Sure, Chip has rather loud and boorish opinions on almost everything, but certain cultural phenomenons cry out for a woman's touch, and on those occasions we often find ourselves turning to LFK's most prominent sexy librarian / third wave feminist Bananasuit. Her last column was a penetrating exploration of the #KUboobs phenomenon (reread it here ), and today she stops by to consider Lena Dunham's new HBO series Girls, which has sparked much debate recently, with online eggheads tossing around terms like "hipster racism" and snarky male talkbackers attacking Dunham's (often-naked) body image.
Enjoy the piece!
Ladies of Larryville: your days of waiting for an actually funny female sitcom are finally fucking over.
HBO's new
comedy, Girls, has been described as the hipster "Sex in the City":
four girls living in New York, dishing about sex. This comparison is shit, and the only reason
it stands is because no one else has really thought of producing viable sitcoms
told from a group female POV. Girls is
as much Golden Girls as it is Sex and the City.
So if it's not
Sex in the City, what the hell is it?
Girls is the brainchild of the hilarious 25 year old Lena Dunham, who
wrote, directed, and acted in the indie film "Tiny Furniture" last
year. This movie caught Judd Apatow's
eye, who then reached out to Dunham to ask if he could help her with any
projects. Thus: Girls.
Dunham writes
and stars in Girls, too, as Hannah, the unemployed aspiring novelist living in
Brooklyn with her girl friends Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna (brilliantly played
by David Mamet's daughter Zosia). The
brilliance of Girls lies in its fearless weirdness -- there are no other
sitcoms out there that are doing what Girls is doing. Any white hipster girl who went to a tiny
liberal arts college will recognize herself here somewhere, in ways no other
sitcom has ever achieved before: in "Vagina Panic," throwing an abortion party
and worrying about "the stuff that comes up around the edges of
condoms." Making out with her girl
friend in front of the asshole who pays for their martinis at a cheesy
bar. Having her boobs massaged at work
by her portly middle-aged boss. Getting
peed on in the shower by the artsy, unavailable "guy she's seeing." Accidentally smoking a crack pipe at the
hipster warehouse party (I admit nothing).
Where
Sex and the City was a reductive fantasy of femaleness, reducing its characters
to caricatures of the "bitchy one," the "prudish one," the
"sexy one," and the "everyone," Girls fleshes these women
out and gives them depth: scathing wit, power, complexity, vulnerability. And just enough tits to make a third wave
feminist proud. Marnie
isn't just a bitch -- she's stunted by her fear of giving up control as a young
professional woman making her way in a chaotic recessionist economy. Shoshana isn't just a prude -- she's an
adorable spaz who just wants to get deflowered already although she can't find
any guys who'll have sex with a virgin.
Jessa isn't just a sexpot -- she's got a darkness and a sadness that
you'll glimpse occasionally if you're really paying attention. And Hannah -- ohhh, Hannah. I don't know whether Hannah quite qualifies
as an "everyone," but she definitely qualifies as a "me."
Lena Dunham is
brilliant, much like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Carrie
Brownstein and Diablo Cody are all totally fucking brilliant. They're capitalizing on the entertainment
industry's discovery that it's actually profitable to produce funny stuff for
ladies, by ladies. Well played, Paul
Feig and Judd Apatow.
So girls: go
watch Girls. Tell me all about it. We'll let the boys watch, too, if they want.
Here's a pic of Shoshanna during one of the show's (many) awkward sexual encounters:
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We'll be having a big damn time time at the Granada tonight with Rev. Peyton's Big Damn Band (reread our interview ), but there are other options as well for those of you who are too hip for washboards and overalls.
You may not always realize it, but the Jackpot still has shows, and tonight they have one that's scenester-approved. Hospitality is based in Brooklyn, Pitchfork gives their self-titled 2012 album a 7.4, and their video for "Friends of Friends" stars the gal who plays Maeby Funke on Arrested Development (watch it here ). This band would be right at home in an episode of Girls (we predict they'll be on the soundtrack soon if they haven't been already). Also, lead singer Amber Papini is a KC native.
Sure, we've written about Hospitality before: reread that piece here for a full dose of blurbs about the band, such as this one from Rolling Stone:
"Synth doodles and squeaky-cutesy
vocals abound on this Brooklyn trio's aggressively adorable debut. But
Hospitality have more to offer than mere sweetness: Check how the
wistful ballad "Eighth Avenue" left-turns into a spastic guitar
outburst, like Tom Verlaine crashing a Belle and Sebastian session."
Here's the album cover:
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