Lena Dunham seems to have taken the Orson Welles approach
with her HBO success ‘Girls’ (2012) by her writing, directing and producing it.
Whether it’s as revolutionary as ‘Citizen Kane’ (1941) depends on your viewpoint. But
it can’t be dismissed that it’s created a wide discussion upon subjects such as
it’s all white cast and questioning whether it really is a symbol of
post-feminism.
Many have suggested that ‘Girls’ acts as a spiritual
successor to previous HBO series ‘Sex and the City’ (1998) with an additional
degree of realism. Although as groundbreaking as the aforementioned was, it did
conform to many typical roles. Whether it’s the women looking like they’ve just
stepped off Sunset Boulevard or their only desires being to partake in lavish
displays of conspicuous consumption. In ‘Girls’, Dunham makes no secret of repeating
the construction of a group of women discovering America with the ‘Sex and the
City’ poster looming over Shoshanna’s apartment like some form of deistic
presence. Although Dunham has taken this construction and added fairly modern
twists. From the witty post-feminist dialogue of Hannah questioning whether
Marnie’s ‘sick of eating her boyfriend out’ due to him being the weaker of the
two or the physical appearance of Hannah being strikingly different to other
frontwomen of American comedy such as Deschanel of ‘New Girl.’ Whilst
discussing this feminist viewpoint, it also wouldn’t be outrageous to
claim that Dunham resembles directors such as Almodovar in her representation
of men. The men of ‘Girls’ are a far cry from Mr Big of ‘SATC’ through often
being either perverse, laughable or villainous by an obsession with their own
sexual gratifications. Whether it’s the character of Adam who uses Hannah as a
scapegoat for his own kinky and sadomasochistic desires or Chris O’Dowd’s character later in the series who attempts to orchestrate a threesome with Marnie
and Jessa but fails miserably.
Although these symbols of independence are also the place
which ‘Girls’ falters such as through Jessa being described as having the face of
‘Bridget Bardot’ but rather than hold the glamour of Bardot is more inclined
towards a fictional Cara Develigne. Her frequency to state how ‘coke made [her]
shit her pants’ and allow Jagger or Schubert to easily roll off her tongue with
a playlist of Francoise Hardy and Jacques DuTronc often comes across as being irritating
rather than independent.
It is also far from implicit that ‘Girls’ is very much filmed
through a Woody Allen and Wes Anderson filtered lens. The most obvious
comparison being with ‘Annie Hall’ (1977) through the New York landscape and
Hannah’s rants in the show almost being similar to that of Alvy Singer’s cinema
scene. Both seeing themselves as witty, charismatic and an
individual from society. Whilst the explicit and uncomfortable depiction of sex
could be suggested as being very much influenced by Allen’s style. ‘Girls’ also
shares the other obvious comparisons through Hannah’s instience that she’s the
‘voice of a generation’ ticking the boxes of everything from Anderson’s
‘Rushmore’ (1998) to Chbosky’s ‘Perks of Being a Wallflower’ (1999). This seems
to sound like a complaint but its more complimenting Dunham on bringing a
quirky Juno-esque style to the usual manufactured humour of American sitcoms.
Ultimately, it’s evident that ‘Girls’ is something, which is entertaining,
intriguing and interesting. Although on the matter of it being post-feminist,
it falls similar to that of a ‘Destiny’s Child’ track. The material
communicates ideas of female empowerment but the physical appearance often
falters this with a line in the opening episode stating that it’s ‘like
watching Clueless’ ringing very much true.
No comments:
Post a Comment