Girls, Revisited

It seemed weirdly epic, Sunday night, to be sitting in the dark in K's apartment, binge-watching Season 5 of Girls in preparation for that night's premiere of the final season.  Back in 2013 I wrote about feeling like an 'emerging adult' as I handed in my master's thesis on the show, and now, in 2017, more endings and more beginnings are emerging for me. It's been 3.5 years since leaving Denmark, a year with K, 3 years at Twitter, 3 months since leaving, 3 weeks since the Trump era has begun. So much has changed since that blog post, and yet I still find myself wanting to find some full-circle niceties on which to judge the interim.

still self-satisfied, always wanting more 

Like Hannah, Marnie, Jessa, and Shoshanna's world, my circumstances have changed and I'm older, but the patterns of progress and closure still feel messy. Unlike them, though, I hope (to god) I've evolved more than they have. Marred by immaturity, obliviousness, and lack of self-awareness, the girls of Girls are just barely adults after 6 years, yet I keep watching the train wreck for the few, sublime moments of heart that Lena Dunham pulls off. What continues to fascinate me about the storytelling of the show is that the characters, while perhaps caricatures of people, are inexorably who they are. This is different from saying they know who they are, but they chase after some vision of what they want, at all costs. This kind of storytelling is bold; it may diverge from realism into satire, but there's a certain steadfast adherence to depicting the messiness of emerging adulthood in the show's style, stories, protagonists, and comedy that I admire.

It would do me well, in this time in my life, to appreciate that I may not ever be done, baked, out of the oven. I want to remember my former appreciation of the process, not outcome, of adulthood, as I described in the blog post. It's hard to remember, much less accept, that change can feel like crisis, loss, or adventure, and that curiosity eschews closure. These notions are hard for us as we settle into our adult lives, where bank account zeros and career achievements and personal milestones start to feel more like must-haves than guidelines. But believing in the process (especially creatively) means taking risks, and this gets harder as we start to decide, 'well, this is it, this is my life.'

Today, though, on a walk in the sun with icicles dripping off roofs and a podcast in my ear, I vowed to remember my potential to change for the better. Instead of nostalgia for the grad school days of being broke and wistful, I'm choosing to see the past three years as a continuation of emergence into that flow of adulthood. My Danish may be rusty but I'm fluent in queer. I may not long to see all the movies all the time, but maybe I've consumed enough stories to know how to tell a good one someday. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

The Core of Togetherness, and Me

Recently a certain someone giggled when I told her that the reason I dreamed of studying film was because of the Lord of the Rings special features. Yup, in high school my sister and I would watch "Cameras in Middle Earth" over and over, and not just for the fun of watching Legolas swing up onto that Oliphaunt.  I loved learning how tricky camera angles and painstaking animation work transformed Tolkien's words on the screen. So in giggling, she reminded me, rightfully so, that I am a (film) nerd. Somehow, though, over the past few years, I have misplaced that excitement, and that makes me nervous.

In HBO's Togetherness, Brett has also misplaced his. A father of two young kids and a saccharine but somewhat distant husband, Brett finds his life somewhat lackluster. He's a sound editor for the movies, and watching his friend Alex and sister-in-law Tina struggle financially has lulled him into inertia. In the first season, a memorable scene features him throwing a bit of a tantrum during a long film editing session because he's hungry (but really because the director doesn't like his attempt at some original sound-mixing). As Alex's career takes off in the second season, and after a brief confession of infidelity by Brett's wife blindsides him, Brett spins out in desperation; to cope with the news he follows Alex on a convalescent pilgrimage to their hometown of Detroit. There, they fall into the typical regression into boyhood, but it's fruitful thanks to a dug-up time capsule that contains a letter from teenage Brett and Alex to their adult selves. In it, they beg their future selves not to "be lulled into a mediocrity like everyone else and to remember our vow to stay true to the spirit of life." It's a majestic scene that contends with something so essential; the worry that in adulthood, we fork ourselves over to our numbing responsibilities.

Regressing means thrift store suits

Despite its naivete, the core of their adolescent wish resonates with me--someone who's seen their interests morph over time. Five years ago, film and culture dictated my passionate disposition and geographic location, but now I find myself less enthusiastic about those things -- so is the question that the core of me is muted, or has it merely changed? On the one hand, I'm nostalgic for the days I thought I knew what I loved. On the other, I think maybe I should accept that interests evolve but don't have to segment into disconnected pieces. Maybe my desire for pop culture informs my job in social media, which informs certain social justice leanings.

More recently, though, I think I've been conflating complacency with fear, and that's where it gets perilous. As a fascist presidential candidate gets more and more amplified thanks to our 24/7 news cycle, I wonder if I'm being paranoid, thinking that being complacent means I'm part of the problem, as a propagator and consumer of mass media. Am I a bystander of this terrifying political climate, or are my media habits actually doing some harm? Furthermore, have I lost all perspective on my core by being so exposed to media, something I've always been interested in?

Maybe it's a matter of rewatching Mr. Robot to assuage my guilty conscience.

Mr. Robot and my guilty conscience

Permit me to explode for a moment about Mr. Robot, USA's remarkable summer series about unreliable narrator Elliot (Rami Malek) and his hacker involvement in taking down corporations.

This show is un-effing-believable. And not just because we have a hard time believing Elliot. It's visually stunning, morally argumentative, powerfully written and narratively captivating. Think Fight Club and American Psycho and A Clockwork Orange for 2015, in a 10-episode serialized form.

What I love most about this show is Elliot's unabashed, paranoid take-down of capitalism, corporate America and the hyper-connectivity of our world. There are several standout characters, including Tyrell with his Swedish chill (the excellent Martin Wallström), and Mr. Robot himself, but Elliot is the most compelling (and confusing). As a skilled hacker whose delusions fuel his drive both to destroy and also unite, Elliot's world is scattered and disjointed yet webbed like a computer security network, bits and pieces whirring together. He's an angry young man who hates greed and people and in his extreme loneliness he may or may not have the means to destroy both these things. I won't spoil it, but the question of what's real nowadays, for Elliot and hence the viewer, is ever wavering after the explosive finale.

This show unhinged me a bit this week. His stance on social media (as well as consumerism, naiveté and a host of other social maladies) is that it's an infectious disease--super spreadable and toxic. Complacency through social media leads to laziness which leads to helplessness and mental illness. It's a strong viewpoint to be fair, but it left me nevertheless extremely conflicted about how networked my life is, personally and professionally.

Here's the thing about Mr. Robot. I watched it relentlessly, captivated, glued to the TV while trying to avoid spoilers on Twitter. But as soon as a huge plot point or character reveal happened (ummmm BD Wong as the White Rose?? Wut that was amazing!) I wanted to tweet my heart out with others watching. Thus employing what Elliot denounces. Thus buying into the system he crusades against. Sam Esmail, the creator of the show, seems to be using Mr. Robot as a platform for his brutalist perspective on the world, yet he nevertheless has a platform entirely supported by advertising to get his message across (ie, basic cable broadcasting). Such a morally complicated narrative would be a no-brainer fit somewhere like HBO or Showtime, whose subscribers dictate the kind of stories told on the channel, not like USA.  Which is why this show fascinates me - it actively calls out the evils of advertising/corporations/the 1% even though those things are its foundation. That this particular show exists on basic cable makes me think of Brutalist architect Le Corbusier's Pilotis pillars (PS do he and Sam Esmail share a philosophical brain?), those concrete columns that hold up stories upon stories of concrete.  If those pillars crumble, so does the whole structure, but they are deceptively, relentless strong. So is capitalism. So is advertising. So is Mr. Robot.

 Pilotis : brutalism :: advertising : Mr. Robot

I can't wait for the next season.

"Looking" just wants to exist

You may know that I'm a huge fan of Girls, so much so that I wrote 85 pages on it. So when HBO slotted Looking into the Sunday night spot after Girls, I enthusiastically started comparing the two: "Looking is the gay Girls!" "Replace New York with San Francisco and Lena Dunham with Jonathan Groff, and it's the same series!"

Patrick and Richie have a pretty awesome date. 

But despite similar premises (a group of friends trying to make it work in love, career, and play), Looking and Girls are actually quite different. If Girls wants to alienate, Looking just wants to exist. After five compelling episodes, Looking has constructed a narrative for its protagonists (Dom, Patrick and Augustin) that feels decidedly OK--not alienating, problematic, or harsh in the way that Girls treats its characters with (empathetic) disdain. The boys have jobs that are just fine, relationships that are maybe a little lackluster, and designs for their futures that they may or may not execute--and therein lies the dramatic tension. Queer as Folk, the most similar series about a group of gay men, featured a hostile, homophobic outside world that the characters were constantly struggling against. That series went off the air ten years ago--and now, in Looking, the fact that there's not much homophobia or discrimination in the characters' world signals just how much has changed. Now, Patrick, Dom, and Augustin are just free to exist and figure themselves out. This banalizing force is refreshing because it means not only that queer lives are no longer problematic on screen, but also that the true character work to be done in the narrative will be internally, and not societally, motivated. For example, last's night's message-in-a-bottle episode spent a day with Patrick and his new boyfriend Richie on their first real date. The tone is meandering and explorative as the connection builds and subtle character differences arise. Tough topics are broached, like dating someone who's positive or coming out to family, but the real tension is in how, and to what ends, Patrick and Richie reveal themselves to one another. In Girls, those revelations usually lead to emotional explosions, but in Looking, they just happen.

I think this ease of story feels so different now because we are still in the age of the televisual male antihero: Walter White, Hank Moody, Don Draper, and newcomer Rust Cohle from True Detective, to name a few. These characters rage against their lot, both stunted and propelled by their deep character flaws and philosophical positions. It's the me-against-everything-else-including-myself pattern, but in Looking, perhaps it's more the me-with-everything-else story. And frankly, I'd much rather watch Patrick try to understand why his longest relationship is five months than see Walter White stagger into the monstrosities of his own making; the former just feels more authentic, somehow. Maybe it's because we all just want to exist?

It's not a phase, it's a process.

This morning, as I clicked "save as PDF" on my masters thesis, I brought an end to my formal education. The funny thing is, I don't feel like anything is ending. I wrote my thesis on emerging adulthood in HBO's Girls, and now, thesis done, at twenty-six and officially beyond the official age restriction by which developmental psychologists categorize emerging adults (18-25), I no longer feel allowed to use that label for myself. But I'm still emerging.

Emerging adults live their twenties in a state of exploration-of careers, relationships, friendships, worldviews, travels-without settling on one life pattern. It's a documented period of upheaval, intense setbacks and overhauling questions of identity, but it also is a time of great freedom and ambition. Emerging adults constantly ask, who am I and what will I become? None of this is comforting, nor should it be. The only saving grace is that we hope, one day, it will all resolve itself.

But my thesis has perhaps showed me otherwise. The crux of my argument revolves around the fact that Girls may be proof that emerging adulthood is not a phase of life to get through, but rather a process. As Hannah, Marnie, Jessa and Shoshanna try on different identities for size, their narratives of self-exploration lead not necessarily to a clear and confident sense of self, but rather to a transformation of that self and, paradoxically, a lack of closure. The way the narrative works doubles this impulse, by accumulating moments based on emotions rather than plot. Things that come seemingly out of nowhere shift the story in directions no one saw coming, but these moments make everything feel more human--and messy. It is as if the entire series, in character and story pattern, is working away from enlightenment and towards confusion. Or at least change. Instead of funneling constantly towards conclusion, Girls investigates the middle of a cycle without hinting at the end of it. The narrative of emerging adulthood, in Girls and my own life, is ultimately not a phase but a process.

So, using my age and finished education to mark an abrupt end to my emerging adulthood is silly, because I can't declare myself "done" and "adult" when the phase itself is actually just a process that potentially never ends. Maybe the real rite of passage out of emerging adulthood and into full adulthood is not the formative threshold one crosses--a degree, owning a home, a marriage, kids--but the moment when you realize that you, as a person, are constantly in production.

Perhaps recognizing that this is a process is actually the first real step in leaning towards, or actually acknowledging, my adulthood. I actually really enjoyed the process of writing the thesis, whatever the outcome. So I'm trying to listen to that feeling of staying in the present in my writing, to dive into the uncertainty with a disregard for any concluding significance the process might generate. As I emerge as an adult and a writer, maybe this uncertainty of process is actually the key to everything.

I'm almost getting it kind of together.

This is why I love Girls.

Note: I am currently writing my masters thesis at the University of Copenhagen on the realism in HBO's Girls. What follows is the first of probably many musings on the series as I attempt to work my way around its complexity. Bear with me. 

This is why I love Girls. 

Hannah tells Adam: "I don't even want a boyfriend. I just want someone who wants to hang out all the time, and thinks I'm the best person in the world, and wants to have sex with only me." 

The fluidity, weirdness, and unsteadiness of the romantic relationships in the series epitomize the confusion we girls/women have in our mid-twenties. No one wants to commit but they want intimacy anyways, the sex is disappointing, and self-doubt and insecurity may prevent us from realizing who is truly good for us at this age. 

Gone are the late teen years, when everything felt like an angst-y yet somehow carefree, monumental game. Now, pressure to "figure out who you are" comes internally, as if we're bursting from the seams, because we're sick of being unsure. So we try on personalities to see if they stick. Hannah, an aspiring writer who talks about writing much more than she writes, does everything for The Story, accumulating experiences and tough skin. Jessa is "unsmoteable" when it comes to sex but can't get the rest of her life in order, and Marnie thinks she knows who she is until she dumps Charlie and loses her job, at which point she's not so sure. 

I don't just love Girls because of self-identification; it's not just because I see parts of myself in the female characters. Because doesn't every narrative strive for some type of sympathy or empathy? What I love about Girls is its ability to show the commonplace, un-showable awkwardness of life for people in their twenties. 

Especially the awkwardness of sex. No one seems to know how to have great sex at this age - and Girls shows just how true this is. From the first episode, awkward sexuality rears its head: Adam, Hannah's casual fling, commands her to lie on her stomach, hold her legs up behind her, and stay there while he grabs lube - and he'll "consider" getting a condom. Then he proceeds to have sex with her in that clearly uncomfortable position on the couch, while she talks her way through her discomfort, and Adam tells her to play the quiet game. Clearly, sex and communication are both murky waters here. 

Then there's Charlie's coddling love for Marnie, who finds it suffocating. She wants a real man instead, maybe like Booth Jonathan, who gets her so hot that she goes and masturbates in the office of the art gallery where she works. This, by itself, has made a lot of people uncomfortable, because we're apparently not supposed to see female sexuality displayed in this manner on tv. But in Season 2, episode 3, it gets more uncomfortable in a different way: Booth's dominating masculinity is laughable as he straddles her on his hipster bed. She can't help but burst out laughing when it's over - all that bravado came to this terrible sex?  For Shoshanna, it's her virginity that takes center stage, and stamps her like a pariah (she wants to be so much more than her inexperience, but she exudes it). For Jessa, sex with multiple partners is linked to her wandering - she's good at superficial encounters, but she needs guidance in the rest of her life. 

This terrible sex (which also features Lena Dunham's bravery of showing her very normal, not supermodel naked body), has so much honesty that it feels true and also absurd. And that's why it's funny. It's not quite the Cringe Comedy epitomized by Ricky Gervais and The Office, because we're not laughing at the characters' own social ineptitude, flaws, or lack of self-awareness. The girls of Girls have all of those things, but the comedy doesn't target them. It's an "I've been there" comedy that is deeply sympathetic and honest about how hard it is to make sense of it all, inside and outside the bedroom.

This awkwardness of sexual encounters is the most acute example of what makes this series progressive. In the evolution of sex on screen, we've moved from censorship and ellipses to gratuitous sexuality and the fantasy of the sex symbol. But even in the quality drama currently on cable, sex is rarely honest. Too often it's a plot device or a time for gazing. Rarely does it show a less-than-perfect body. But in Girls it fills the characters with honesty, because it capitalizes on insecurities, miscommunications, and messy expectations--therefore showing just how human they are. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, sex presents these women as an extension of their personalities, desires, and big questions. This works quite well for the show's realism, because what other place is more honest than the bedroom? Yet in a setting that film and television usually marks as matters of "private life," in Girls the striving for intimacy (and often not achieving it) is an exposure technique that takes young women's private lives into the public sphere. This is because sex is sex, but it also becomes a metaphor for the uncertainty of the young female mind, with all the pressures, hangups, misgivings, signals, and overwhelming everythingness of being a 24-year-old woman. So thanks, Lena Dunham, for showing the world what it's like to be us, inside-out.