Nia-Simone Woods is a writer and reproductive health researcher based in the Washington D.C. area.
Girls (HBO, 2012-2017) has been a favorite series of mine since its initial airing one decade ago, despite the long documented controversies surrounding its content, creator, and nearly-colorless depiction of Brooklyn. At its core, it is a show about millennials and friendship and the uncertainty of one’s early to mid-20s—all within the backdrop of one of the most chaotic cities in the U.S. I watched the show for the first time at the age of 15 and I am thankful to say that my interpretation of it shifts with each annual rewatch.
A quad of young women recently graduated from college work to create lives for themselves in New York—relatable. I use the term “work” loosely here, as nearly every character has the privilege to rely on their parents’ financial support, whenever needed. We watch the main characters, Hannah, Jessa, Marnie and Shoshanna straddle the line of extraordinary and mediocre, willing themselves to become something, whether by force or calculation. While the objective of their journeys shift based on the specific quad member’s personality, an emphasis on romantic relationships and professional positioning remain central for them all. Each character gets a taste, at least once, of what they initially imagined for their lives. But for one reason or another, almost none carry it through to fruition by the end of the six seasons.
In a behind-the-scenes interview with HBO, Girls series creator and star, Lena Dunham (Hannah Horvath) poses an idea to explain the characters’ tameless pursuits of success. She suggests that almost nothing a person does, except for extraordinary accomplishment, is seen as precocious beyond a certain point of development—the period specifically chronicled throughout the series.
Hannah, the poster woman-child
By our early-to-mid-twenties, we are generally considered to be wards of our own reality, no longer the responsibilities of parents or schools that cushion the launch into adulthood. Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, and Jessa occupy a paradox of attempting to hold onto a dwindling precocity while growing into the understanding that few people will actually care what they do in their lives beyond a certain point, either way. They are not children, even if they do not yet feel like adults, and their successes and failures will be their own to make peace with.
We see this most clearly in the experiences of aspiring essayist and self-proclaimed provocateur, Hannah (portrayed by Dunham) who often finds herself tangentially within the sphere of her desires, even if they are never fully realized. Dunham initially made the precarity statement in reference to Hannah’s writing career, though the idea is extendable to all of the other characters’ struggles with external validation and personal satisfaction.
In Season 2, viewers watch start out seeing a hopeful Hannah handle the reward of her first e-book deal, followed by a brief stint as make-believe housewife to a successful, middle-aged Brooklyn doctor. This rosy haze is abruptly paused after the passing of her publisher, shelving of her project, and reconnection with her abusive ex-boyfriend, Adam.
This cycle is repeated in Season 3 as she lands an advertorial job housed at Harper’s Bazaar magazine, and things begin to meet her standards in her relationship with Adam. Her initial idea of professional success is forced to evolve again when she is accepted to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and decides to move halfway across the country. The opportunity is at least a part of what she envisioned for her life. So, she accepts it—requiring her to move away from the life she had built for herself in New York. When she eventually returns, she learns Adam has found a new love interest.
By Season 4, the show’s allure began to wear off for me. Some of the stories had become redundant and the characters appeared stagnant in their journeys. As I got older, I no longer had to imagine a life away from my suburb and high school, and there was increasing availability of television centering more relatable twenty-something content. In some ways, as I began to further my own identity and learn more about the world around me, the series’ socially-dismissive nature became incredibly annoying. It’s possible, even, that in other ways, it was beginning to resonate a little too much, losing its usefulness in the process. Regardless, the show’s significance had already proven itself in most formative years and always left a soft spot.
Hannah torments herself in the avoidance of what she deems a boring and mediocre life, oblivious to the fact that her decisions make very little impact on the journeys of those around her—the same people she attempts to create distance between as she pursues a more aspirational life, as she deems it. Their lives continue to take form regardless of what she does and in the end, they generally demonstrate that they care very little about what she does as long as it doesn’t negatively impact them.
People in the Universe
While Hannah clumsily goes through her silos, the other girls stumble through their own. Jessa makes a self-perpetuating spectacle of herself as she navigates sobriety issues, a short-lived marriage to a self-important venture capitalist, and eventually, a tumultuous relationship with Adam (yep, he’s ran through). Then there’s Marnie, a neurotic people pleaser who tries to make sense of a career change from the art world into music, a spontaneous marriage to a narcissist, and the re-emergent hoverings of an emotionally-manipulative mother. Shoshanna, decidedly less immersed in the drama of the others, oscillates through multiple career disappointments before starting a new life in Japan. At times, she appears to be the most self-assured of the group. She welcomes a gradual separation from the quad as she realizes their hindrance on her development.
There’s a vague understanding that these women are friends. They at least have been in the past. They occasionally demonstrate a desire to be, despite the varied directions their lives take them. There's love there, maybe, between the baggage. Even Hannah’s parents walk a path of quiet insecurity. In their mid-fifties (?), these supposedly assured adults have to readjust again and again. They grapple with a newly realized sexuality, and a change in purpose as a result of their only child reaching financial independence.
In short, everyone had entirely too much going on in their own lives to be overly invested in the decisions of Hannah beyond providing advice and (occasionally) being there for moral support. As I have experienced in my own navigation of friendships and familial relationships, I generally resonate with this aspect of the series more with each (re)watch.
While the self-absorption of each of the characters prevents them from fully understanding this idea until the end of the series, they eventually arrive at the conclusion that the people around them care less about what they do and more about how they treat them, contribute to their growth or show up in times of distress, no matter how trivial.
Girls in Real Life
Girls is a relic of a certain time and set of priorities on television. It’s no secret that the series centered upper middle class cishet white women during the cusp of one of the most socially fragmented points in recent history. A starkly Obama-era tone visibly reflects who the intended audience was. This was more apparent during some of the more obtuse moments in the series: Jessa making a stop-and-frisk joke in reference to her arrest for public urination less than a year after widespread racial protests concerning police brutality in the US; the constant financial security and safety of each of the often-unemployed main characters despite living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, etc. These scenarios, and the haziness of writer’s intent behind them, can serve as one of the reasons the show so often missed the mark in the ways that it did.
The show would frequently introduce sensitive topics that would benefit from being properly explored on a large platform but exclusively served as a plot device without ever being fully addressed or fleshed out. Many of the topics and scenarios presented, as with most, had many racial and gendered implications but were left completely unraveled. (Example: Jessa's conflict with a fellow resident of her rehab program, portrayed by Danielle Brooks, in Season 3; the sexual abuse scene between Adam and Natalia in Season 2; Charlie's one-episode reeemergence in Season 5, when he is revealed to have a heroin addiction).
This is not to say that the series should have become a PSA for racism, drug addiction, or sexual violence. I do, however, believe it is irresponsible to introduce these subjects without so much as a one liner drawing attention to their possibly destructive impact or how the main characters' race and class influenced the interactions.
As a Black woman, however, the interpretation of the characters’ realizations sits a bit differently for me. While I do believe everyone should have the right and freedom to create the life they desire, I, personally, do not have the privilege or desire to do so without the inclusion of or consideration for those I am in community with. This is in direct contrast to Hannah’s decision to take a job as a professor in upstate New York with her (Brown) child, leaving most of the people she knew behind with little to no contact or reference. Without the pursuit of external validation of success, and subsequent desire to live a life reminiscent of external standards, there is space to create your own without limit. Limitations are luckily defined by individuals.
“You can be my white Kate Moss tonight” changed me