Like an ostrich egg rolling down a hill heading for a jagged boulder, the second season of "Girls" rolled out onto HBO.
Lena Dunham, the acclaimed creator/writer/director, once again goes to great lengths to promote unattractiveness in an attempt to hit a chord perhaps as the anti-glamour muse of the new generation starting to claw its way into relevancy.
Scenes of her body in all stages of dress and undress is enough to be against nudity on cable.
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When I wrote my novel, "Whistling Past the Hottie Graveyard." (on Amazon.com), the main thrust of the book was similar to the idea Miss Dunham used to create the series "Girls." That is, staking a claim at existing in New York City while juggling the daily battles at work with the "every night is Saturday night!" reality that is city nightlife.
So Ms. Dunham attempts to tackle issues like self esteem in the jargon of the day, along with both male and female caricature characters of committment-phobes. She is winning "Golden Globes," for her half-hour show, which I think is a low-rent "Sex and the City" series, yet many 20-something girls are glued to watching the show as another generation watched "Friends," and "Seinfeld." The wild card is the idea of, does art imitate reality or vice versa?
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The wacky characters she has created will perhaps in time share fame or infamy like Maynard G. Krebbs on Dobbie Gillis, or Gidget, but right now these characters created by Ms. Dunham are in a growing wheel house of popularity. Hannah Horvath, Marnie Michaels, Jessa Johansson, Shoshanna Shapiro and the fellas Adam Sacklar and Ray Ploshansky will in no time be the Kramer, Jerry, George, Elaine and Newmans of this generation.
My effort, "Whistling Past the Hottie Graveyard," in a way is a novel about what happens to characters, like all the characters is "Girls," "Friends" and "Seinfeld," when they turn 40 and tumble back into the bohemian lifestyle of being cast back into starting all over.
As for Lena Dunham and her baroque, Rubens-like figure... well she seems all to willing to undress herself as often as possible on her show. I suppose she does this to get intimate with the audience over time, the same way one gets use to anything not gifted with natural beauty. Is her talent in the writing? Or in the concept of maybe the hopelessness too many of the new generation she is writing about feel. The answers will only come over time.
