Voices
at each often-humiliated, clueless, insulting, entitled female
character as an approximation
of me. Haven’t I heard? Girls is a
show written “for us by us.” To
which I can only respond: Are
you kidding me?
I’m not saying that we’re all
“supposed” to spend our 20s
doing one thing or another, and
that the show is unrealistic because it misrepresents what that
might be. Of course it’s unrealistic — it’s television. Nor am I under any illusion that your average
20-something spends his or her
time making solely rational decisions and never saying anything
stupid. But I can’t agree that the
characters’ behavior is normal.
And honestly, I can’t empathize
with it — at all.
Dunham objects to the idea
that characters have to be likable, which I’m on board with. I
don’t wish the characters in Girls
were more perfect, I just wish
they were less terrible. And I
bother wishing that because, apparently, they represent me.
Evidently I’m in the minority,
but I see a lot of things in them
that I don’t want at all. I don’t
wish my parents funded my life, I
don’t think it’s realistic to throw
NINA
BAHADUR
HUFFINGTON
01.27.13
yourself into your artistic endeavors without any sort of financial independence, and I have
never once wished my life were a
version of Sex and the City — or
wanted to do crack in Bushwick.
I don’t wish my parents
funded my life, and I don’t
think it’s realistic to throw
yourself into your artistic
endeavors without any sort of
financial independence. Does
this mean I am boring?”
Does this mean I am boring? Am
I not making the best use of my
early 20s?
Maybe what Dunham’s saying — about messy relationships,
about friendships, and about
bodies — is important, and I certainly don’t begrudge her the
chance to be heard. Maybe hers
is a voice of a generation — but
she doesn’t speak for me.
So, please don’t put her words
in my mouth. Truly, I never
want to be that kind of Girl.
Nina Bahadur is the assistant
editor of HuffPost Women.