"Girls"

So you may have heard that the new HBO show, "Girls," is the new hotness, the new voice of the Zeitgeist, the new celebration of feminism, and the new profound diagnosis of the problems of 20-somethings. Etc. For example:

People can’t stop talking about “Girls.”

The HBO series about 20-somethings living in New York is an instant social-media phenomenon, says the company that tracks Internet chatter.

More than 200,000 people took to social media to talk about the show on Sunday, the day of its debut on HBO.

The first episode, if you care to watch, is available here. 

But I can save you a little time. 

The show is a direct descendent of the show "Sex and the City". That show, which was for a rather long time also the new hotness, the voice of the Zeitgeist, yada yada, showed good-looking people talking about and having (mostly) good sex.

"Girls" shows (mostly) unattractive people talking--endlessly and stupidly--about and having awkward, humiliating, bad sex. 

Comments

[John S.]

I don't think this show is as trivial as you make it sound. It does seem to capture the Zeitgeist, and maybe the 20-something Weltanschauung too. In the first episode (the only one I've seen, since I don't have HBO) the parents of the main character inform her that they will no longer provide financial support. She is then fired from her internship after she asks to be paid. The rest of the episode was about her struggle to deal with all that.

Some of it was humorous, but there was an undercurrent of sadness -- the same sadness I feel when I look at my own children, who are struggling to start their lives in a crappy economy.