lena-dunham

'Ghetto Defendant': A Girls Recap

John Cook · 05/29/12 04:15PM

The appropriate response to Girls, a television show about a Cuban nightclub entertainer, his hapless wife, and the wacky couple downstairs, is to set yourself on fire outside of Leon Panetta's office. But any attempt to blunt the raw plenary power of the executive to kill with abandon is ultimately futile, and yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the U.S. release of Combat Rock, so here's a recap.

'Kids Don't Follow': A Girls Recap

John Cook · 05/21/12 04:06PM

The appropriate response to Girls, a television program about two sets of high school outcasts—the "freaks," who wear army fatigues and smoke cigarettes, and the "geeks," who like Monty Python—is to hold your children close and promise them you'll be home more. But today is Biggie Smalls' birthday, and Gotye's too, so here is a recap.

'I Just Want Your Fresh Young Jimmy': A Girls Recap

John Cook · 05/14/12 01:45PM

The appropriate response to Girls, a television program about a bachelor who pretends to be gay in order to live with two attractive female roommates without arousing the suspicions of his conservative landlord, is to turn off the TV and read Capitalism and Schizophrenia on the toilet. But it's David Byrne's birthday, so here is a recap.

I Just Want Some Skank: A Girls Recap

John Cook · 05/07/12 04:05PM

The appropriate response to Girls, a television program about networked mobile digital displays, the nature of freedom, and millions of callow, navel-gazing shits on a halting, fumbling journey toward adulthood, is to press pause and use the bathroom. But today is the 51st birthday of Motörhead guitarist Philip Campbell, so here is a recap.

My War: A Girls Recap

John Cook · 04/30/12 02:35PM

The appropriate response to Girls, a television program about whiteness, Twitter, and the irreducible sexual magnetism of abusive men, is to drown your mobile phone in the bathtub. But you need to call your mother, and today is the 21st anniversary of Nirvana signing to Geffen, so here's a recap.

Hipster Racism Runoff And The Search for The Black Costanza

cord jefferson · 04/27/12 06:45PM

Another week, another episode of Girls with no black people, another Gawker Media piece about why it's fucked up to not include black people in your show about New York, another article from angry neocons attacking Gawker Media. The dust Lena Dunham's new HBO show has managed to kick up thus far is remarkable in light of its relatively average ratings. But it's also noteworthy because far fewer people seemed to care when the crimes of which the show is accused happened before—many times. Though it's taken on different iterations throughout the years, the white-ified TV New York City has served as a backdrop for lots of America's most beloved programs, and there is no sign that that trend is slowing. Hate Girls all you want, but recognize that Dunham is following a precedent that started even before she was born.

A Girls Writer's Ironic Racism And Other 'White People Problems'

Max Read · 04/20/12 05:08PM

This week, on the internet, we are talking about 25-year-old prodigy Lena Dunham's new HBO show Girls and race. (Girls and gender was last week's topic. Keep up.) On Monday, after the show's premiere, Jenna Wortham wrote on the Hairpin about her disappointment in the show's overwhelming whiteness: "[T]hese girls... are beautiful, they are ballsy, they are trying to figure it out... I just wish I saw a little more of myself on screen, right alongside them."

'Small Girl Big Mouth': A Girls Recap

John Cook · 04/16/12 12:25PM

Today is Ian MacKaye's 50th birthday so I guess it's as good a time as any to realize you hate young people. Girls is a television program about the children of wealthy famous people and shitty music and Facebook and how hard it is to know who you are and Thought Catalog and sexually transmitted diseases and the exhaustion of ceaselessly dramatizing your own life while posing as someone who understands the fundamental emptiness and narcissism of that very self-dramatization. This is a recap of it.

All of the Same Things We Keep Hearing About Girls, Lena Dunham's New HBO Show

Leah Beckmann · 03/26/12 05:11PM

What's Opening in Theaters Today

Richard Lawson · 11/12/10 05:47PM

Friday is the most exciting day, because it means drinking, yes, but also movies! What should you see? Well, there are twee indies, a commercial-sweet romantic comedy, and a thriller about an unstoppable train that will probably prove stoppable.