I am wondering about the attacks on "Girls" by Jessica Valenti in her tweets and in the pages of The current New Yorker. Jessica Valenti was a guest on The Nation cruise and did not impress me (She may have been sick, I don't know) and her tweets are always full of gratuitous profanity. Lena Dunham and her writers are being accused of racism. How come? I mean, why them and not Seinfeld, for instance, or Woody Allen? How come Larry David is OK in spite of the awful things he says? Oh yes, but it's all in fun. Even the outrageous Sarah Silverman gets away with being genuinely nasty, because she is so obviously not serious on any level.The rules for white girls are pretty clear. They can be silly and frivolous. They can have black gal pals as sassy sidekicks. They can talk about clothes, shoes, and MEN. They can be discounted. But to be flawed individuals who say and do foolish things but are serious about themselves and their friends? Who put themselves at the center of their own lives?That is taboo, it seems. I hope all this negativity will not put an end to this quite fascinating show. Sure, I think most women are grown up by the time they get into their 20's, but many aren't. While we laud immaturity in young men (and even in old men) we find it horrible in women and even dangerous, but as "Girls" shows, the endangered ones are the young women themselves who don't yet have the means to cope with what the world throws at them.
Like everyone else these days I've seen a lot of films, a lot of television too, and this is the first program that in any way reminds me of this period of my life: the late teens and early 20's.
Oh, and Lena Dunham mentions among her favorite reads Mary Gaitskill and Alain De Botton. I consider them so eccentric, and it thrills me to think that Dunham likes them too.

Comments

[TheQueen]

I so loved this show I brought it up at kunch before the men got to the tavle. I quoted the line about how women shouldn't dictate what other women should do in bed. "What if I want to feel as if I have an udder?"

No one laughed.

I thought it was hilarious.