By Brett Yates
posted
Apr 25, 2012
Back in 2002, there was a movie called "Orange County" that
seemed at the time to epitomize Hollywood nepotism: it was a
moderately amusing teen comedy about wannabe-writer, played by
Colin Hanks (son of Tom Hanks), and his girlfriend, played by
Schuyler Fisk (daughter of Sissy Spacek), and it was directed by
Jake Kasdan, the son of Lawrence Kasdan, who directed "The Big
Chill." The main character, Shaun, despises the brainless wealth of
Southern California and dreams of going to Stanford to study under
his favorite novelist, but due to a clerical error the school
rejects him. The movie is about his quest to have the decision
overturned. Ultimately, Shaun's father donates a few million to
Stanford, which must, at that point, give in.
Ten years later, "Orange County" has found its East Coast analogue:
HBO's new series "Girls" is the epitome of New York nepotism. It
was created by its lead actress, 25-year-old Lena Dunham, daughter
of the artist Laurie Simmons. Allison Williams, the daughter of NBC
news anchor Brian Williams, plays her roommate, and Zosia Mamet,
daughter of the playwright David Mamet, plays her cousin. Jemima
Kirke, daughter of a British rock star, plays her British friend.
This, too, is the story of a wannabe-writer. At the end of the
first episode, you hear some music by a singer who sounds a lot
like Paul Simon - but if you look up the song, you'll find out that
it's actually the product of Preston Simon, Paul's son. At this
point, you begin to wonder whether the nepotism thing hasn't become
some self-mocking in-joke.
One thing that must be nice about being the progeny of famous
people is that, somehow, it creates lower expectations for you. One
might think it'd do the opposite - after all, you're probably the
spawn of someone talented, and you probably went to the best
schools and had your artistic talents nurtured and all that, so you
should be pretty great - but the truth is that, when your parents
are celebrities, people assume that your parents are the only
reason you're on TV and that surely you possess no gifts of your
own. So when it turns out that "Girls" has a few funny lines, and
the performances are kind of good, it's a total shock.
Which is not to say that "Girls" lives up to its pre-debut hype,
which was so excessive as to seem to have been concocted especially
to turn people against it. Great, a show about rich, whiny brats
halfheartedly pursuing artistic professions in New York City - a
culturally underexposed social stratum for sure, right? And of
course the New York media is fawning over it - like we don't have
enough shows about white people living there.
The curse of the overprivileged, with their poetry-and-ballet
childhoods, is that it's they who desire the most to create art -
yet it's their voice, above all, that pretty much no one wants to
hear: and it's their experience that is the most irrelevant to
everyone else's experience of living, it's the least interesting,
when represented honestly, and the least profound. This curse is,
of course, mitigated by the fact that the tiny population of folks
who do want to hear their voices and do relate to them consists
almost entirely of critics writing for the New York Times.
Anyway, "Girls" isn't unwatchable, but it's (predictably) one of
those shows that's more intent on being relevant - it's always
making references to texting, Facebook, the recession - than it is
on being funny. Dunham's stated goal is to fill in that vital gap
between the teens of "Gossip Girls" and the professional women of
"Sex and the City" - as though this were the place where most
twentysomethings currently find themselves: in transit between an
Upper East Side private school and a downtown cocktail lounge. The
difference between her show and its predecessors, though, is that
they were unabashedly fabulous, unattainably glamorous fantasies -
hence their popularity - whereas "Girls," whose ratings have been
so-so, is supposed to depict the (slightly) gritty reality of youth
today: unemployment, confusion, bad relationships, STDs - things
that, in fact, have their own sort of sort of glamor, when you
think about it.
One semi-interesting thing about "Girls" is that it anticipated all
the things that people hate about it. Its heroine is silly,
self-centered, and overfed, as many have complained, but the show
alternates between teasing her (as during the very first scene, in
which, at a fancy restaurant, she scarfs a plate of spaghetti with
all the delicacy of Garfield eating lasagna) and downright flogging
her (as when she's forced to endure, on camera, a round of horrific
sex with her disgusting pseudo-boyfriend). Billed as the new "Sex
and the City," "Girls" scorns its characters for frivolously
comparing themselves to Carrie and Samantha, and despite its
obvious ambition to speak for the current crop of college grads, it
teases its aspiring-memoirist heroine for possessing the arrogance
to proclaim the same goal.
On the other hand, being able to mock yourself on TV is its own
privilege, and self-flagellation reveals no less self-obsession
than does self-praise. The self-directed acerbity of "Girls" is
probably what makes critics think that it's art - it seems honest
and introspective - but really the show is an apology: it's Lena
Dunham punishing herself for being unable to make art about
anything except her own dumb life, which, for all its
text-messaging, she ultimately knows is irrelevant. The last great
movie about selfish, young, privileged New Yorkers was
"Metropolitan," which in a sense was the polar opposite of "Girls"
- completely unjudgmental, it loved its characters for their
cluelessness and self-absorption. It let them live.
Here's how "Orange County" ends, by the way: Shaun, still desperate
to leave his stupidly rich hometown, finally meets his literary
idol, who, to his amazement, tells him that he doesn't need to go
to Stanford. He can stay in Orange County and write about life
there. The only important thing is to love it - to write about it
with love.
Tagged:
Gen Y
