Gen X had Sex and the City, and Millennials had Girls. Is Rachel Sennott’s new series, I Love LA, the female-centered comedy that will go on to represent Gen-Z? It looks like HBO has a pattern of making girly comedies surrounding a group of modern women. I Love LA seems to be the newest installment in this collection.
What is I Love LA?
I Love LA is a clever self-aware comedy revolving around a group of four twenty-some friends working within the entertainment industry. It was created by Rachel Sennott, who has recently become the face of Gen-Z comedies – writing and acting in Shiva Baby, Bodies Bodies Bodies and Bottoms. I Love LA, like much of her previous work, provides commentary on the quirks and flaws common among Gen-Z. Bodies Bodies Bodies did a great job of highlighting the self-absorption and self-righteousness of this generation, and I Love LA’s first season contains these same observations but expresses them more subtly.
The show was originally going to be titled ‘Climbers’, Sennott told The Wrap. This was in reference to ‘social-climbers,’ which the majority of the characters are. The main characters frequently lie about their motivations to get what they want, with the character Charlie even going as far as to pretend to be a recovering pornography addict to befriend a potential client. Plotlines like that, paired with scenes like the one of Alani stumbling into a meeting at her father’s company, then interrupting to share stories about what it was like growing up rich in LA, effectively parody a certain type of Gen-Zer whose upbringing in an individualist culture makes them very self-centered. The show spoofs the increasingly ‘chronically online’ subsect of this generation and Gen-Z’s love of cancellation through the inclusion of a social media influencer.
The show also depicts codependency and transactional relationships. The characters frequently make a point of getting all that they can out of relationships, whether that be money, publicity or something else. The dynamics of the friendships shown throughout the series are interesting because of their toxicity. The main character bounces between being exhausted by her relationship with her best friend and being completely codependent on her. The exploration of these unhealthy relationships isn’t new, but it is uniquely well-done in I Love LA.
Similarities
If I were to describe a show as “a comedy representative of a generation following a group of young adults in an iconic city navigating careers, friendships and relationships featuring several characters who regularly showcase how oblivious they are to their own selfishness,” it’s unlikely that you would be able to figure out what show I’m talking about. However, if you’ve seen Sex and the City, Girls or I Love LA, one, two or all three series will likely come to mind.
Similar to Girls and Sex and the City, the main characters are written to be occasionally cringe and, at times, borderline narcissistic. The four main characters (Maia played by Rachel Sennott, Tallulah played by Odessa A’Zion, Charlie played by Jordan Firstman and Alani played by True Whitaker) are incredibly self-unaware, creating some hilarious, albeit difficult to watch scenes which will take any viewer who watched Lena Dunam’s Girls back to scenes like Marnie’s rendition of Kanye’s “Stronger” at her ex’s office party and Hannah insisting her classmate had been molested because she didn’t like the criticism she received on her story. When Maia attends a game night with her boyfriend, Dylan (played by Josh Hutcherson), and his coworkers, she becomes jealous of one of the guests, gets drunk and publicly humiliates both herself and Dylan in a way that is so reminiscent of Hannah Horvath and Carrie Bradshaw’s old antics.
Where I Love LA Deviates
The most obvious differences between the shows are their settings. In Girls and Sex and the City, NYC almost serves as a fifth protagonist. While some parts of I Love LA take place in New York, Los Angeles is truly the heart of the show. For decades, New York was the place where everyone with a dream wanted to move, and it served as the setting for countless TV shows throughout the years. Although New York is still popular, this generation has been more inclined than previous ones to move to LA. When comparing the three shows, this change reflects a cultural shift between generations.
Another large change is the protagonist’s profession. In I Love LA, the main character, Maia, works for a talent agency and manages her influencer best friend, Tallulah. This greatly deviates from Carrie Bradshaw and Hannah Horvath, who were both writers. Focusing on the entertainment industry and inclusion of a ‘nepo baby’, celebrity stylist and an influencer in the main cast was a great decision on the part of the showrunners, who seem to understand that social media and showbusiness are the industries that interest Gen-Z the most. Incorporating a PR crisis and ‘cancellation’ plotline is another example of how the show dedicates itself to the modern-era, depicting something that Gen-Z is so frequently consumed by.
All three shows follow a close group of four friends; however, I Love LA is the first one to include a man in the mix. While you could argue that in the later seasons of Girls, Elijah, who is very similar to Charlie, becomes part of the core group, the show makes a point of establishing only the female characters as the real members of the clique. Despite this, I Love LA can still be described as a show about young women for young women.
The last major difference between I Love LA and its predecessors is the LGBT representation. I Love LA is one of the few shows that has two queer main characters, but doesn’t focus much on their sexuality. While Girls and SATC both featured gay characters, in neither were they part of the main cast; they were mainly men, and their relationships always seemed sidelined. The representation is another way in which I Love LA succeeds in representing this generation, who are more likely to be openly gay, as well as have diverse friend groups, than any generation before them.
I Love LA is a ‘Must-Watch’
I Love LA is one of the best shows currently airing, and I believe it will be looked back upon as the show that encapsulated the 2020s. It’s fresh and witty, full of pop-culture references and celebrity cameos and is one of the very few shows that accurately depict Gen-Z. The cast’s chemistry gets you hooked and keeps you interested from the opening scene to the finale’s credits. If you loved Sex and the City and Girls, you’re sure to love this, and if you didn’t, you’ll probably also still love I Love LA.