Why I Like Girls

No, family, not in the I'm-coming-out-of-the-closet kind of way... in the I-like-Lena-Dunham's-show kind of way. (Every time I call/text/hang out with my best friend, my family's all like:)

I've been watching "Girls" since it premiered last year on HBO.  It was exactly what I expected it to be; it was witty, sarcastic, awkward and a little depressing.  I thought Lena Dunham hit the nail on the head most of the time and the rest of the time it seemed like she was just having fun.  All in all, I liked it.

But the start of the new, very different season and a big W at the Academy Awards brought about quite the slew of mixed reviews.  There was James Franco's "A Dude's Take On Girls," Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's "Girls Just Want to Have (White) Fun," and a few others I've stumbled upon.  Though both do seem to give props to Dunham for her success, they then both go on to heavily criticize the characters and world she portrays in her show.

(I know what you're thinking, by the way...When did either of these two become critics, or more importantly, writers?)

Either way, I'm here to defend Girls.

Aside from the fact that I'm a caucasian twenty-two year old female who recently graduated from the most liberal of Universities (woo! UVM), I find "Girls" hilarious and relevant.  I don't like it because it parallels my life as a broke young woman suffocating under a mound of debt, because it doesn't.  I don't like it because I can relate to any of the character's quirky but endearing characteristics, because I can't.  And I don't like it because it's the perfect embodiment of my generation, because it's not.

I like it because it portrays incredibly imperfect characters whose awkward interactions are blown up to hyperbolic proportions.  It often doesn't feel realistic because it's not real.  It's on HBO for goodness sake!  You know what's replacing its time slot now that the season is over?  Game of Thrones.  Because it's HBO and HBO is known for the quality of their shows, not the reality of them.

And yet, I cannot deny that there is an inherently real feel to Girls. Something about the show makes people want to believe that these characters and their situations are real. Even though they are so over the top, so ridiculously exaggerated... they still sometimes actually feel more real.

Have I ever slept with a megalomanic like Boothe Jonathon who advised me to stare deeply into the eyes of a killer doll or stuffed dog or whatever it was while face down ass up?  No, thankfully, I've dodged that bullet.  But I have slept with narcissistic assholes who have tried to pull shit of an equally creepy caliber.  So what's my point?

"Sorry, I'm just, like, not really into being fucked by your foot."

My point is that while the situations themselves are clearly fabricated and exaggerated, the idea of them is based in reality.  We may not all be able to directly relate to any of the characters' white, hipster, first-world problems... but ya know what?  We can all relate to that awfully awkward moment when a guy tries to enter through the backdoor and claims it was an accident.

I suppose I could understand why people hate the show; (almost) all the characters are white, they're often selfish and ridiculous and naked for what seems like more than 70% of the time.  But the truth is that the show is successful for a reason.

You can argue until you're blue in the face that the show is too unrealistic, idealistic and whatever other -istic you can muster up, but when push comes to shove, the show is allowed to be unrealistic, not only because it is a show, but because some of us know that sometimes, the most realistic situations are those that seem utterly unreal.