Deep, Dark Secrets: I Like HBO's 'Girls'.

How many times have I been sitting around for drinks, when someone mentions that they find Lena Dunham to be a deplorable human being, at the epicenter of the worst show on the entire planet: HBO's 'Girls'? I sit quietly and stare into my vodka/soda... I care if Hannah follows her dreams to become a writer. I want Marnie to find love within herself before trying to find comfort in men. Jessa? She needs to realize how much everyone just wants to help. And Shoshanna. She'll be fine. She's perfect. Yep, the fine folks at the ol' Home Box Office network has finally sucked me in. They've had shows about murders and drugs and gangs and dead people, and the one show that sucks me in is about some stupid rich, spoiled girls.

In some ways, Lena Dunham reminds me of myself. She tries a little too hard, and is only funny about 50% of the time, and anything even remotely controversial that she does causes major uproar. She's awkward and sometimes mildly annoying. However, I challenge you to find a millennial that is not kind-of aggravating, with the Tweets and selfies and faces buried into their phones all day. Yes, she's a kid that had parents with waaaay too much money. She had parents that allowed her to "follow her dreams". She was clearly told she was special on a daily basis. If she wasn't writing shows, she'd be painting or roasting coffee or knitting teeny hats for kittens and selling them on Etsy, and her family would be enthusiastically funding the whole damn thing. That being said, she's writing, and not only that, writing one of the most poignant shows of our time. It's an uncomfortable show to watch at times. It also hits sore spots so very, very hard. I was not a rich girl, but I did have breakups that shook my soul, and went to bad parties, and did things that would make me ashamed in my older years.

Also, not to mention the outfit ideas! The wide variety of body types portrayed!  The lack of diversity purposely righted by adding a black Republican! Actually, scratch that last one. That was weird.

As I sit around a table of girls whining about 'Girls', I picture Hannah and Shosh and Jessa and Marnie all slandering a similar show. "It's just not... Realistic", my friends say, and leave to go back to their family-funded downtown condo to text boys that are significantly too hot for them, and finish a painting and a full bottle of wine on a weeknight.

~sarah p.