Everyone raves about the TV show Girls. It's received numerous awards, critical acclaim and Lena Dunham is now the poster child for twenty-something women. Let me say first that I really enjoy the show - however, I really don't think it is anywhere near as representative of me or the people I know as it's apparently meant to be. It really annoys me when people make out it's exactly like reality, because it isn't. I don't particularly identify with the TV show Girls and here's why.
The TV show Girls is, of course, a TV show and it's not going to be totally realistic. But, when a series gets as much credit for realism as Girls has, I expect it to be a little more true to life. In the real world, if you don't have a job or you're working in a coffee shop, you're doing one of three things: moving back home immediately, living in an apartment that barely meets health and safety regulations or your parents are paying your rent. You definitely aren't living in the apartments that the women in Girls are living in.
Ok, so lots of people have that friend who just won't be tied down and is always planning where they'll flit off to next - like Jessa. On the other hand, they work when they're not travelling, save for months before they can go and don't generally come back married to a very wealthy businessman. When does that happen?!
Speaking of wealthy businessmen, am I the only person who thinks men are represented a bit unfairly in the series? They're either sociopaths or sappy. Oh, and conveniently most of them are also very successful (funny how Charlie went from a bit of a loser to the next Mark Zuckerberg overnight, wasn't it?). In reality, most men I've met have really just been like us.
This is one thing that I really hate about the show - when the lead characters experiment with drugs. Yes, some people do that. Lots of people expressly do not and I don't think this is the message that comes across.
Let's be honest, the girls in Girls? They're cool. Even quirky Shoshanna. Going to warehouse parties in New York and hanging out in art galleries? Archetypal cool. Most people I know are more likely to be in the pub on a Friday night.
Being offered a book deal out of nowhere, working in art curation - despite all the emphasis placed on rubbish, underpaid jobs, their dream careers seem to come to them more easily than they should. People work for years before they reach those places, not months.
Perhaps the series does represent my generation - but I think it's only a select part of it. The four characters, like the four actresses who play them, appear to have come from comfortable families who have the means to support them. This certainly is not always the case and the show is rarely, if ever, representative of that.
Despite all of the above, I think it's a great show and parts of it, like the friendships and the feeling of being a bit lost, I definitely can identify with. But overall, it's just a TV show. I don't know anyone whose life is actually like that. What do you think?