So, two unrelated television shows. For the four people who read this blog, I'm curious if you are watching these and if you are, what you think.
Girls (HBO).
Unless you live under a rock or don't care about TV or pop culture or whatever, you've heard about Lena Dunham's show Girls. I don't have HBO, but I watched the three episodes available online. Why get invested in a show that I can't see more of? Well, the talk and the buzz got to me. The conversation about Girls on, wait for it, NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is what really made me curious.
After three episodes, I can say that I like the show but dislike the characters. Well, I kind-of like them. I like then enough that I want to know what happens to them. Okay, I'm intrigued by them. Hannah's OBGYN expressed part of it: You couldn't pay me enough money to be 24 again. Because I agree. I remember being in my mid-20s and people telling me what a shitty age it was and I would get all defensive. I'd be all "I'm a grown-up and I know who I am, stop treating me like a child." And maybe some people saw me as entitled, but I don't think I believed the world owed me anything. (I'm sure there are plenty of people who would challenge that.) I was a Gen Xer. I think I was too cynical to be entitled.
Anyway, the attitude of entitlement that Hannah has is one of the big things I both like and dislike. Yes, Hannah is entitled, but I wonder if the character was written as a way to both satirize this and try to explain it. As Hannah tells her parents when they cut her off: She is trying to be the best person she can be. She is doing what everyone told her to do. She is trying to be who she is. She is trying to be the person that all the best schools told her she should be. She is special. She's going to be the voice--or at least one voice--of her generation.
How she figures out how to take care of herself is what intrigues me. But there is also part of me that thinks, "Been there, done that. Why do I want to watch a rich kid try to figure out how to take care of herself?" I guess because it's just plain entertaining.
After three episodes, I wish I had HBO because I would like to know how this show plays out... but I don't care enough to pay for HBO.
Finding Your Roots (PBS).
Is anyone else watching this? I love this show. So very much. Simple put, it follows the ancestry of famous people. it's similar in concept to Who Do You Think You Are on NBC. I've seen the one on NBC, but I prefer Finding Your Roots. Finding Your Roots is just as much about the history of our country as is it about the ancestry of famous people.
*edit: I had a different version of this post up earlier. I rewrote parts of it because I decided I sounded like an idiot. Maybe I still do.
3 comments:
I'm one of four, what do you know.
I have not watched either of those shows, although I do enjoy tracing families.
Keep writing!
Jenny
I love "Finding Your Roots" but keep forgetting what night it airs. I watched the mini-series they did last year (or was it the year before?) and thoroughly enjoyed all the parallels they found between the participants -- very interesting stuff. I've seen the NBC version, too -- I have to say, that one's more restrained than I expected, I figured they'd play up the melodramatic stuff a bit more than they do.
Haven't seen "Girls" yet, but imagine my response will be similar to yours. You couldn't pay me enough to be 24 again, either.
Finding Your Roots is on Sunday nights. You can also watch them online.
I've been able to see all of the episodes of Girls through OnDemand. After four episodes, I think I am hooked.
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