me. The path of their lives and friendships so true and moving at times. Some people just could not handle how "messed up" they were but I loved it. It made me love them more.
I really didn't care for any of the characters, but for some reason I still really liked the show.
I have yet to figure out what that means.
I have yet to figure out what that means.
4
This is objectively a very nicely written article. "But successful art has a way of slipping its ideological leash." Nice phrase, if it's original. Taps thematically into a lot of what Orwell wrote about art and message.
6
Mr. Erickson,
It is well known that there are no original ideas.
It is well known that there are no original ideas.
I am probably not a member of the show's target audience (white male, age 68); but I am the father of a daughter who is in that audience. And as such, I thought the show quite brilliant. I look forward to Ms. Dunham's future efforts. She is an artist.
37
Really? Lena Dunham as genius, her writing resonant? Dunham as representative of her generation? God I hope not.
Watching this show was like watching an accident about to take place. There were some edgy and quirky episodes, sure, and even some great performances from time to time, but overall, it was b o r i n g. Dunham took any and every opportunity to take off her clothes, whether or not it extended or enhance the story line. Congratulations - she is uninhibited. So what?
I know plenty of millennial women. They are nothing like the four characters in Girls.
The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and other ground-breaking series still stand up over time. They are still rich in their character development and in their story threads. Can't say the same for Girls.
Watching this show was like watching an accident about to take place. There were some edgy and quirky episodes, sure, and even some great performances from time to time, but overall, it was b o r i n g. Dunham took any and every opportunity to take off her clothes, whether or not it extended or enhance the story line. Congratulations - she is uninhibited. So what?
I know plenty of millennial women. They are nothing like the four characters in Girls.
The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and other ground-breaking series still stand up over time. They are still rich in their character development and in their story threads. Can't say the same for Girls.
13
If it was all that then why on earth did you watch it? Ask yourself.
1
Interesting that you make no mention of the greatest television show of all, The West Wing. Political leanings aside, it remains the best written material ever to appear on television; it's often dismissed as liberal fantasyland, but in form and tone is closest to a Shakespearean history play. And political leanings front and center, it literally inspired an entire generation of people to enter politics and public service. But I suppose all the criteria discussed here - and in the comments too - are political, so perhaps you're not really talking about TV shows at all.
5
I would doubt that Sean Spicer is inspiring anyone to enter public service.
2
Ross,
"You do not have this alternative figured out."
Between "Bo back to Main Stream Churches" and "A Requiem for GIrls,"
you are on a roll-a roll of arrogance and know-it-all preachiness to Liberals.
I am only going to say this once so listen up sir!
"Not having it figured out,"
is part of the journey to adulthood or faith in anything. Leaving what doesn't work and reluctantly going on an imperfect journey to the unknown with allies and enemies is called maturity in human psychology.
The rough workingness of alternative families and alternative beliefs holds up better to most liberal psychologists than your preachiness. The thing we compare it to in our practices is spousal abuse, child abuse, refugee abuse and the incessant alt-truth of your present conservative political party. As least we have refuge and the belief that the next day can bring some positive change,
"You do not have this alternative figured out."
Between "Bo back to Main Stream Churches" and "A Requiem for GIrls,"
you are on a roll-a roll of arrogance and know-it-all preachiness to Liberals.
I am only going to say this once so listen up sir!
"Not having it figured out,"
is part of the journey to adulthood or faith in anything. Leaving what doesn't work and reluctantly going on an imperfect journey to the unknown with allies and enemies is called maturity in human psychology.
The rough workingness of alternative families and alternative beliefs holds up better to most liberal psychologists than your preachiness. The thing we compare it to in our practices is spousal abuse, child abuse, refugee abuse and the incessant alt-truth of your present conservative political party. As least we have refuge and the belief that the next day can bring some positive change,
10
"But “Girls” was a show in which any kind of confident male authority or presence was simply gone,"
Sounds a lot like every television show written from the advent of Television until- perhaps Cagney & Lacey.
Sounds a lot like every television show written from the advent of Television until- perhaps Cagney & Lacey.
1
After reading the comments here, it's no wonder Hillary lost the election. Misogyny is alive and well. The animus expressed toward these young female TV characters is overwhelming.
People, it was a comedy. Lighten up. Did anyone notice Judd Apatow in the credits?
People, it was a comedy. Lighten up. Did anyone notice Judd Apatow in the credits?
10
My fourteen year old granddaughter is coming to political awareness in the age of Trump. My guess is her focus is going to be very different or more driven as she prepares for adulthood.
Unlike the characters of "Girls", she will not experience a crash of expectations because her parents told her "be anything you want" and then the financial crash made that impossible. The world is already crashed for my granddaughter and she wants to help clean up the mess.
Unlike the characters of "Girls", she will not experience a crash of expectations because her parents told her "be anything you want" and then the financial crash made that impossible. The world is already crashed for my granddaughter and she wants to help clean up the mess.
11
Well, this wasn't cute, spunky Mary Tyler Moore, or sexy, pert Carrie, but annoying, self involved, schlumpy Hannah and company. Oddly,in this day and age, it is still a breakthrough for female characters ( and the writer/actor) to risk being repellant - and turning off audiences. So not only did Girls create a particular Brooklyn milieu (and no work succeeds without providing a definite sense of place), but it was ground breaking in presenting unprettified characters muddling along in search of fulfilling adult roles.
Motherhood as the ultimate test - not of fatherhood, but maybe of humanity? - did seem heavy handed. On the other hand, it sure does demand that attention be paid - and it demands some degree of selflessness and attachment be reintroduced to the hazy world of shifting defensive attachments.
What it has to do with liberal politics? Nothing.
Motherhood as the ultimate test - not of fatherhood, but maybe of humanity? - did seem heavy handed. On the other hand, it sure does demand that attention be paid - and it demands some degree of selflessness and attachment be reintroduced to the hazy world of shifting defensive attachments.
What it has to do with liberal politics? Nothing.
41
What is with the photo that ran w/ the Online NYT Opinion Page? Does Not look like the cast of HBO Girls. I maybe a senior citizen (who voted for the Donald)but I am not blind (yet).AAR the content of this article was pretty good. Kudos to author
1
I loved Girls from beginning to end. I didn't see the show the way this author did. I see it as a tale of what my 25-year-old daughter calls "adulting." Adulting does, however, seem to be much more difficult and a more nebulous goal today than it did all those decades ago. That is why I think the ending was fitting. Hannah and the runaway teen have flipped roles, and when her mother affectionately tries to help her with her bra, she snaps that she's been "buckling her own bra" for years. Grover latching on is a lightbulb moment that other people have needs, too, and having an infant depend on you puts you squarely into adulthood in a way that little else can. Brava!
14
"So, you listen to me. Listen to me! Television is not the truth. Television's a god-damned amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom-killing business. So if you want the Truth, go to God! Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever gonna find any real truth. But, man, you're never gonna get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you wanna hear. We lie like hell. "
Howard Beale "Network"
Howard Beale "Network"
37
Starting from this point on, I will see if an editorialist from the right can make a logical, provable, sustainable argument without falling back on the word "liberal."
You used it eight times in your essay. Reading your use of the word "liberal" one sees your depictions as a spacey, imaginary universe living predominately inside the mind of the writer. Liberalism as a type of Catholicism with its own dogma, bible, liturgy and a Pope who is a 27-year-old, tattooed cupcake baker in Bushwick.
Douthat you brew and drink your own intoxicating gibberish.
"typical liberal-ish prestige-TV viewer"
"liberal and feminist critics"
"official narrative of social liberalism"
"the travails of life under social liberalism"
" urban white liberal Brooklynite"
" cultural liberalism aspires to spread to everyone."
"mostly liberal viewers"
Your Opinions.
Nothing more.
And not even insightful.
Cliches all.
You used it eight times in your essay. Reading your use of the word "liberal" one sees your depictions as a spacey, imaginary universe living predominately inside the mind of the writer. Liberalism as a type of Catholicism with its own dogma, bible, liturgy and a Pope who is a 27-year-old, tattooed cupcake baker in Bushwick.
Douthat you brew and drink your own intoxicating gibberish.
"typical liberal-ish prestige-TV viewer"
"liberal and feminist critics"
"official narrative of social liberalism"
"the travails of life under social liberalism"
" urban white liberal Brooklynite"
" cultural liberalism aspires to spread to everyone."
"mostly liberal viewers"
Your Opinions.
Nothing more.
And not even insightful.
Cliches all.
51
Ross cannot get off his horsie. That said, this anti-Conservative (don't call me a "liberal," please) still thinks this piece, despite the overused L-word, to be one of his better columns.
3
Like Thom Friedman?
5
Our country is under attack from a rogue administration. This stuff doesn't matter right now.
Ross, you don't know what liberalism is.
I'm not even a liberal myself, yet even I have to stand up and say that you have to stop spray painting that ideological perspective with little other than dark, muted and sinister colors. The world is far more complicated than a Catholic pastor's Sunday sermon.
I'm not even a liberal myself, yet even I have to stand up and say that you have to stop spray painting that ideological perspective with little other than dark, muted and sinister colors. The world is far more complicated than a Catholic pastor's Sunday sermon.
166
If I may comment on my own comment by adding:
Even my own godfather and Catholic pastor uncle's sermons were more complicated.
Even my own godfather and Catholic pastor uncle's sermons were more complicated.
1
Just what women have been waiting for—Ross Douthat to mansplain GIRLS to us! Hey, Ross, while you're tuned to HBO, watch MEA CULPA MAXIMA and call us in the morning.
http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/mea-maxima-culpa
http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/mea-maxima-culpa
16
This time Ross will avoid the zillion anti-comments. Who will understand it?
1
And here I thought that at long, long, long last the NYT would stop writing about a show that fails to interest virtually everyone in the world... Can we please stick a fork in "Girls" now?
20
Leave it to Ross Douthat to analyze entertainment as if it were great literature, and to use it as a dig against the secular, free, skeptical society he so despises.
Douthat is just like the religion he embraces: he poisons everything he touches.
Douthat is just like the religion he embraces: he poisons everything he touches.
22
The column is really about the author and how he will go to any length to denigrate what he likes to think of as liberal sensibilities. The show is overloaded with near hysterical pathos as the characters relentlessly act out irrationally creating serial self destruction. Anyone applauding Girls from nearly any perspective as a meaningful contribution to culture should, I think pause for self examination.
Listening to just the audio really informs how asinine the show is as the characters routinely create havoc for themselves for mostly no reason at all beyond setting up scenes where they can yell and scream. I found the show unwatchable. I only watched in an effort to gain insight into millennials. If Girls is representative of the millennial generation then we are in serious trouble.
Listening to just the audio really informs how asinine the show is as the characters routinely create havoc for themselves for mostly no reason at all beyond setting up scenes where they can yell and scream. I found the show unwatchable. I only watched in an effort to gain insight into millennials. If Girls is representative of the millennial generation then we are in serious trouble.
80
Love how people who loyally watched the show week after week try to pretend they didn't like it by claiming they watched it just to critique it from some high philosophical perspective. Just admit that it was genius as is Lena Dunham.
5
As an artist myself, I know that there are legitimate reasons to expose yourself to bad art. I am not saying that Girls is bad, I am saying that you are wrong to come to your conclusion.
2
At least "Church Lady" was good-natured. Any way to block this clap-trap?
4
Dear Mr. Douthat,
A new "record" for your column; I didn't make it past the title.
Perhaps if you and all the rest of the Republicans stopped watching television and, at least, tried to pretend that you guys gave a damn about anyone not of the 1%, then we might not be trapped in the present nightmare known as the "Trump Administration".
How about a retro analysis of the "Beverly Hillbillies" something I actually watched when I was a kid?
A new "record" for your column; I didn't make it past the title.
Perhaps if you and all the rest of the Republicans stopped watching television and, at least, tried to pretend that you guys gave a damn about anyone not of the 1%, then we might not be trapped in the present nightmare known as the "Trump Administration".
How about a retro analysis of the "Beverly Hillbillies" something I actually watched when I was a kid?
6
genius
Much as Douthat likes the analogy, "girls" is not a proxy for liberal government which Douthat supposes is post-patriarchal. Weren't Barack Obama and Joe Biden, in fact, male leaders? Maybe it was the presence of women in the cabinet that made it seem post-patriarchal to him? Or does he just assume, erroneously and offensively that it is the goal of feminism to wipe masculinity from the face of the earth? How retrograde a definition of feminism.
I'm a feminist, not particularly a big fan of "Girls", and able to see the show as a coming of age drama for a particular era. And yes, sure, a slice of a particular place and time. So if it's a slice of particularity how is it also supposed to be representative of all of liberalism? I'm afraid the logic eludes me. If I'm reading this column right, it notes that sure, patriarchy, currently embodied by Trump's governance is a mess, but so is your liberal idea of governance because look at the fictional show "Girls"--see those characters lives are messed up and they don't have men around. If feminism and liberalism led to better relations between the sexes, Douthat posits, the men in "Girls" would be more masculine and the women would have mates?
Didn't Seinfeld pioneer the show where four immature, self-absorbed characters have funny messed up lives and end, well, in jail. Isn't it their personalities that were the problem, not their politics? This is the conservative argument now--we're messed up but so is that TV show?!
I'm a feminist, not particularly a big fan of "Girls", and able to see the show as a coming of age drama for a particular era. And yes, sure, a slice of a particular place and time. So if it's a slice of particularity how is it also supposed to be representative of all of liberalism? I'm afraid the logic eludes me. If I'm reading this column right, it notes that sure, patriarchy, currently embodied by Trump's governance is a mess, but so is your liberal idea of governance because look at the fictional show "Girls"--see those characters lives are messed up and they don't have men around. If feminism and liberalism led to better relations between the sexes, Douthat posits, the men in "Girls" would be more masculine and the women would have mates?
Didn't Seinfeld pioneer the show where four immature, self-absorbed characters have funny messed up lives and end, well, in jail. Isn't it their personalities that were the problem, not their politics? This is the conservative argument now--we're messed up but so is that TV show?!
14
As we know from your previous columns, you are a 'conservative' Catholic, not a Pope Francis obeying Catholic, but one that interprets for himself what is moral and what is right. No To Hillary. No to adults making their own decisions, exercising their own freedoms. To have this drama exist is an affront to "conservative" Catholics, the same way Planned Parenthood, drastically reducing abortions and unwanted pregnancies, os an affront to you, Mr Dothat.
It must feel doom to be right, even when reality says differently.
It must feel doom to be right, even when reality says differently.
54
Social liberalism is not the milieu in which Girls took place. Social liberalism supports openness to multiple perspectives and action on behalf of others. The characters in Girls lived in their own narcissistic bubbles--and the show was a critique of obsessive self involvement, something common across political ideologies.
18
" ... message to its mostly liberal viewers: You do not have this alternative figured out."
Ross, you assume inaccurately: I have found that liberals I know perceive that we are unlikely to have ANY chosen alternative figured out. We understand that there is no magic pill or communion cracker that will turn chaos into Elysium.
I've seen half a season of "Girls," and as much as I wanted to like it, watching it resulted in the same "fingernails on a blackboard" reactions that made "The Office" a cringe-worthy if hilarious experience.
Now, maybe that's because the lives lived by the characters isn't that different from the life I lived in Brooklyn and the Village in the 1980's: kaleidoscopic, consistently changing Venn diagrams of friends and lovers; a Dali landscape far from the do-it-by-the-book Catechism of my Roman Catholic childhood.
The central flaw of organized religion as incorporated into people's lives is the notion of Heaven, that if somehow one can intone the right words and perform the right deeds, chaos and pain will slip noiselessly away, and Nirvana will result. In other words, as David Byrne sang, "Heaven is a place ... where nothing ever happens." In other words, it's as empty a promise as a Trump tweet. This ridiculous standard then is used to gauge the performance of its victims.
However, those who have learned from Camus rather than Calvin perceive that, when the measuring stick is no longer used to beat the inner child, a messy but genuine life ensues.
Ross, you assume inaccurately: I have found that liberals I know perceive that we are unlikely to have ANY chosen alternative figured out. We understand that there is no magic pill or communion cracker that will turn chaos into Elysium.
I've seen half a season of "Girls," and as much as I wanted to like it, watching it resulted in the same "fingernails on a blackboard" reactions that made "The Office" a cringe-worthy if hilarious experience.
Now, maybe that's because the lives lived by the characters isn't that different from the life I lived in Brooklyn and the Village in the 1980's: kaleidoscopic, consistently changing Venn diagrams of friends and lovers; a Dali landscape far from the do-it-by-the-book Catechism of my Roman Catholic childhood.
The central flaw of organized religion as incorporated into people's lives is the notion of Heaven, that if somehow one can intone the right words and perform the right deeds, chaos and pain will slip noiselessly away, and Nirvana will result. In other words, as David Byrne sang, "Heaven is a place ... where nothing ever happens." In other words, it's as empty a promise as a Trump tweet. This ridiculous standard then is used to gauge the performance of its victims.
However, those who have learned from Camus rather than Calvin perceive that, when the measuring stick is no longer used to beat the inner child, a messy but genuine life ensues.
8
I am glad that shows like Girls exist to confirm that critics are no free from the preference fo the familiar. For anyone who has no affinity for that lifestyle, Girls came across as obnoxious and shallow. The most talked about show online that no one actually watched, and that people will continue to not watch.
5
Good Lord! I cannot believe I am agreeing with anything, let alone nearly everything in a Douthat op-ed. How can it be?
The more important part is that he identifies, although does not clearly understand as he is a deeply a part a part of it (Think Kurt Goedel), Liberalism. What is lost though is that Liberalism has very little to do with liberal social values. It is the smoke-screen and distraction that has led to Corporatism and the destruction of the middle class. Liberalism is the cover that has allowed the folks Ross typically supports to steal the future of Americans and to create the environment of virtual enslavement we are now seeing in the United States.
This began with Reagan and appears to have no end in sight. We can assume Ross and his fellow-traveler Brooks to get back on board touting the indefensible posthaste.
The more important part is that he identifies, although does not clearly understand as he is a deeply a part a part of it (Think Kurt Goedel), Liberalism. What is lost though is that Liberalism has very little to do with liberal social values. It is the smoke-screen and distraction that has led to Corporatism and the destruction of the middle class. Liberalism is the cover that has allowed the folks Ross typically supports to steal the future of Americans and to create the environment of virtual enslavement we are now seeing in the United States.
This began with Reagan and appears to have no end in sight. We can assume Ross and his fellow-traveler Brooks to get back on board touting the indefensible posthaste.
1
Sorry, Ross, but "Breaking Bad" which admittedly started in the previous decade, was the Show of the Decade.
2
Since none of the girls on "Girls" looked anything like the girls on a "A Different World", "The Wire" or Living Single" I never cared nor bothered to watch.
5
A better ending would have been for the Girls cast to be sitting in a restaurant, when a strange man walks in wearing a Members Only jacket, the stranger goes into the restroom and comes out guns blazing, shooting the entire cast in their heads ala Tony Soprano. Screen goes black.
Glad that this series has been put out of its misery.
Now that would be a real series climax.
Glad that this series has been put out of its misery.
Now that would be a real series climax.
Girls "violated every time honored code of our society". (borrowed from Atticus Finch's courtroom summation in To Kill a Mockingbird).
Lena Dunn's alternative to those codes , according to Mr. Douthat "have not figured it out" which accounts for the small niche audience it garnered.
Lena Dunn's alternative to those codes , according to Mr. Douthat "have not figured it out" which accounts for the small niche audience it garnered.
2
For those of us who don't pay for HBO, shows like Girls and Game of Thrones are experienced only via 3rd party reports like these. These reports are not ones that would attract me to watch Girls, should it escape into the wider public viewership (that means free).
3
I loved Girls and I loved Mad Men. I'd argue that what I loved about both shows is how none of the characters have it figured out. Isn't that true for The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, too? A sign of the times, maybe, but with a pretty ancient pedigree (I'm looking at you, Oedipus!)
2
Will be interesting to see what Ross' daughters come up with when they write about their childhoods.
3
I "latched" onto Girls a few weeks ago and had to binge watch to keep up. After this near gluttonous process and this review I must say I am satisfied that the show ended the way it did. The arc was complete if not perfect. The characters each had some sort of epiphany and have either moved on or are giving it another. Hannah by virtue of her decision to have Grover is forced to grow up. And we get to watch the struggle that summarizes all of Hannahs traits..childish and self centered, but evolving into a woman. Well written, well directed, fun, and not condescending. The show didn't tackle issues as much as it presented, with humor, life's choices.
3
It is hard to image a show where the only question each episode is which major character is the most appalling this week. But that is Girls.
4
Almost there, Ross, but not quite.
“The fall of patriarchy had basically happened, the world had irrevocably changed … and nobody knew what to do next.”
No. Patriarchy has not fallen in Girls. Contrary to your implied assertion, patriarchy is not simply a character trait that males in one’s life may or may not demonstrate. It’s a way of structuring the world. That way had not “fallen” on the set of Girls.
“the mess it portrayed made a mockery of the official narrative of social liberalism, in which prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality are supposed to lead smoothly to health, wealth and high-functioning relationships.”
This is true in part, but the show is also mocking and parodying conservative criticism of the “liberal narrative.” It purposely plays up stereotypes about millennials. Some of this is done to deconstruct those stereotypes and play with how “prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality” play out in real life, but the majority of it is to satirize and laugh at the conservative critics. BTW, “liberals” do not contend that condoms, education, and equality “lead smoothly” to health and high functioning relationships. We believe they are *necessary* to health and high functioning relationships. Necessary, but not *sufficient.* Ross, this is a basic point of logical reasoning that anyone on the NYT opinion page really should have mastered by now.
“The fall of patriarchy had basically happened, the world had irrevocably changed … and nobody knew what to do next.”
No. Patriarchy has not fallen in Girls. Contrary to your implied assertion, patriarchy is not simply a character trait that males in one’s life may or may not demonstrate. It’s a way of structuring the world. That way had not “fallen” on the set of Girls.
“the mess it portrayed made a mockery of the official narrative of social liberalism, in which prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality are supposed to lead smoothly to health, wealth and high-functioning relationships.”
This is true in part, but the show is also mocking and parodying conservative criticism of the “liberal narrative.” It purposely plays up stereotypes about millennials. Some of this is done to deconstruct those stereotypes and play with how “prophylactics and graduate degrees and gender equality” play out in real life, but the majority of it is to satirize and laugh at the conservative critics. BTW, “liberals” do not contend that condoms, education, and equality “lead smoothly” to health and high functioning relationships. We believe they are *necessary* to health and high functioning relationships. Necessary, but not *sufficient.* Ross, this is a basic point of logical reasoning that anyone on the NYT opinion page really should have mastered by now.
8
Ross Douhat is the best big-outlet columnist working at the intersection of cultural history and political realpolitik. Today's characteristically observant piece supports that assertion.
I say this as a lapsed Catholic FDR social democrat who wants Medicare-for-All, a re-incarnation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and legal marriage available to any two people brave enough to try. He's an enabler of bad political actors, in my opinion. But Douhat sees big pictures and big trends as well as the little fatuities that plague the self-righteous. Give him a Pulitzer.
I say this as a lapsed Catholic FDR social democrat who wants Medicare-for-All, a re-incarnation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and legal marriage available to any two people brave enough to try. He's an enabler of bad political actors, in my opinion. But Douhat sees big pictures and big trends as well as the little fatuities that plague the self-righteous. Give him a Pulitzer.
1
I find Girls functions well as a mirrorr for its viewers - or critics - given what viewers find themselves finding in it. Its generous openness and invitation for introspection check a box or two under my qualifiers for art. To me Girls is an ode to growing up by finding out what friendship - or love - are not about - and therefore a hint as to what they may be about. I take it and leave it and say thank you.
4
I feel very, very sorry for the young women who absorbed the norms of "Girls" and translated these to their own social behavior and cynical attitudes. The self-absorbed life, once established, is counter-productive and hard to unlearn.
4
I tried watching the series but it was just not realistic in many aspects. I happened to catch the last episode on Sunday and lost count of the number of times I rolled my eyes. I think the temper tantrum of Hannah toward her child was bizarre. Sure, I've had kids and had my moments but I can confirm, Hannah's behavior was representative of how a 2 year old would respond, not an adult woman, to the new life she is responsible for. And that ridiculous look she had on her face once her baby latched.....a nursing mom would be looking at the baby - not the camera. I think we would have understood she was grateful if we saw her face from side view. Then, the nonsense of taking off her pants in public to give to this teenaged girl was the last I could stand - I was so glad I never got committed to such a asinine show. Don't get me wrong, I like Lena Dunham, and I am sure this show contributed something to the culture (maybe a lot of nudity for a woman with a less-than-perfect body), but otherwise, I am happy I didn't waste my time on it. Hopefully, Lena can write something that will be more appealing.
2
Someone should remind the viewers of "Girls" that this is a show. Its pretend. Its made up. Its not real. Hillary Clinton treated Lena Dunham like she found the cure for cancer.
She's simply an actress.
She's simply an actress.
3
There's an obvious reason why Girls racked up 37 articles in the Times - more than 6 per year. Affirmative action for all things women as determined by the Times editorial board.
The show was fine, but not so fine as to warrant the coverage it received.
Instead the Times and its writers give more coverage to women's issues across the board. Where's the balance? (and cue up the responses that men have no issues worth discussing).
The show was fine, but not so fine as to warrant the coverage it received.
Instead the Times and its writers give more coverage to women's issues across the board. Where's the balance? (and cue up the responses that men have no issues worth discussing).
Well said, Ross.
1
I don't know this show so can't comment on its relevance to contemporary life. However, The description of Trump and his presidency, and the implications to be drawn about family and henchmen and henchwomen, as toxic patriarchy: now that was spot on!!!
2
Thank you for this column. I thought I was the only one who felt that the NYT was the de facto producer of this drivel. As a matter of fact, I'm looking forward to the merger of HBO and the New York Times so we can all stop playing pretend.
3
"how the freedom to make a mess — sexually and otherwise — is the central freedom that feminism sought to win."
For me, feminism has always been about removing the patriarchal obstacles to becoming my best self.
For me, feminism has always been about removing the patriarchal obstacles to becoming my best self.
4
Like the guy below said, as a liberal I would rather have to figure things out than have a conservative pope tell me what to do. That's really your over-arching theme Ross. We need a strong pope to tell us what to do. Right?
4
Ross, you have become the conservative cultural critic that David Brooks was supposed to be, but never achieved.
Articles like this make the Times opinion page bearable. Keep up the great work!
Articles like this make the Times opinion page bearable. Keep up the great work!
2
Wow a completely unexpected sympathetic and thoughtful shout out from Ross for "Girls". For this very old guy "Girls" constantly reminded me how absurdist youth can be, if you really live it, and how hilarious as well.
2
My milennial daughters, living and working in NYC, with actual jobs with benefits, hated this show with a passion that they haven't replicated toward other shows. I stuck with it for two seasons longer than they did, to their withering disapproval.
I don't see any of the characters in my daughters, nor in any of their friends, either.
None of the Girls in my life are nearly as narcissistic or self absorbed as Hannah and Her "Sisters" were.
Dunham irretrievably lost me with her pronouncement that she has strong opinions about every issue, even those she knows nothing about.
I don't see any of the characters in my daughters, nor in any of their friends, either.
None of the Girls in my life are nearly as narcissistic or self absorbed as Hannah and Her "Sisters" were.
Dunham irretrievably lost me with her pronouncement that she has strong opinions about every issue, even those she knows nothing about.
68
The line about strong opinions, even those she knows nothing about, that was comedy. I guess you didn't get the joke.
1
Oy. It's just television and entertainment. Chill.
1
You do know it was a *character* who spoke that line, right? Not Dunham herself?
1
I was a liberal viewer---for about 15 minutes. What I saw in those brief 15 minutes was a pattern of inside college dorm "humor" that I didn't get nor did I want to continue watching to see if there was some profound message in the character's juvenile ramblings. I wrote my critique off as a problem with me---I was too old to get the show. I felt better when my two millennial children were as dismissive of the show as I was. In my son's words, "you made it through 15 minutes."
68
Mr. Douthat draws way too big and broad a conclusion about the problem of "cultural liberalism" that he sees as embodied in the television show Girls--a show that had a decidedly niche audience and a decidedly limited impact. He does this in order to drum into us liberals yet again that the Daddy Knows Best philosophy of life (aka patriarchy) is the best of all possible worlds.
Thanks, but no thanks. I've read my history, and I'm not going back. Liberals like me who support women's freedom and autonomy never fawned over Girls, never particularly even liked it. It was merely one of thousands of diversions in contemporary life, none of which are to be confused it with real life.
If Mr. Douthat would look around him, he'd see that the liberal alternative to patriarchy is found not Girls--and, in fact, not ever in entertainment--but in the lives of real people.
The chaotic manner in which the perverted but riveting misfits on Girls went about their lives is fiction. The show is a classic dystopia, and its cast of characters neither possible nor real. What's real are the real-world struggles and accomplishments of women who are doctors, scientists, lawyers, financial advisors, teachers, artists, social workers, community volunteers, church leaders. The millions of accomplished women who emerged into public life only because of the egalitarianism Mr. Douthat finds so loathsome, constitute the "alternative" we liberals proudly hold up to Mr. Douthat's tired patriarchy.
Thanks, but no thanks. I've read my history, and I'm not going back. Liberals like me who support women's freedom and autonomy never fawned over Girls, never particularly even liked it. It was merely one of thousands of diversions in contemporary life, none of which are to be confused it with real life.
If Mr. Douthat would look around him, he'd see that the liberal alternative to patriarchy is found not Girls--and, in fact, not ever in entertainment--but in the lives of real people.
The chaotic manner in which the perverted but riveting misfits on Girls went about their lives is fiction. The show is a classic dystopia, and its cast of characters neither possible nor real. What's real are the real-world struggles and accomplishments of women who are doctors, scientists, lawyers, financial advisors, teachers, artists, social workers, community volunteers, church leaders. The millions of accomplished women who emerged into public life only because of the egalitarianism Mr. Douthat finds so loathsome, constitute the "alternative" we liberals proudly hold up to Mr. Douthat's tired patriarchy.
109
Ross,
It's a tv show, dude. Let the girls go already. Dunham's baby doesn't look anything like you. These gals don't look anything like America. Fading properly into tv legend. Don't waste the column space "analyzing" these white characters. They're not people, they're tv peope.
I thought you journalists were going to try to do reality after the election? Turn off your tv sets and talk to real people, outside your family and your tv set? Maybe you won't miss out on the next big political story if you start getting to know real people? Ones who know how to use birth control, and don't end up as unplanned mothers? (I knew you'd love that "ending". Justifies your column, really. "You've Come a Long Way, Baby... Not"
It's a tv show, dude. Let the girls go already. Dunham's baby doesn't look anything like you. These gals don't look anything like America. Fading properly into tv legend. Don't waste the column space "analyzing" these white characters. They're not people, they're tv peope.
I thought you journalists were going to try to do reality after the election? Turn off your tv sets and talk to real people, outside your family and your tv set? Maybe you won't miss out on the next big political story if you start getting to know real people? Ones who know how to use birth control, and don't end up as unplanned mothers? (I knew you'd love that "ending". Justifies your column, really. "You've Come a Long Way, Baby... Not"
89
You really ARE moralizing, here, Ross. Please do stop.
I take issue with your premise that Girls "...was the equal of the prestige dramas and superior to “Friends” and “Sex and the City” as a scripted-acted-shot achievement, and reliably funnier (in a wince-inducing way) than any of them."
If we know anything about cable TV, it's the vast range of tastes and attractions to subscription fare. One of the things I most loved about Madmen--certainly not the top by any means--was that it was the first NON-cable hit on basic cable channel. And "Sex and the City" was probably the funniest girls on the town series I've ever seen, still standing up to reality for women of now a certain age.
I couldn't get into "Girls," likely because of my age and background. Oh, I tried, given all the media fawning, but found it boring, off-putting, and actually quite sad.
Mad Men, on the other hand, is a period piece, gritty, true, and yet aspirational with the character of Peggy achieving professional success at great cost to her social life (until the final, too cute wrap-up ending).
In the end, Ross, I think you have to simply accept shows for what they are, their audience, and their appeal, not their "message" or mirroring of a cultural wasteland usually linked to liberal Democrats.
Can't we just for once take TV fare as entertainment without politicizing that too?
I take issue with your premise that Girls "...was the equal of the prestige dramas and superior to “Friends” and “Sex and the City” as a scripted-acted-shot achievement, and reliably funnier (in a wince-inducing way) than any of them."
If we know anything about cable TV, it's the vast range of tastes and attractions to subscription fare. One of the things I most loved about Madmen--certainly not the top by any means--was that it was the first NON-cable hit on basic cable channel. And "Sex and the City" was probably the funniest girls on the town series I've ever seen, still standing up to reality for women of now a certain age.
I couldn't get into "Girls," likely because of my age and background. Oh, I tried, given all the media fawning, but found it boring, off-putting, and actually quite sad.
Mad Men, on the other hand, is a period piece, gritty, true, and yet aspirational with the character of Peggy achieving professional success at great cost to her social life (until the final, too cute wrap-up ending).
In the end, Ross, I think you have to simply accept shows for what they are, their audience, and their appeal, not their "message" or mirroring of a cultural wasteland usually linked to liberal Democrats.
Can't we just for once take TV fare as entertainment without politicizing that too?
20
I get so tired of people equating libertine behavior with liberalism. You probably get tired of people equating over-the-top individualism and lack of empathy with conservatism. So maybe we should stop focusing so much on social issues when discussing politics and concentrate more on governing philosophies.
"Girls" wasn't about politics. In fact I can imagine the characters following different political paths -- some joining in only because a certain cause is trending, others never bothering to vote. I can even imagine Shosh turning into a rabid Republican. What "Girls" was really was about is a certain segment of society that is self-centered to the point of being solipsistic.
I take issue with your saying real adulthood awaits Hannah in the form of the obligations of motherhood trumping the trivialities of freedom. Adulthood does not mean, as Hannah says, accepting years of "endless pain." It means moving away from self-centeredness to concern for others, so that there is real joy in making what some may see as sacrifices but for you become expressions of love. Does Hannah truly love her son?
If "Girls" portrayed any underlying philosophy, it was libertarianism, not liberalism. To me true liberalism has to do with love of country in the form of caring about all citizens.
You make a mistake thinking "Girls" represents cultural liberalism that doesn't have things figured out. It represents a world that will never figure things out if it remains so self-centered.
"Girls" wasn't about politics. In fact I can imagine the characters following different political paths -- some joining in only because a certain cause is trending, others never bothering to vote. I can even imagine Shosh turning into a rabid Republican. What "Girls" was really was about is a certain segment of society that is self-centered to the point of being solipsistic.
I take issue with your saying real adulthood awaits Hannah in the form of the obligations of motherhood trumping the trivialities of freedom. Adulthood does not mean, as Hannah says, accepting years of "endless pain." It means moving away from self-centeredness to concern for others, so that there is real joy in making what some may see as sacrifices but for you become expressions of love. Does Hannah truly love her son?
If "Girls" portrayed any underlying philosophy, it was libertarianism, not liberalism. To me true liberalism has to do with love of country in the form of caring about all citizens.
You make a mistake thinking "Girls" represents cultural liberalism that doesn't have things figured out. It represents a world that will never figure things out if it remains so self-centered.
288
Nope, sorry "Girls" is definitely a show about urban liberalism.
2
Best definition of adulthood I've read in a while. Wonderful post.
"...Shosh turning into a rabid republican..."
Like her real life father?
Like her real life father?
Like Hannah and her family, we are from Michigan and 2 of my 3 kids are now hipsters in Brooklyn. One is a musician, the other an undergraduate advisor for NYU. I grew up in the 60s and 70s and married at age 23, had 3 kids and have stayed in the same upper middle class job for 30 years "Girls" is a funny show that often made me wince, but has helped me understand the young adulthood (?prolonge adolescence?) of my kids. I also have a much bigger appreciation of Brooklyn and all it's neighborhoods, restaurants and parks.
39
As a father of five now-grown daughters, I abstained from watching this show for two salient reasons:
a) For much of the same reason that I don't go on Facebook, I think there are some things that women should be able to deal with without their father knowing, unless of course, they make the mistake of asking his opinion.
b) I'm far too cheap to pay for HBO.
a) For much of the same reason that I don't go on Facebook, I think there are some things that women should be able to deal with without their father knowing, unless of course, they make the mistake of asking his opinion.
b) I'm far too cheap to pay for HBO.
Nice review of the show and it's place in our cultural mosaic. I loved the show up until the last season, but whatever, I'm not the target audience.
I don't get all the haters saying Girls was a microcosm of society that didn't deserve attention. TV is a form of art and who's to question or police what one person or group decides to create? If the ratings aren't there, TV shows end, and this one lasted several seasons, so someone was watching. If you don't like it, make a show about your own microcosm... there is no shortage of media to amplify it.
I don't get all the haters saying Girls was a microcosm of society that didn't deserve attention. TV is a form of art and who's to question or police what one person or group decides to create? If the ratings aren't there, TV shows end, and this one lasted several seasons, so someone was watching. If you don't like it, make a show about your own microcosm... there is no shortage of media to amplify it.
19
Girls primarily is an exercise of nepotism and publicity. The Times is complicity in that shameless publicity.
Let's put aside that it was essentially an awfully-acted reboot of "Freaks and Geeks" with an HBO mandate so the network couldn't take Judd Apatow's keys away.
Let's put aside that no one would want to be friends, boyfriends, employers, or in any proximity of a character like Hannah- who has all of that falling from the sky for her.
Girls isn't just about boring, self-obsessed people. It CELEBRATES boring, self-obsessed people. It MARKETS boring, awful, vapid girls as if that's a quality that viewers should PAY for. It offers no insight, and no irony. It simply says "I have nothing to say, and you're going to pay to watch it."
That's insulting to viewers' intelligence. And it makes room for more awful shows from Judd Apatow. It creates a new low for what passes as entertainment.
Let's put aside that it was essentially an awfully-acted reboot of "Freaks and Geeks" with an HBO mandate so the network couldn't take Judd Apatow's keys away.
Let's put aside that no one would want to be friends, boyfriends, employers, or in any proximity of a character like Hannah- who has all of that falling from the sky for her.
Girls isn't just about boring, self-obsessed people. It CELEBRATES boring, self-obsessed people. It MARKETS boring, awful, vapid girls as if that's a quality that viewers should PAY for. It offers no insight, and no irony. It simply says "I have nothing to say, and you're going to pay to watch it."
That's insulting to viewers' intelligence. And it makes room for more awful shows from Judd Apatow. It creates a new low for what passes as entertainment.
6
As an open-minded 50 something, my opinion of the show may be irrelevant, however I found "Girls " obnoxious, repulsive and too difficult to watch. The media's fascination with Ms Dunn escaped me and the nepotism casting turned me and the show off.
25
This think piece - regrettably like the actual series - is a very Maximilian von Klingerien sturm und drang signifying nothing. The very best series - like art in general - are re-watched time and again and yield new insights every time.
I gave up midway through the second season and revisited it during the last season - all I can say is meh.
I gave up midway through the second season and revisited it during the last season - all I can say is meh.
23
Your Avatar is (are) Maxwell's Equations? Pretty Cool. Thumbs Up
This is an interesting piece, and like so many of Douthat's, there is much I agree with and much that I question.
The final sentence is presented almost like a punchline -- as if the joke is on us. You liberals who think this is better, even got fooled by this show, but really (what he knows, and we don't) is that the stories in this show are sad, destructive and reveal a value system "not figured out".
The funny part is that I agree. We haven't figured this out. But, I would rather choose this life, with all it's messiness, with all it's honesty, with all it's feminism, than go backwards.
I think what Douthat, though I know he's too smart to really believe this, obscures is that the "old" way was also messy. There were also problems then. And not just with the dying patriarchy captures by the golden age of TV dramas.
So maybe, life is something that can be "figured" out. And that dealing with the fact that all humans are a mixture of good and bad, trying to find community, fulfillment, and dignity in their families, their workplaces, their religious communities, and their countries is the goal? And incidentally, one of the themes of Girls.
And then you have to ask yourself, which party advocates for that more directly? And would all of us going back to church really do it?
The final sentence is presented almost like a punchline -- as if the joke is on us. You liberals who think this is better, even got fooled by this show, but really (what he knows, and we don't) is that the stories in this show are sad, destructive and reveal a value system "not figured out".
The funny part is that I agree. We haven't figured this out. But, I would rather choose this life, with all it's messiness, with all it's honesty, with all it's feminism, than go backwards.
I think what Douthat, though I know he's too smart to really believe this, obscures is that the "old" way was also messy. There were also problems then. And not just with the dying patriarchy captures by the golden age of TV dramas.
So maybe, life is something that can be "figured" out. And that dealing with the fact that all humans are a mixture of good and bad, trying to find community, fulfillment, and dignity in their families, their workplaces, their religious communities, and their countries is the goal? And incidentally, one of the themes of Girls.
And then you have to ask yourself, which party advocates for that more directly? And would all of us going back to church really do it?
45
Sorry. Clarification.
So maybe, life is something that *can't be "figured" out.
[I should reread before posting!]
So maybe, life is something that *can't be "figured" out.
[I should reread before posting!]
The takeway message from "Girls" appears to be: regardless of starting aspirations, all roads for the female generation will lead to motherhood.
How did Girls reflect culture? Not in what it said, but how it became to be: well connected, quasi talented creator, writer, and actors, kids of the well healed and well known with an easy leg up into the media world who want to write a show. Who was the daughter of so and so? Not so for some really talented kid from a small town going to Syracuse to study screenwriting. Girls missed the mark for many of us because the writer never understood the weight of a college loan, how frightening it is to wait to see if the application for a lousy apartment is approved, or what it feels like to actually get laid off from a job. Even the sex was fake, in that there was no emotional content, no understanding of why so many young men and women look for hook ups rather than family life: because they are hopeless. It missed the desperation of the generation. It would have been more memorable had it actually reflected some real angst, rather than trying to take a selfie of someone playing a character.
This show in a word, it's just plain awful.
17
I enjoyed the show and it's writing!
I have mellenial children☺
I watched the show to get some pertinent insight into this demography
My kids won't explain themselves to me all the time and watching the show created " aha " moments that I would bring into conversations with my kids for interesting debate on baby boomer hippie vs. college degrees and underemployed and struggling ; NOT attending music festivals high on acid and returning to school weekdays.
It was a great conversation starter and brought the generational devide closer.
Kids today have it so much worse than I did even with Viet Nam and Nixon in full swing after the 3 assassinations of viable leaders.
"Girls" was genius!!!
I have mellenial children☺
I watched the show to get some pertinent insight into this demography
My kids won't explain themselves to me all the time and watching the show created " aha " moments that I would bring into conversations with my kids for interesting debate on baby boomer hippie vs. college degrees and underemployed and struggling ; NOT attending music festivals high on acid and returning to school weekdays.
It was a great conversation starter and brought the generational devide closer.
Kids today have it so much worse than I did even with Viet Nam and Nixon in full swing after the 3 assassinations of viable leaders.
"Girls" was genius!!!
14
Girls was a narrative for young women, girls, who are coming of age today. The characters and the plots reflected a cadre outside of the Republican orbit: youthful and female. How many of these girls would have voted for Trump? or any Republican?
The there is sex, pregnancy, abortion, and single motherhood. Oh the disappointment, the shame, the humiliation? Nah. Sex is normal, pregnancy can be prevented, so that women can enjoy it instead of threatening their lives, health, and maturation. "Abortion is blase" when one considers biology and personal responsibility to oneself and the future. Ever since the "pill" appeared, men have been terrified that women would finally have their own sexual prerogatives. The RC church jumped up with it's 13th century biology, Aquinas taught that men inserted a complete human into a woman. Sperm was sacred as a result. Sperm had a soul. That was revised to "life begins at conception" shackling women and preventing prevention. Sadly that narrative is passe. Microscopes and embryology and statistics confront the patriarchy. A fetus is not a person. While Conservative Republicans wrap their arms around the "baby" narrative they will run like rabbits from any effort to provide person hood and inheritance rights to fetuses. Girls just gave a glimpse of the fact that abortion carries no more guilt than an STD. Unintended pregnancy is the prerogative of the pregnant and the choice is theirs to continue it or end it with no interference from men.
The there is sex, pregnancy, abortion, and single motherhood. Oh the disappointment, the shame, the humiliation? Nah. Sex is normal, pregnancy can be prevented, so that women can enjoy it instead of threatening their lives, health, and maturation. "Abortion is blase" when one considers biology and personal responsibility to oneself and the future. Ever since the "pill" appeared, men have been terrified that women would finally have their own sexual prerogatives. The RC church jumped up with it's 13th century biology, Aquinas taught that men inserted a complete human into a woman. Sperm was sacred as a result. Sperm had a soul. That was revised to "life begins at conception" shackling women and preventing prevention. Sadly that narrative is passe. Microscopes and embryology and statistics confront the patriarchy. A fetus is not a person. While Conservative Republicans wrap their arms around the "baby" narrative they will run like rabbits from any effort to provide person hood and inheritance rights to fetuses. Girls just gave a glimpse of the fact that abortion carries no more guilt than an STD. Unintended pregnancy is the prerogative of the pregnant and the choice is theirs to continue it or end it with no interference from men.
There was another political message in Girls. It was more subtle but quite intentional and reflective of out times. It was that the politics of the collective condition of all women in a patriarchal system needed an equally collective (class) response to that condition. Girls responded by providing the opposite message. It's all about me.
Their feminist revolution was simply about each individual woman doing her own version of 'leaning in' and casually experimenting with their version of sexual liberation. The failures of the characters were all due to their various narcissistic tendencies, of which there were plenty. But not to the social order that they found themselves in.
The dead in jobs and contract employment that rendered degrees no more significant than a strong back from days past were all portrayed as way stations, not the inevitable politics of neoliberalism. In fact, the politics of Girls was that there were no politics. They all lived in Hannah's bubble, disconnected from society in any meaningful ways.
Their sometimes ramshackle apartments were the ways of the new hipsters, not the residue of New York's housing wars. Nothing went on around them, at least nothing that would intrude into their own, very small world. Girls didn't need to be an exaggerated political statement. But I its own way by stridently avoiding the potential become a political cliche, it became one.
Their feminist revolution was simply about each individual woman doing her own version of 'leaning in' and casually experimenting with their version of sexual liberation. The failures of the characters were all due to their various narcissistic tendencies, of which there were plenty. But not to the social order that they found themselves in.
The dead in jobs and contract employment that rendered degrees no more significant than a strong back from days past were all portrayed as way stations, not the inevitable politics of neoliberalism. In fact, the politics of Girls was that there were no politics. They all lived in Hannah's bubble, disconnected from society in any meaningful ways.
Their sometimes ramshackle apartments were the ways of the new hipsters, not the residue of New York's housing wars. Nothing went on around them, at least nothing that would intrude into their own, very small world. Girls didn't need to be an exaggerated political statement. But I its own way by stridently avoiding the potential become a political cliche, it became one.
10
Clearly Mr. Douthat dislikes Girls. But it's a love/hate relationship because the very show he disdains provides what he wants, i.e., incriminating evidence against the thing he dislikes so much, "liberalism." I'm sure his conservative fans are cheering. Big deal.
9
And don't forget how this show is situated in the "gig" economy. a "Permanent" job is not on the map. Hannah getting a job with security and health care, at the end, perhaps isolates her almost as much as moving out of Brooklyn.
8
I STRONGLY DOUBT THAT Douthat believes in equal rights for females and males, because of his extensive critique and condemnation of the Girls program. But, boys will be boys, priests will be priests. So the macho bellowing and chest beating of males is just an expression of their nature, but if women express themselves it's unacceptable. Do we have a misogynist in our midst?
33
Although it took place in present day Brooklyn, "Girls" transported me to my own "twenties" in the 1970's with many of the same experiences and lessons learned and unlearned. It is an entirely relatable story and taking that journey for 6 seasons brought me back in time. Women have always struggled with these issues which have finally been portrayed with unflinching candor. Unfortunately, after the series finale, like time lapse photography, I aged back to my sixties and different problems. And no I don't want to see anymore pathetic shows trying to depict the elderly female experience.
7
Check out Grace and Frankie...not the least bit pathetic and quite funny.
3
I've never seen Girls, only read about it. And I'm struck by the way this essay about a show centered on young women spends most of its ink discussing "the patriarchy."
6
This is a nice essay. No they don't have it figured out and nor do a lot of other slices of the American Pie.
Has anyone, ever? Or is the apogee have that endless self-confidence, the feeling that you DO have it figured out when you so clearly do not? The first examples I think of are the spiritual opposites of Ms. Dunham the Bills O'Reilly and Cosby, and President Trump.
But there are endless other slices of us that haven't got it figured out.
Has anyone, ever? Or is the apogee have that endless self-confidence, the feeling that you DO have it figured out when you so clearly do not? The first examples I think of are the spiritual opposites of Ms. Dunham the Bills O'Reilly and Cosby, and President Trump.
But there are endless other slices of us that haven't got it figured out.
7
The only people in my acquaintance who ever mention watching Girls are the people who disapprove of the behavior of the characters. They appear to take comfort in seeing that the young women are struggling and they are quite sure that these women would do better if they just settled down and got married.
24
Douthat gives the impression that he obsessively watched "Girls" every week, feverishly writing down every instance he could find where his stereotype of "liberalism" led to degradation and misery.
The only thing this column really illuminates is the twisted mentality of the social conservative. And it offers a blatantly false dichotomy. Douthat suggests that only two choices are available--"old-school male power" or "the egalitarian alternative" represented by the "urban white liberal Brooklynite milieu."
Your view of liberals is seriously, deliberately skewed, Ross. Many of us live out here in what you dismissively refer to as "flyover country." We're good people leading valuable, productive, other-directed lives. We're capable of enjoying pleasurable sex that isn't sordid and shaming. We don't in any way resemble the stereotypes you so fervently want to believe in.
Much of what you and other social conservatives write seems to stem from envy, misogyny, fear and loathing of sex, and nostalgia for some imagined golden age of authoritarian patriarchy.
The only thing this column really illuminates is the twisted mentality of the social conservative. And it offers a blatantly false dichotomy. Douthat suggests that only two choices are available--"old-school male power" or "the egalitarian alternative" represented by the "urban white liberal Brooklynite milieu."
Your view of liberals is seriously, deliberately skewed, Ross. Many of us live out here in what you dismissively refer to as "flyover country." We're good people leading valuable, productive, other-directed lives. We're capable of enjoying pleasurable sex that isn't sordid and shaming. We don't in any way resemble the stereotypes you so fervently want to believe in.
Much of what you and other social conservatives write seems to stem from envy, misogyny, fear and loathing of sex, and nostalgia for some imagined golden age of authoritarian patriarchy.
115
"Girls" spoke to millennials and the realities that they face in an in your face, no punches pulled kind of way. If you didn't get it, you weren't the intended audience.
More of the millennial generation has grown up with an absentee father. So for them a matriarchal group makes perfect sense. When your man bails your girlfriends always have your back.
This show is more like"The Mary Tyler Moore show" which also dealt with the changing world of women's liberation and equal rights. Time will tell if "Girls" holds up or just fades away.
The younger generation is more casual about sex and relationships. As with all generations, they face different struggles and have a different perspective. They also demand more equality and want a partner not a breadwinner. This was a show that reflected their perspective.
More of the millennial generation has grown up with an absentee father. So for them a matriarchal group makes perfect sense. When your man bails your girlfriends always have your back.
This show is more like"The Mary Tyler Moore show" which also dealt with the changing world of women's liberation and equal rights. Time will tell if "Girls" holds up or just fades away.
The younger generation is more casual about sex and relationships. As with all generations, they face different struggles and have a different perspective. They also demand more equality and want a partner not a breadwinner. This was a show that reflected their perspective.
4
Any discussion on the role of women in a television series, which omits any mention of Clare Danes brilliant, iconic performance, as the complex, brittle, and intense, Cary Mathison, isn't meant be taken seriously. Ms. Danes thoroughly inhabits and empowers her character, whose nuance defies and mocks any and all female stereotypes.
10
AMEN!!!!! Can we please get a few more articles written about the best female role model ever to grace the small screen.
1
Excellent! I’ve never watched the show, but I’ve now got the picture exactly
I guess I don't understand the "ink" spent on reviewing this show. Then again, I never heard of this show until reading about it in the article, nor have I watched any of the shows mentioned, save "Mad Men" and "True Detective", both of which I abandoned. I guess I'm just an old coot, who still remembers the Brooklyn of Ebbets Field and my boyhood hero, Duke Snider and his team mates. The upscale and gentrified Brooklyn of today simply means a crowding out of affordable housing and the replacement of a good knish for a double mocha latte with skim milk for 5 bucks or so. At least I appreciate the Metro Card. I keep one in my wallet for my visits to The City, and keep one old and tarnished subway token at home for memory's sake.
Sorry Ross, but there are other shows with compelling female characters. Girls was not THE most important show of the last decade.
19
It was an awful show, with indistinguishable characters.
4
When I was growing up in the '80's Brooklyn was a place you left as quickly as possible. It was kind of awful.
My how things change.
My how things change.
2
A good reason why liberals (Democratic party) would not have everything figured out in American society, lack a good comprehension of society and have difficulty creating a more just and comprehensive and well functioning order and why Republicans for all offensive patriarchy--even patriarchy to point of obvious absurdity--still have a strong appeal?
I would say the problem is lack of transparency in society, lack of education, lack of disseminating the nuts and bolts, the internal aspect of society, or the anatomy if one prefers a biological metaphor, which leads to a confused and indecisive and easily controlled populace. Since WW2, for every stride of what the Democratic party offers, population has dramatically increased in the U.S. and technology by which the masses can be watched and controlled has raced ahead and bureaucracy has become Byzantine.
It appears the right wing in America, patriarchy, has not disappeared but has become more evasive, secretive, hidden, behind the scenes. America has become more and more Kafkaesque. Even if patriarchy is being sniffed out, if Democrats are making progress, they inherit a vastly populated, complex, Byzantine nightmare. They receive no help in clarification of society from the right wing and they too have their favorite, simple ideas (fair, equal society run by educated/technology/managerial experts) which offer little clarity to the masses. Either relentless march to truth or indecisiveness and confusion under patriarchy.
I would say the problem is lack of transparency in society, lack of education, lack of disseminating the nuts and bolts, the internal aspect of society, or the anatomy if one prefers a biological metaphor, which leads to a confused and indecisive and easily controlled populace. Since WW2, for every stride of what the Democratic party offers, population has dramatically increased in the U.S. and technology by which the masses can be watched and controlled has raced ahead and bureaucracy has become Byzantine.
It appears the right wing in America, patriarchy, has not disappeared but has become more evasive, secretive, hidden, behind the scenes. America has become more and more Kafkaesque. Even if patriarchy is being sniffed out, if Democrats are making progress, they inherit a vastly populated, complex, Byzantine nightmare. They receive no help in clarification of society from the right wing and they too have their favorite, simple ideas (fair, equal society run by educated/technology/managerial experts) which offer little clarity to the masses. Either relentless march to truth or indecisiveness and confusion under patriarchy.
3
Interesting and well written article. I have only watched a few episodes so I haven't a clue whether the assessment is correct. And I didn't think of Douthat's politics wile reading it. So no judgement on its accuracy, just an enjoyable piece.
1
Ross,
I have never seen this "narrow slice" but I enjoyed this. I regularly read your comments on religion and the Catholic Church. I enjoyed this much more.
I have never seen this "narrow slice" but I enjoyed this. I regularly read your comments on religion and the Catholic Church. I enjoyed this much more.
2
Never watch a single episode. But that is not unexpected. I have never seen Game of Thrones either. Only got passed the first quarter of the missive. Did he drag the bible in?
2
Gasp. I agree 100% with something written by Mr. Douthat. To quote, the show does not capture "our society’s complicated reality; the urban white liberal Brooklynite milieu is indeed, as the show’s haters always stood ready to remind us, a pretty narrow slice of American and Western life."
The NYT, and other coastal media, have obsessed over only a certain type of Millennial: college-educated, upwardly mobile, "twee."
When I read that only 22% of their generation actually finish college, a statistic I continue to doubt, I knew that there's an entire Millennial story not being told. Yet a drama about a college dropout pouring Panera coffee, set in Indianapolis' suburban asteroid-belt, most likely would not bring in the viewers or ad revenue.
The NYT, and other coastal media, have obsessed over only a certain type of Millennial: college-educated, upwardly mobile, "twee."
When I read that only 22% of their generation actually finish college, a statistic I continue to doubt, I knew that there's an entire Millennial story not being told. Yet a drama about a college dropout pouring Panera coffee, set in Indianapolis' suburban asteroid-belt, most likely would not bring in the viewers or ad revenue.
4
Imagine a casual conversation with this guy - about anything! - and then imagine the most searing migraine a person could suffer. Attend a baseball game with him and endure a stream of consciousness blather about the egalitarian tendencies of the knuckleball; have a light lunch with him and drown in his diatribe about what is sprayed on the arugula to get that color; try to get the one in the high chair to love her pureed carrots and have yout eyes glaze over while you hear all about how subsurface crops are prone to flesh-eating microbes. I pity the guy's wife...and his dog if he has one.
6
This is legendary? What has happened to our language?
6
The show may ultimately stand for what is symptomatic of the liberal arrogance that gave us the Donald Trump Presidency.
Most Americans probably couldn't care less about a show featuring a group of self entitled narcissists, but that is what much of television content is.
However, when the preening and self important Lena Dunham and her supporters droned on and on with their self labeled "voice of a generation" grandiosity, spouting about their "Self empowerment", their grievances, and proceeded to attack anyone who was even mildly critical about the show, essentially labeling any critic as nothing more than a Neanderthal or misogynist, they turned off anyone who didn't drink from the same Kool-Aid jar.
Then Dunham linked up with the Hillary Clinton campaign. Maybe this brought in some support from the younger of the elite NY-LA crowd, but it most likely disgusted the rest of us.
Most Americans probably couldn't care less about a show featuring a group of self entitled narcissists, but that is what much of television content is.
However, when the preening and self important Lena Dunham and her supporters droned on and on with their self labeled "voice of a generation" grandiosity, spouting about their "Self empowerment", their grievances, and proceeded to attack anyone who was even mildly critical about the show, essentially labeling any critic as nothing more than a Neanderthal or misogynist, they turned off anyone who didn't drink from the same Kool-Aid jar.
Then Dunham linked up with the Hillary Clinton campaign. Maybe this brought in some support from the younger of the elite NY-LA crowd, but it most likely disgusted the rest of us.
Mr. Douthat, you were at your finest proposing reforms to conservatism. Why you are waxing dyspeptic about liberalism week in and week out when your team has won, is in control of every branch of government, and is making a ruin of every facet of national life, I do not understand. In a land governed by Donald Trump and his racist circus, are Pope Francis and the travails of young and still immature television characters and college students really where you most need to be training your rhetorical fire? You have this platform that few have, and you'd win more to conservatism by painting a confident, life-affirming reform conservatism that militantly renounces Donald Trump and all his works than by screeching at liberals. Eyes up, Brother Ross.
17
Mr. Douthat, these Girls are not on display.
Rather than spending the first half of your column re-treading the ways in which Ur-males are typically portrayed on television, find a way to discuss the breakthroughs of this series that doesn't rely on framing it as solely in terms of the presence or absence of men. It was much more than that.
Rather than spending the first half of your column re-treading the ways in which Ur-males are typically portrayed on television, find a way to discuss the breakthroughs of this series that doesn't rely on framing it as solely in terms of the presence or absence of men. It was much more than that.
2
"You do not have this alternative figured out." Perhaps, but while stern, conservative fathers may guide a young woman to keep her on the straight and narrow, they also narrow the imagination and so constrain choice. It's called control. The girls on Girls slipped the bounds of the patrimony. Exercising choice may be messy, but then liberty never was as 'pretty' as those columns of identically-dressed and coiffed automatons whether goose-stepping or dining at the country club.
11
The idea that anyone EVER had growing up, adulthood etc figured out is fiction. Girls just refused to pretend otherwise.
4
Note to Ross: It's entertainment. You could just as easily write a series about social liberalism with characters who all have rich, meaningful, productive lives. But who would want to watch that? (Or write about it.)
4
Never saw the show but genuinely enjoyed this essay.
4
The show was unwatchable to me. As much as I hate the concept of race, the lack of diversity was a bit unrealistic for 2017, no? I once heard it referred to as "White Girls".
7
Hanna had a Black Boyfriend in a previous season. I can do a wiki or view it (I have S1-S5 on DVD disc). OR are you just counting this 2017 S6?
1
RD bestows far too much importance on junk TV.
Whether it's "Friends" or other shows he names, the trash will disappear down the black hole of American "culture." Well deserved.
If the country follows, as the Trump "presidency" suggests it might, we will have apologists like RD to blame.
Whether it's "Friends" or other shows he names, the trash will disappear down the black hole of American "culture." Well deserved.
If the country follows, as the Trump "presidency" suggests it might, we will have apologists like RD to blame.
3
Is there a more brilliant and incisive cultural critic in our entire popular media than this? Agree or disagree, this has to be read by anyone who cares deeply about the state of our culture.
2
Television shows themselves may be windows on a culture, but using them to make broad generalizations about a show’s “message” to the culture is a fool’s errand. In Douthat’s case, it is also an exercise in manipulative, self-serving rhetoric. Distilling the show’s central idea down to “liberals don’t have this alternative figured out” is absurd. What “alternative” is he talking about? The implication seems to be that straying from a family structure with a strong daddy figure leads to aimless narcissism and moral decay. Really? The GOP is now run by the most narcissistic, morally bankrupt human being on the planet. And all the up-standing conservatives who support him are hypocritically complicit, demonstrating to all that they have no principles whatsoever, moral or otherwise. Seems to me that conservatives are the ones who haven’t figured out an alternative, and all those TV shows featuring are morally corrupt male protagonist who is trying to provide for his family are Exhibit A in this cultural death spiral. But, as I said, it’s a mistake to draw broad cultural conclusions from a TV show. Unless that show starts turning into reality, in which case it may be time to turn the channel.
9
RD uses the fiction of "Girls" (as "realistic" as it may have been, it is fiction) as the rationale for deciding with finality that Democrats don't have it--a fictional alternative!--all figured out? Sigh. What next in desperate over-reach? RD unconsciously seeking to have been a flawed character in the show, but was left out.
3
Essex County New Jersey, the home of the Sopranos, is "somewhere Out There" in Douthat's view? It would be interesting for Holsten's ice cream parlor (Bloomfield, New Jersey), where the famous last scene was filmed, to take a count some weekend evening of the number of NY Times reporters, editors,and columnists among their customers.
1
It's a pleasure and a surprise to read Douthat in the morning. Good going.
1
Ross's review today of "Girls" reminds me of that old saw: "You don't need to drink a barrel to know it's bilge." We already have too much bilge.
To paraphrase an old comic strip star by the name of Pogo, "We have met the bilge and the bilge is us."
The irony is that we choose the pureness of bottled water these days, along with the polluted effluvium of sick minds.
To paraphrase an old comic strip star by the name of Pogo, "We have met the bilge and the bilge is us."
The irony is that we choose the pureness of bottled water these days, along with the polluted effluvium of sick minds.
1
Girls just wanna have fun. AND, it's just a TV show. Seriously.
17
Oh, but Ross doth pine for the good old days when the TV show that best reflected his vision of it having it all "figured out" - Father Knows Best.
119
Douthat doesn't 'get it'.
And he, and his ilk, never will.
Women are not beholden to Men, sir.
Women are beautiful, even if they don't fit your ideal, sir.
Women are capable, intelligent, and, just like men, sometimes flawed.
Women are awesome.
I'll take "Girls" over the "O'Rilley Factor" any day, sir.
And he, and his ilk, never will.
Women are not beholden to Men, sir.
Women are beautiful, even if they don't fit your ideal, sir.
Women are capable, intelligent, and, just like men, sometimes flawed.
Women are awesome.
I'll take "Girls" over the "O'Rilley Factor" any day, sir.
178
And apparently, women can be as banal, boring and shallow as men, as this awful series clearly pointed out. Dunham as representative of her generation? God I hope not.
7
The "NYT Picks" of comments to this piece are atrocious selections that all make the same mistake. Mr. Douthat is not criticizing the moral messaging of "Girls" because it rejects patriarchy or Catholicism. Rather, Mr. Douthat's criticism is rightly based on the show's absolute lack of humanity, empathy, or values that could sustain a functioning civilization or social-based species. That last point might be the most important.
If all or even most people lived like the characters in Girls, our society would fail. Not because women "wouldn't be beholden to men" or "fit the ideal of men" as P Palmer from Arlington faux-laments. Society would fail because, for us human beings to succeed, we must operate through productive thoughts and actions geared, at least in part, to the betterment of those around us. This is a fundamental aspect of our evolution. And to that extent, the characters of Girls are reflective of what happens when our basic humanity fails us. It just so happens that in this case they are women. There are male examples. Aaron Hernandez might be one.
So please, spare us the self-victimization. These characters are not beautiful, capable, or intelligent women. They should not be embraced merely because they are women. They are horrible people that should be shunned.
If all or even most people lived like the characters in Girls, our society would fail. Not because women "wouldn't be beholden to men" or "fit the ideal of men" as P Palmer from Arlington faux-laments. Society would fail because, for us human beings to succeed, we must operate through productive thoughts and actions geared, at least in part, to the betterment of those around us. This is a fundamental aspect of our evolution. And to that extent, the characters of Girls are reflective of what happens when our basic humanity fails us. It just so happens that in this case they are women. There are male examples. Aaron Hernandez might be one.
So please, spare us the self-victimization. These characters are not beautiful, capable, or intelligent women. They should not be embraced merely because they are women. They are horrible people that should be shunned.
3
You appear to answered an argument Mr. Douthat did not make to set up a false choice you needn't make yourself.
1
Winter is Coming, warned Game of Thrones, a time of dead ideas teeming over the horizon, with unfeeling, ignorant and destructive creatures crawling out of the swamp and wreaking havoc and despair.
Well, now that Winter is Here, and the three branches of government are dead and withered in the hands of our Republican overlords, Douthat reminds us with glee that liberals don't have things figured out either.
Douthat has written about "Girls" before, simultaneously reveling in a show that holds values that he disdains. Women have abortions! But it turns out that they have defective narcissistic personalities, so that explains everything. I suppose it's what we all do when we look forward to watching Tony Soprano brutalize the innocent.
But the women in "Girls" aren't malevolent. They're theatrical exaggerations of ordinary people. When Douthat says Ha! They don't have things figured out either, his intent is to draw a false equivalence between the ordinary flaws and woes that afflict everyone and the bizarre, destructive antics of his political idols.
There is no comparison. In reality, real girls are facing having abortion restricted or even recriminalized now that Gorsuch has made the Supreme Court more conservative. The Girls can't complain. Mitch McConnell has told them to sit down and shut up. And daddy knows best.
Well, now that Winter is Here, and the three branches of government are dead and withered in the hands of our Republican overlords, Douthat reminds us with glee that liberals don't have things figured out either.
Douthat has written about "Girls" before, simultaneously reveling in a show that holds values that he disdains. Women have abortions! But it turns out that they have defective narcissistic personalities, so that explains everything. I suppose it's what we all do when we look forward to watching Tony Soprano brutalize the innocent.
But the women in "Girls" aren't malevolent. They're theatrical exaggerations of ordinary people. When Douthat says Ha! They don't have things figured out either, his intent is to draw a false equivalence between the ordinary flaws and woes that afflict everyone and the bizarre, destructive antics of his political idols.
There is no comparison. In reality, real girls are facing having abortion restricted or even recriminalized now that Gorsuch has made the Supreme Court more conservative. The Girls can't complain. Mitch McConnell has told them to sit down and shut up. And daddy knows best.
318
But the girls won't shut up.
Hannah Horvath will join the resistance, baby in hand. You know her character would have been in DC at the Women's March.
Hannah Horvath will join the resistance, baby in hand. You know her character would have been in DC at the Women's March.
63
Abortions: That they have "defective narcissistic personalities" may not explain everything, but it explains a lot.
1
Lena Dunham would latch on to any cause, and drag it down, for the sake of publicity. She is awful and false.
The Obama era has not "vanished," as Douthat writes.
We remember it clearly and want it back. Or at least we want Trump away. That's why Jon Ossoff nearly won last night in Georgia -- and I wonder if the recovery of the stolen election machines would have made a difference.
The protagonists of Girls are only in their 20s. Given enough time, they will eventually meet stable men -- or they won't. It's unclear why Dunham had the character "Hannah" have a baby, though. I guess there had to be SOMETHING to jar her out of her habit of quitting and running away. However, in real life, I can't see someone like her being a good parent. You never know.
Douthat putting toxic masculinity or the toxic bachelors at polar opposites leaves out a lot of men.
Why not have Barack Obama be a paragon of a man to look up to? Has that occurred to Douthat?
We remember it clearly and want it back. Or at least we want Trump away. That's why Jon Ossoff nearly won last night in Georgia -- and I wonder if the recovery of the stolen election machines would have made a difference.
The protagonists of Girls are only in their 20s. Given enough time, they will eventually meet stable men -- or they won't. It's unclear why Dunham had the character "Hannah" have a baby, though. I guess there had to be SOMETHING to jar her out of her habit of quitting and running away. However, in real life, I can't see someone like her being a good parent. You never know.
Douthat putting toxic masculinity or the toxic bachelors at polar opposites leaves out a lot of men.
Why not have Barack Obama be a paragon of a man to look up to? Has that occurred to Douthat?
198
Of all people to write about “Girls”, I probably wouldn’t have guessed it would be our resident priest, except for his tender age (Ross is 37, decidedly a twenty-something when the show premiered). I’ve watched the show here and there over the intervening time, found it entertaining and the characters recognizable. However, like a lot of similar coming of age shows, it dealt with issues I’d settled for myself decades ago; so never really spoke to me – unsurprising, as I was hardly its target demographic.
Besides, it kind of extolled Brooklyn, which is a place changed so dramatically from the Brooklyn that I, like a lot of Manhattanites, took serious efforts NOT to know in the seventies, eighties and nineties. Today it’s a very different world. Hipper, younger, FAR more prosperous … and utterly unrecognizable, except that the Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges still stand.
Don’t know, though, that NOTHING was affected culturally by the show. A generation of full-sized young women came to accept their bodies more readily, even when festooned with tattoos. And we were treated yet again to the stereotype of the young Jewish-American princess ditz. And the too-attractive young woman searching for personal relevance in a world that objectivizes good looks. And the other chick.
Yet Ross becomes predictable in his final rumination: “You do not have this alternative figured out.” But growing up is not something most of us ever really figure out but merely … get through.
Besides, it kind of extolled Brooklyn, which is a place changed so dramatically from the Brooklyn that I, like a lot of Manhattanites, took serious efforts NOT to know in the seventies, eighties and nineties. Today it’s a very different world. Hipper, younger, FAR more prosperous … and utterly unrecognizable, except that the Williamsburg, Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges still stand.
Don’t know, though, that NOTHING was affected culturally by the show. A generation of full-sized young women came to accept their bodies more readily, even when festooned with tattoos. And we were treated yet again to the stereotype of the young Jewish-American princess ditz. And the too-attractive young woman searching for personal relevance in a world that objectivizes good looks. And the other chick.
Yet Ross becomes predictable in his final rumination: “You do not have this alternative figured out.” But growing up is not something most of us ever really figure out but merely … get through.
158
Quite a switcheroo in your last paragraph! The “alternative” Ross was speaking of was not “growing up”—which, anyway, is not an alternative to anything; except dying young.
2
Richard,
Once again, you wade in over your head.
For you to opine that "...NOTHING was affected culturally by the show" is indicative of the fact you "don't get it" and never will.
The show is a wonderful example of the fact that "barefoot, pregnant and silent" is no longer the role women play, even in *your* world, Rich.
Once again, you wade in over your head.
For you to opine that "...NOTHING was affected culturally by the show" is indicative of the fact you "don't get it" and never will.
The show is a wonderful example of the fact that "barefoot, pregnant and silent" is no longer the role women play, even in *your* world, Rich.
1
Richard, it's so seldom we agree, and yet here we are. I have never seen the show, but can recognize my own thoughts in all your comments. It is lovely and thought-provoking to start the day knowing I can have so much in common with one whose opinions rarely match my own. Thank you for the insight.