Age: Early 20s.
Appearance: Quadruple, Brooklynite, fearsomely realistic – for television, anyway.
Early 20s? I think you'll find, in that case, that the mysterious foursome of who you speak are actually "young women". No, actually, I am referring to the new HBO series created by and starring ubertalented, zeitgeist-munching wunderkind Lena Dunham, which has just premiered to largely the ravest of rave reviews in the US.
Really? But I've never heard of her. Is she any relation to Lena Zavaroni? No. She's a 25-year-old Oberlin College graduate who first attracted attention via a YouTube clip she made of herself bathing in a public fountain, which garnered a 15,000-post debate BTL about whether she was fat or not.
Goodness. Our CiFers clearly need to up their game. Anything else? Or is that enough to get a new HBO series greenlit these days. I don't know. I'm still referencing Lena Zavaroni. She then made acclaimed indie film Tiny Furniture, and that brought her to the attention of the networks.
So what's Girls about then? Supportive friendships? Shoes? Sex? And the city? The four leads are friends, there are no Manolos and the sex is mostly in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. And it makes SATC's bunny rabbit and "funky spunk" episodes look like Pillow Talk.
How so? The few brickbats hurled Girls' way have mostly concerned the joyless, cringemaking, frequently humiliating sexcapades of the quartet.
More joyless and humiliating that the use of the word "sexcapades"? I'm afraid so. Much discussion of "the stuff that goes up the sides of condoms" and the like takes place, and shots of slightly unbeautiful bodies doing the nasty on even nastier sofas abound.
This doesn't sound glossy and aspirational at all! Are you sure there really are girls involved in this? Dunham's abrasive, filthy, scabrous, hilarious hands are all over it.
I just don't think it sounds very ladylike at all. It's not. It's brilliant.
Do say: "That sounds like exactly the revolution in television's persistently retrogressive portrayal of women, especially in comedies, we've been waiting for. Hurrah!"
Don't say: "When's it on in the UK?" (Sky Atlantic will only say that it will be sometime later this year.)
