Patrick Cafferty

Girls draws strong reactions from audiences, either with delight or revulsion, for good reason. Conceived following the truly groundbreaking “Sex and the City,” it attempts to portray a more “realistic” story of four young women navigating life after college in NYC. That the show is inspired by Sex and the City is no secret, with the character Shoshana describing her love for the show and having a poster on the wall of her apartment in season one. In Girls, the women are under and unemployed, frequently depend on family for money, experience mental illness, demonstrate substance dependence and abuse, and engage in what is often unpleasant and uncomfortable sex, which differentiates the show from the glamour of Sex and the City’s characters and provides the basis of it’s “realism.” There are many things to like about the show… it’s NYC setting is exciting and interesting, Hannah who does not have the typical “Hollywood” actor body type, is frequently and unapologetically presented in undress providing uncommon representation, there are frequently clever lines and humorous moments throughout the six seasons of the show. A major flaw of the show is a failure to set up major events and big moments, so they are not at all realistic and fall flat. In season 6, Hannah confronts an author accused of sexually abusing women. Not only is Hannah so self involved, she would be unlikely to want to pursue the author to champion the cause of all women (“narcissist” is a commonly used adjective for this character), but throughout the show Hannah herself has been an abuser, performing oral sex on Ray, her former boss, while he was driving without his consent and exposing herself to her employer in his office to avoid reprimand. Thus, a moment where a familiar character confronts and interrogates a powerful perpetrator of abuse is diminished as scene is unbelievable. Similarly, after failing as a high school teacher by buddying with the students, tormenting her colleagues, and showing her genitalia to her principal, Hannah is later offered a faculty position at a college to show her character has grown. While it’s possible this college does not check qualifications or references, this scenario is far fetched and once again, the set up for growth of this character, a major event in the story, is implausible. While Girls fails to life up to the hype and attention it received at the time, and many interesting shows about life in New York (High Maintenance, How to with Jon Wilson), young adulthood (Euphoria, Sex Education, Industry), and shows with female casts (Sex Lifes of College Girls), offer diverse casts with tighter writing and characters who evolve and grow, Girls has much more to offer than claimed by misogynist/incel reviewers who can’t bare to watch a show with a female lead and producer. It is worth a watch, but only after going through the above list and when one has the time to watch uncomfortable sex scenes, Hannah frequently in undress, and shouting matches between “friends” that fill much of the time without advancing the plot. In short, the premise and promise of Girls was good, but it could and should have been much better.