[viiagrag]

These gals are just...there.

This short sentence completely sums up what I was thinking after the first episode. Even when "stuff" was "happening,", it felt so...uninspired, or bored or something. Make sense?

[ValdisSeroff]

I haven't watched Girls, but apparently it's really, really white. White people! Everywhere! Anyway, if you aren't white and you're a little sore about the whole lack of representation in TV and film and all the things, one of the staff writers from the show has some snark for you.



God, minorities. Give them an inch, right?

[Nidsstese]

Wow.

ETA: There are so many layers of wrong there I don't even know. The only representation of African Americans you can think of is fucking PRECIOUS??!

[freeringtonesioo]

Wait ... she was serious? I read that as her being facetious as hell because nobody could possibly be that ... could they?

Anyway, a show about four annoying white women in NYC with mysteriously awesome finances and no minorities in sight, like anywhere? Sound awfully familiar.

ETA: OH I SEE. I SEE.

I found the Jezebel article and she's for real! Christ, where do these people come from (rhetorical question, I know exactly where they come from and I wish they'd fuck off back there)? This is a writer who referred to taking a dump as taking Obama to the White House. She probably IS aggrieved that there's a film somewhere about black women that doesn't acknowledge the tragic plight of rich, white self-absorbed trust fund kiddies with dubious 'careers' in 'media'.

[Nidsstese]

Even if she was being facetious, that's a fucking shitty way to respond to perfectly legitimate criticisms. Precious is also a horrifyingly offensive example. Because white people couldn't be sexually abused by their family and live in poverty?? OKAY!

And yes, Helen, it bears resemblance to SATC, but lacking the likeable characters and fun clothes.

[Nidsstese]

This is a writer who referred to taking a dump as taking Obama to the White House..

NO SHE DIDN'T. ARE YOU SERIOUS. OMG.

[JohnTruels]

I haven't watched Girls, but apparently it's really, really white. White people! Everywhere! Anyway, if you aren't white and you're a little sore about the whole lack of representation in TV and film and all the things, one of the staff writers from the show has some snark for you.
God, minorities. Give them an inch, right?

...sigh.

What upsets me especially about all this is that these stupid shows are purportedly set in NYC, right? Diversity Capital of the US? Can't take one step without hearing a different language spoken? But somehow when yet another show set in that area is heralded for being "daring" and "real" and the "voice of a generation" it's always with the unspoken caveat that, well, it's real only if we suspend our disbelief and go along with the writers' premise that NYC is made up of mostly white people.

I have some aspiring tv writer type liberal friends based in the NY area who hang out with a diverse circle, and when I read their semi-autobiographical NYC script and see all of their characters are all mysteriously white without exception it's like, dslfjkskjkfdjk..!!! To be honest, it feels downright hurtful to me, like they're willfully excluding me from their created reality. It makes me wonder who they see when they hang out with me or any of their other non-white friends - do they just round me up to being a white person in their heads? I'm tired of nodding along and pretending that it isn't completely fucking absurd to have Brooklyn, which is only one-third white, look like this:

[Nidsstese]

I try REALLY HARD to write characters that can be cast with a minority actor and not have it matter (with caveats that moms and daughters should look like they are related). For example, my new play had a big male part and we cast a Korean guy in the part because he was really fucking good. Did I write the part for a Korean guy? No. I wrote the part for a male actor with chops. The part was open to anyone. Same with the female leads. I am proud to say that one of those roles went to a wonderful African American actress. It is not a maid, a nanny, or a fucking sassy fast food worker (if I see one more of those things, I SWEAR). I haven't written any ethnicity-specific roles yet, though that's changing with my next one.

I think white people get scared of writing ethnic characters. I think they're afraid that they will accidentally stereotype, so they avoid it. I get it. I do. However, if you are going to write a New York City narrative that takes place somewhere other than Certain Hoods on the Isle of Manhattan, you BEST have a fucking non-Caucasian in there somewhere. I live in a neighborhood that is comprised of the most diverse ethnic population in the world. My friends are like a rainbow coalition at this point. If I didn't include them in that, I should hope they would be dreadfully pissed off at me. It fucking pisses me off these girls had the opportunity to be inclusive and didn't take it.

[freeringtonesioo]

Looking at that picture, it struck me they've all got more or less the same hair colour and style too. No blondes, redheads, curly, black or short-haired girls in Brooklyn, either. Mid-mouse brown straight long hair folks only. It must be a Thing. An aesthetic. I have the horrible feeling someone somewhere thinks it's aspirational. I hate that.

Carol, are your writer friends conscious of the racial make-up of their characters? I mean, is a deliberate choice because they think TV only wants scripts about lily-white folks, or do you think they just subconsciously default to it?

[freeringtonesioo]

NO SHE DIDN'T. ARE YOU SERIOUS. OMG.

Well, I'm absolutely sure she didn't intend to be offensive. It's just that turds are brown and Obama is too. You know. Some people are just LOOKING to be offended.

[Nidsstese]

Well, I'm absolutely sure she didn't intend to be offensive. It's just that turds are brown and Obama is too. You know. Some people are just LOOKING to be offended.

I mean. No. Just...no.

[freeringtonesioo]

I mean. No. Just...no.

Do you think she's trying to be hipster-edgy? I only ask because THAT SHOW and what kind of moron would DO that?

[Nidsstese]

Do you think she's trying to be hipster-edgy? I only ask because THAT SHOW and what kind of moron would DO that?

Probably.

[JohnTruels]

Carol, do your writer friends conscious of the racial make-up of their characters? I mean, is a deliberate choice because they think TV only wants scripts about lily-white folks, or do you think they just subconsciously default to it?

I definitely think it's partly a subconscious thing and partly there's a fear, among white writers creating non-white characters, of bungling it up in some way that offends people. I was left feeling confused and wondering what was going through her head when I saw she had written a role that sounded uncannily like me, down to personality and school and everything.... only her name was Caitlin and she was blonde.

Kari, you make a good point with casting - you don't always need to go out of your way to "explain" or "justify" your character's race, they can just as easily be cast in a role that doesn't mention race at all. That's the whole point. *glares at Lena Dunham.*

[freeringtonesioo]

I definitely think it's partly a subconscious thing and partly there's a fear, among white writers creating non-white characters, of bungling it up in some way that offends people. I was left feeling confused and wondering what was going through her head when I saw she had written a role that sounded uncannily like me, down to personality and school and everything.... only her name was Caitlin and she was blonde.

I see, Caithole. I see.

[ValdisSeroff]

Good turnout at the Joanna Newsom cosplay convention this year huh.

eta: I'd legit like to know. Do people honest to god send out casting calls describing characters as specifically white on a regular basis? Because LOL. I sort of expect it but god.

[freeringtonesioo]

According to the Jez article, they certainly specify the races of the help. Help isn't white, just so you know.

[Nidsstese]

Kari, you make a good point with casting - you don't always need to go out of your way to "explain" or "justify" your character's race, they can just as easily be cast in a role that doesn't mention race at all. That's the whole point. *glares at Lena Dunham.*

It IS the whole point! As we transition to a more color blind, even-keeled society (well, we can at least pretend that blatant racism isn't back in vogue), there's NO REASON why the "most popular girl at school who dates the football player" can't be Chinese, no reason why the "Super nerdy guy who can't get a date" can't be African American, etc. It's all about context, too. When I wrote a play about evangelicals in rural Nebraska...I wasn't going to cast black actors in that. You know? But if it was evangelicals in NYC? Alabama? Then yes. You have to respect the demographics of PLACE. And if place=Brooklyn? Holy shit.

I really do get why writers don't want to write roles specifically for blacks, hispanics, etc. if they are - especially if they are - white. Any lapse in realism/accidental stereotyping would be pounced on relentlessly. You've got to do your research and be sensitive in your portrayals. That doesn't mean, however, you have an excuse to whitewash your casts entirely.

[Nidsstese]

I have mixed feelings about Dunham AND Apatow, but I am interested to see a critique of millenial women's lives and the sort of misguided shitshow it is to be a single woman in your 20's.

[q9h9pPne]

I have mixed feelings about Lena Dunham (director of Tiny Furniture), but I'm definitely planning on watching this. Anybody else? It premiers this Sunday on HBO.



“When I first started kissing boys,” [Dunham] said, “I remember noticing things, certain behaviors, where I thought, ‘There’s no way you learned that anywhere but on YouPorn.com. There’s no way any teenage girl taught you and reinforced that behavior.” — Naked in New York

As a person who has followed, for more than twenty years, recurrent, maddening *debates about the lives of young women, the series felt to me like a gift. Girls was a bold defense (and a searing critique) of the so-called Millennial Generation by a person still in her twenties. It was a sex comedy from the female POV, taking on subjects like STDs and abortion with a radical savoir-faire as well as a visual grubbiness that was a statement in itself. It embraced digital culture, and daily confession, as a default setting. Even before the Republican candidates adopted The Handmaid’s Tale as a platform, Dunham’s sly, brazen, graphic comedy, with its stress on female friendships, its pleasure in the sick punch line, its compassion for the necessity of making mistakes, felt like a retort to a culture that pathologizes feminine adventure. As my younger colleague Willa Paskin put it, the show felt, to her peers, FUBU: “for us by us.” — Lena Dunham’s new show is like nothing else on TV

Some people are nice. Some people are like, “I love it, she’s fat.” I’m prepared for it. Every time there’s an adjective that’s not the word “obese” I feel fine. The dream is that we get to a point where people can write about the sex without talking about the shape of the bodies having it. But we’re not even close to there. And if I can open up the dialogue on this topic I’m perfectly pleased. —Dunham: “Girls” sex scares men