HBO’s Girls: 24 Is the New 13

By Austen Brooks Let’s talk about sex: in five episodes, we’ve seen three of our four Girls in the act and one get close. Writer/director/star Lena Dunham’s scenes are the most explicit, to the point of discomfort; but then again, so is the rest of the show. Is it Dunham’s goal to suggest that being a girl in her 20’s is more uncomfortable than an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm? More awkward than puberty? As her gynecologist tells Hannah mid-examination, “You couldn’t pay me to be 24 again.” HBO’s Girls has been touted as a sort of Sex in the City: The Lost Generation. I’d like to think that upon closer inspection, Girls resists this niche, but the comparison is enticing nonetheless. Instead of Carrie we have Lena Dunham’s hopefully hopeless Hannah, an aspiring writer and the show’s protagonist. Filling Samantha’s stilettos is the sardonic and sexified Jessa (Jemima Kirke). Type-A uptight Marnie functions as the show’s Miranda; Allison Williams plays Hannah’s rock. Rounding out the bunch is Zosia Mamet as wide-eyed Shoshannah, Brooklyn’s Charlotte. I suppose it’s cheapening to put the characters in terms of their predecessors because they do compellingly stand on their own; I don’t see this [...]