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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Girls
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
The downtown trains are full
full of all them Brooklyn girls
They try so hard to break out of their little worlds
You wave your hand and they scatter like crows
They have nothing that'll ever capture your heart...
With all props to Mr Waits-- wrong, wrong, so wrong.
Anybody else watch this show? I had been seeing it promo'ed on HBO for weeks, but decided to skip it, as it looked like a Sex in the City knockoff. (Hate that show.) But I let the TV run on one night as I was watching something else, and caught the season premiere. I laughed through the entire episode. It's like the anti-SITC.
The series follows a pack of painfully ordinary, borderline loser, gorgeously fucked- up Brooklyn post-grads trying to figure out how to begin their adult lives. And when I say "Gorgeous" I mean, "to an acutely discerning person such as myself"-- the only girl in the regular cast who has a sort of traditional model-y look to her is so completely neurotic and screwed up you identify her anyway.
The show is written by, directed by, produced by and stars one Lena Dunham, who totally is the outer manifestation of my inner twenty year old. I so want to be her best friend. Her writing is smart and astonishing and red hot. Her performance is-- all of the above,and for both I should add, shriekingly hilarious, in a way that might physically endanger those of weak health.
[ 31. January 2013, 21:15: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
Anti-STC? Really? Because it may feature younger women but it's still just a bunch of middle-class white people problems. I may be white but I have no desire to watch shows that thinks my race is the only one that matters.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
Mister Waits (?) is an horrible singer and a no-talent hack - how does he manage to earn a living? Is his wife or girlfriend extremely wealthy?
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Anti-STC? Really? Because it may feature younger women but it's still just a bunch of middle-class white people problems. I may be white but I have no desire to watch shows that thinks my race is the only one that matters.
Just be glad that there are critics who will weed out the PC offencers for your viewing safety.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
Mister Waits (?) is an horrible singer and a no-talent hack - how does he manage to earn a living? Is his wife or girlfriend extremely wealthy?
So you haven't seen the show.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Kevin:
Mister Waits (?) is an horrible singer and a no-talent hack - how does he manage to earn a living? Is his wife or girlfriend extremely wealthy?
So you haven't seen the show.
More importantl;y he has no taste in music or understanding of poetry. He should listen to "Down there by the train" 134 times and educate himself! (That is the number of times my copy of itunes says I've played the song)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
And his wife is his producer.
As for "Girls"--I haven't seen it, but I've read enough about it that it almost makes me want to get cable.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Anti-STC? Really? Because it may feature younger women but it's still just a bunch of middle-class white people problems. I may be white but I have no desire to watch shows that thinks my race is the only one that matters.
Just be glad that there are critics who will weed out the PC offencers for your viewing safety.
By 'PC offencers' I presume you mean racism. And it's got nothing to do with the critics - I have seen the show. I just don't see why white entertainment is more important than making a stink about racism.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Snags
Utterly socially unrealistic
# 15351
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Posted
OTOH why should every show need to have a cast that includes the black one, the white one, the foreign one, the gay one, the jock who's actually sensitive, the nerd who's actually quite buff, an even balance of boys and girls, all with empowering jobs, etc. before it can be deemed acceptable?
I haven't seen Girls but from that review "utterly socially unrealistic" would seem more accurate than "racist".
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Vain witterings :-: Vain pretentions :-: The Dog's Blog(locks)
Posts: 1399 | From: just north of That London | Registered: Dec 2009
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
OTOH why should every show need to have a cast that includes the black one, the white one, the foreign one, the gay one, the jock who's actually sensitive, the nerd who's actually quite buff, an even balance of boys and girls, all with empowering jobs, etc. before it can be deemed acceptable?
I haven't seen Girls but from that review "utterly socially unrealistic" would seem more accurate than "racist".
Agreed.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
quote:
Originally posted by Snags:
OTOH why should every show need to have a cast that includes the black one, the white one, the foreign one, the gay one, the jock who's actually sensitive, the nerd who's actually quite buff, an even balance of boys and girls, all with empowering jobs, etc. before it can be deemed acceptable?
I haven't seen Girls but from that review "utterly socially unrealistic" would seem more accurate than "racist".
Agreed.
If it's about a group of white upper-middle-class people who hang out with the same, the phrase you're looking for is "utterly socially realistic," I'm afraid.
Posts: 424 | From: USA | Registered: May 2012
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
If it's about a group of white upper-middle-class people who hang out with the same, the phrase you're looking for is "utterly socially realistic," I'm afraid.
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) That is not the complaint. The complaint? While people like that may indeed hang out to the exclusion of others, if they are going to do it in Brooklyn, they will encounter other groups. Especially as Brooklyn is only 1/3 white.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Timothy the Obscure
Mostly Friendly
# 292
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Posted
I've read that in the next season she gets a Black Republican boyfriend.
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When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion.
- C. P. Snow
Posts: 6114 | From: PDX | Registered: May 2001
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
She did. Donald Glover. That was the episode that hooked me. He was freaking hilarious.
I am sorry, I am working on school stuff-- I want to respond to your comments but for now will leave it at, the young auteur seems to have taken in the first season criticism and is working on addressing them from what I can see. Couple things though-- the cluelessness and self-imposed insulation of the four girls leading the series seems to be a major, major point. They think they know it all, and they so , SO don't. Which might be why they chose to live all packed together in the whitest tiny little whitebread neighborhood they could find as far away from Bed-Sty as possible. (Meta-commentary on encroaching gentrification?)
(Question to those who know-- are the neighborhoods in Brooklyn as racially compartmentalized as some dipshit in , oh Northern California, say, might think they are? All I can reference is Spike Lee for my developing this perception.)
Anyway, what also grabbed me is the genuine female-centric nature of the show-- which is why I contrasted it to SITC. SITC seems to revolve around the women's relationships with men, what they do to attract men, how much effort they spend in trying to figure out men, and then every tenth episode or something there's a rushed little VO speech about how much women mean in our female lives-- but this insight usually arises when one women is comforting another from a breakup.The primary obsession of the Girls girls seems to be simply figuring their own dumb selves out, in all arenas.They are complete idiots at it. And hugely lovable, IMO.
The Girls Girls obsess over their relationships, but they obsess over a lot of things-- particularly themselves. They are such drippy navel gazing NYC artists that I originally thought the story took place on Christopher street.
But the real selling point for me is Lena Dunham herself. She is like the girl version of Larry David in Curb Your Enthusiam she thinks she is noble, virtuous,caring, kind, reasonable, and generous, but she's really-not. She's cripplingly self-absorbed, vainglorious, and maybe even the tiniest bit amoral. (For instance-- she breaks up with the Donald Glover character because he doesn't like a short story she wrote, but after deliberately provoking a huge political argument with him*,she storms back to her friends and proclaims that she's broken up with him because "she can't stand by some one who can't stand by gays and women." She also accompanies a friend to an abortion and somehow manages to make the situation all about her and her floundering writing career, or some such nonsense.)
Traditional TV series heroines have to be flawed in acceptable ways-- Carrie Bradshaw, for instance, had her moments of selfishness and vanity, but for the most part she was sweet and caring and empathetic. Samantha was the amoral one, and she was always played as a sort of cautionary model. Dunham's Hanna is catastrophically flawed, and aggressively ordinary-looking-- but you can't take your eyes off her. She struts around in nothing but a thong with her little buddha belly and her very American thighs, and her um, understated bosom, and her fifteen tattoos, eating a cupcake, dripping fresh from the bathtub, and she just owns herself. it's intoxicating.
So yeah let's hope these sheltered little morons get a taste of larger Brooklyn, but I'm willing to hang in there with them. If for no other reason to see what this clearly talented new writer has to offer.
*Donald-- "Gee, Hannah, thank you for telling me how bad black men have it in America. I wasn't aware of it." Improv'ed by him, according to Dunham, and he so rocked that role.]
[ 03. February 2013, 06:38: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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