Heralded as this generation’s Sex and The City, HBO’s Girls was groundbreaking when it first aired as a show that accurately depicts the struggles of life, sex, and relationships for millennia. Centered on Hannah Horvath and her three best friends, the first season of the show followed them as they dealt with the realities we collegiates face- like navigating the job market, ambiguous sexual relationships, needy boyfriends, virginity, and getting cut off from your parents. Along the way, the characters grew in their relationships with each other and in themselves; while trying to find who they wanted to be.
Although I was not as impressed with the second season (due to some ridiculous storylines and copious amounts of nudity that was hardly ever necessary) I stuck with the show into the third. I still felt relatively connected to the characters and Lena Dunham’s writing because, after all, she sees herself as a voice of this generation and her writing at times was very relatable to my life. However, four episodes in to the third season I have found this to no longer be the case, and here is why:
First, all of the characters are selfish. And I don’t mean selfish in the way young people are, or in the funny way the characters were before, in which they were still quirky and likeable in their selfishness. I mean in the way in which they have absolutely no redeeming qualities except occasional sarcasm. Hannah is so self-involved with her book and her career as a writer that she feels absolutely nothing for anyone else; not her dead boss or Adam’s loopy sister whom she kicks out of the apartment without consulting him first. She is not alone in her self-involvement either. The other three girls are equally selfish, if not more at times; being rude and unforgiving to those around them so much that it has made me actively hate them. I cannot stick it out because, as much heat as ladies already get from the media and magazines about being selfish and bad friends, we do not need a show that portrays us in an even worse light. We need shows that affirm female friendship as some of the closest relationships out there- not fake ones where we all secretly hate each other.
To second the selfishness, Hannah uses a fake story to try and mask her lack of feeling towards her dead boss, which led to perhaps the most insensitive and, to me, one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen on television (spoilers ahead). In an attempt to get Hannah to feel something, Caroline (Adam’s sister), tells her a very upsetting, though untrue story of how Adam cared for a cousin they had with muscular dystrophy right up until her death. Afterwards, Hannah makes a comment about the disease, completely ignoring the heartbreaking nature of the story all together, thus affirming her lack of compassion. However, at the end of the episode, she decides to tell Adam the exact same story to convince him she might actually have a soul. The way I felt after this episode was completely disgusted. It was not funny to me at all that such a person, although pretend, existed with such a lack of compassion that she could continue to care about no one but herself in the wake of death.
Finally, the third season suffers from a lack of innovation in the writing. In the first four episodes, nothing of weight or interest has happened except for Hannah working through her career. Adam, Marnie, and Jessa are still jobless, and the only reason Shoshanna isn’t a loser without ambition is because she is a student. Dunham also has had two polar opposite characters, Marnie and Ray, who never particularly liked each other from start to hook up (I guess because she has no other storyline to think of). But again I find it gross and, despite reading that things have gotten moving in the last two episodes, I do not plan on watching them because I do not feel the show has any more to offer.
My friend put it this way: “The show was good because it was raw; it was different but relatable, down to its small innuendos. Now it is so raw it hurts, like it is bleeding. The friendships they have are not worthwhile friendships; I don’t like any of them anymore. At all.”
My roommate had a similar opinion: “I’ve stopped watching Girls because I honestly don’t care what happens to these characters anymore. The writers are trying to get a rise out of us with controversial plots, but why would they think it’s fun to get this angry at fictional people?”
She too liked the earlier seasons when characters were more relatable and still had some redeeming qualities, but like me, she cannot watch it anymore. Until Dunham writes something relatable and interesting again, with positive depictions of young 20-something females that we so desperately need in the media, I think we all should think about not watching Girls.