Saturday, March 16, 2013
A Black "Girls" Friend
When Girls premiered, I had already made up my mind I wasn't going to watch. It came right after they cancelled Bored to Death and I didn't think there would be another show based in Brooklyn that could move me that way again. I tried to get into Girls, but something about Shoshanna, Jess and Hannah pissed me off-it looked to me that the show was going to be some sort of hipster Sex in the City and I wasn't interested. And, I'd read countless commentaries about the series lack of ethnic diversity, so I figured I'd do my part for as a representative of said under-represented group and boycott the show.
Cut to 5 months later on a Sunday night. My husband and I are getting ready to watch Enlightenment. O.k., I’m getting ready to watch Enlightenment. (He just doesn't get it) but Girls hasn't wrapped yet, so I watched. My husband noticed that "look" I get when I begin to develop a new habit. "Oh God," he starts. "Please don't tell me that you can relate to this shit."
Yes. I could. But as a black girl, I know I’ll have to prove how. So, I went back to season one. I was watching the episode where the gynecologist examining Hannah says: "You could never pay me enough to be twenty-four…" and I began to wax nostalgic about that age. It was certainly a tumultuous year for me. I had just moved to New York City and I was going to make it as a writer. I had a job in publishing and I was fierce, fearless and stupid. I remember lying on an exam room table, having the exact same conversation with my doctor, scared to death because the guy I was seeing was a weirdo, like Adam who justified his pretentious, freakish behavior on the fact that he was an artist. In reality, he was a condescending, self-indulged, megalomaniac (who couldn’t write for shit) that I was a slave to. When Marnie confides to Hannah that she’s worried about being barren because she never had a pregnancy scare, even though she’d have enough irresponsible encounters to warrant it, I became hooked on the show because it was like Lena Dunham read my diary and changed all the names and faces to protect the guilty. I remember having the same conversation with my best friend and I was worried that I could never give my husband children right until I became pregnant with my twins.
I'm no longer a twenty-something struggling writer trying to make it in New York City-- I'm a thirty-eight year old new mom/wife/struggling writer trying to make it in New York City. I no longer live in trendy, gentrified Clinton Hill; I live in hard knocks Bronx, as a wife and mom with responsibilities. I no longer have the luxury of making those awkward, degrading, and humiliating albeit exhilarating, life experiences/ mistakes, which by the grace of God did not kill me. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss those days. Often I wonder how I ended up in this life-when did I become a grown up? Now I’m married, changing diapers, doing laundry and wiping (two!) drooling mouths instead of becoming intellectually stimulated and simultaneously wasted at SXSW in Texas. I don’t rock out anymore. I live in my husband’s mother’s basement apartment and sometimes it seems that he just doesn’t “get” me the way other’s in my past did-regardless of how reckless they were or bad for me at the time. My husband doesn’t get my fascination with the show and that frightens me. What if I made the biggest mistake of my life? These are the questions I ask every time I watch the show and I feel a twang of envy because as messed up as things are for them at times, it seems that they are going to get it right. They have good-looking futures ahead. In my case, it seems the die has been cast. So, I live vicariously through the show.
Clearly, I can’t relate to everything; my parents would never be able to support me for any length of time while I pursued my writing career. I'm not white, no longer in my twenties, and of all the things I have smoked, crack was never one of them. I did spend my twenties living in Brooklyn with a roommate and hanging out all over the borough with girls who were Marnie, Jess and Shoshanna and of course, I was Hannah. Those were the best and worst years of my life. Girls gives me some semblance of the life I yearn for as I find myself laughing (and crying) all the way down memory lane.
So who cares if there are no black girls on the show? There is a black boy! Sandy, Hannah's black, Republican boyfriend was a clever addition to the cast. Hannah claimed that color was never an issue for her because she didn't live in a world that made "those kinds of divisions,” this is the essence of Girls and why the show is brilliant. Girls seek to define/find itself on its own terms despite societal conventions based on race, class or gender, where we live, what generation we’re from, how we dress or even how we speak. The ensuing conversation/argument between the two of them was one of the most hilarious and honest discussions about race I’ve ever heard; Hannah quoting Missy Elliot- but not understanding the reference-classic.
And, despite criticisms of her affinity for getting naked, Ms. Dunham has no problem baring it all for the camera; she has a healthy body image, which is refreshing in an industry that promotes grotesquely thin, gorgeous models in leading roles as some sort of standard of beauty we are supposed to attain.
Speaking of cultural diversity, I’d like to point out that hip hop is practically featured in every scene of the show, (the girls even dance to it) Ray prompted Hannah to talk about the “urban” issues of our day: gentrification, urban sprawl, social injustice…Beyonce’ is imitated, Rhianna’s ass is referenced, and there are countless black, and other extras in the background from every walk of life representing Brooklyn.
Unfortunately, not everybody has a black friend, but guess what? Girls just made one.
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