For what it's worth, many sitcoms are indeed terrible, but I think you'd love most of "Parks and Recreation." It's goofy and cheesey and contrived at times, but the whole enterprise is ultimately so positive and optimistic about women/feminism and the potential of democratic government that is just delightful. Not to mention the cast is notably diverse for network television, and Amy Poehler is just phenomenal. Alyssa Rosenberg at ThinkProgress has also written a lot about the show's smart takes on gender and community, if you're curious.

I've watched a few episodes of Girls and haven't been impressed--and I'm an East-Coast-elite-liberal-arts-college graduate about Lena Dunham's age. But the coverage it gets is WAY out of proportion.

THIS re: GIRLS and its creator specifically (I've been known to enjoy a sitcom once in a blue moon, but GIRLS isn't one of them).

Glad I am not the only person who can't stand sitcoms... Big Bang Theory upsets me because it laughs at instead of with nerds. When I am playing D&D with my friends and someone laughs at me because BBT told them it is 'hilarious' that people would waste their time playing a game that requires imagination, teamwork and thought I get rather frustrated.

Personally I don't have tv. The only tv shows I watch with any regularity are adaptions of books I enjoy (Game of Thrones). I would rather own 1000 books than a television.

A friend sent me an episode recently saying I would love it because it was about D&D. I watched it hoping for it to celebrate D&D instead the moment the characters mentioned they were playing D&D without any other lines it was laughtracked, like playing D&D was somehow a inherently hilarious concept.

Next they have their girlfriends who apparently love them making it out as if the guys are somehow hurting them by wanting a guys night and are SO STUPID to want this. The guys forbid their girlfriends from joining in, alienating the girls and making it seem like D&D is indeed the pathetic hobby the show is trying to convey it as.

The point is that this show laughs at nerds instead of with them.As a 'nerd' type person myself, I find this highly insulting. My hobbies are not inherently funny. They are my hobbies. Alcoholism should not be considered cooler by society than imagination and ingenuity. Yet time after time BBT portrays going out and drinking as 'cool' and staying in and enjoying hobbies you are passionate about as 'pathetic' and mock-able.

Edited at 2013-02-11 08:16 am (UTC)

It probably is the difference between people who play D&D vs. people who do not. Every D&D player I know (and I am in 5 different completely independent groups) would/did find that episode insulting. The only person I know who was not insulted was one of the players wives, who thought it was cute and asked her husband if that was what he went to do. The look of frustration in his eyes was priceless because he has been trying to express what he does with us to her for years, and now she has visions of campy plots and gimmicks in her mind.

The point I am making is having these shows where women complain about their men having hobbies, it is frustrating. A loving relationship should be about supporting eachothers passions, not getting upset when the other person wants to do something other than spend time with you. They use D&D as a scapegoat and mocked item, oh look at those nerds playing D&D how pathetic!, rather than embracing it as the magical experience it really is.

You crack me up. That is all :-)

I have never heard of this show or of Lena Dunham!

I don't watch TV though (sitcoms or otherwise) so maybe this is the key difference? Anyhow the media I consume has not spent time dwelling on this show, for which I am just as glad!

Well I watch comparatively little TV (Bones, Castle, Rizzolli & Isles, Bunheads, Body of Proof, Downton Abbey, Closer/Major Crimes and Bunheads) so maybe even the ads don't come my way. I also record and watch them later. But I'd never heard of her or the show. Big Bang Theory I have heard of.

I only heard of "Girls" because I like watching some awards shows (I mostly watch them for the pretty dresses, which makes sense to anyone who knows me ;) ). I've missed any ads outside of all the talk about them at awards shows, but that may be the fact that I don't have access to HBO. What I have seen about "Girls" (I went and looked it up on wikipedia during the Golden Globes), gives me the same impression that you have. I'd like to think that Lena Dunham might have promise, but she needs to move beyond herself first. I did the 20-something middle class white woman in NYC trying to make ends meet. It's really not that interesting and it's been done far too many times before.

Also, I'm sick of tv, books, articles, etc. about adult women that calls them "girls". I don't think it happens nearly as much with men and the word "boys". I see "girls" get used for women in their 30s so I don't even know where the "cut-off" is anymore. It almost seems to me like it's used for any unmarried woman who doesn't have at least one kid. It's demeaning.

Huh.. never heard of it, but I don't watch sitcoms and I watch a few shows as it is. I'm usually reading :P

The feeds of my various social media sites go on and on about this show. I wasn't even aware it was a sitcom, but that may be why I have never had even the slightest interest in watching it. Nothing about it makes it seems like something worthwhile.

I will admit to watching sitcoms back in the day, like the 80's and 90's, but I think that ended about halfway through Friends. I watch quite a bit of TV, but I like my funny mixed with drama, and a longer format. Half an hour is too short to hold my interest. Not that everything that I watch is full of meaning or anything, but dramas and even procedurals seem more worth my time. If I want funny, I will watch Castle or Chuck, and if I want meaningful, I will watch The West Wing. Self-serving 20-somethings, and Lena Dunham, aren't even a blip on my radar.

I believe I would like to print this out and hand it to every person who wants to talk to me about "Girls".

I do watch a lot of television, and a lot of movies, and I read a lot of books. I am a BA holding woman in her 20's living in a major city, and every time I see an article proclaiming Lena Dunham the "voice of a generation" I cringe. Because she does not speak for me, or my friends, and we're the generation they're referring to. I watched exactly 1/2 of the pilot before I switched it off, and short of being paid to watch it and chronicle my opinions I won't be watching any further episodes. And the fact that I don't care for it would be fine, but everyone in the world seems to be conspiring to convince me that this is the perfect show for me. That I will love it. That I will recommend it to all my friends. When really, it makes me want to throw rocks.

If Girls is really all that super different and fresh and new and daring and uber-realistic because it shows that recent grads have lots of debt and a hard time getting jobs, that doesn't say anything about how good Girls is, just about how bad the rest of television is.

Just because a sitcom is about something other than a bumbling dad, his hot wife, their two school-aged children (one of each gender), their baby, and their dog, doesn't mean it's particularly creative. It just means that the bar for sitcoms is so low it's buried underground.

Oh, I love you so very much right now.

(i.e. THIS, in spades...)

My main problem with GIRLS/Lena Dunham is that, for a show supposedly set in Brooklyn, there are practically no women of color, and none in the main cast. She CANNOT be the "voice of a generation" because she's not giving voices to the millions of 20-something non-white women in the CITY, let alone the country, that GIRLS is set in.

You're really not missing out. I watched most of the first season and it's thoroughly mediocre. It's mostly just spoiled rich white girls whining about how hard their lives are. I heard enough of that in college, so the show doesn't really have any appeal to me.

Hahaha, I love you. ♥

I am so with you. I don't watch a lot of TV, and the three series I currently watch (Doctor Who, Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey) are not sitcoms. I've never watched a sitcom. I just don't find them funny. They have funny moments, yes, but quite frankly awkward moments are what these shows thrive on, and awkward humor isn't funny to me -- it just makes me want to get up and walk away from the TV. Which I do, quite frequently. Sitcoms are not my cup of tea. And yes. Media, find some other story. Yes, I am 23, I am white, and I spent the year after college underemployed. But Lena Dunham does not speak for me.

I, too, have no interest in sitcoms--I quit watching TV back in the 1980's when I figured out that I would rather do things than sit around staring at a box watching people do things.* Your post today is the first time I have heard mention of this show or this actress. If you don't want to heat what the media is saying, why are you listening?

*Note that in my world reading counts as "doing something", even though watching TV does not feel that way.

It's interesting, because as little as I like the sitcom genre in general, I really feel like television on the whole is set up for sitcoms and reality TV. I think it's virtually impossible to pull off an epic story on TV for more than a season or two. There's too much uncertainty within the industry itself.

If you have an idea for a series, you take it to a publisher and say, "I need 4 books to tell this story. Here's a sample. Want it?" And they say, yes or no, and you negotiate out a contract (maybe they want you to pare it down into a trilogy, for example), and you both know going into it the basic framework you have to work with.

If you take that same story to a TV network, they let you make a pilot which may or may not get picked up. Then if it does, they give you half a season (or less) to garner a large enough audience *in the correct demographic*, and if you don't, bye-bye story. Then if you make it past that first half-season, they can still cancel you before the 2nd season. Or at any point thereafter. There's no contract with the viewer to see the story through to the end (*cough* Firefly *cough*). The contract is with the advertisers. "We promise to deliver this many viewers to your commercials, stories be damned." And if there's a particularly popular show, we'll keep cranking out episodes long after the original creative minds have run out of story, because syndication is more important than a graceful ending.

The result is shows which are suddenly canceled leaving their fans hanging (Farscape) or shows which make unfulfillable promises at the beginning to hook viewers only to flounder to an agonizing end because even the writers don't have a clue what story they're telling (Lost).

I really don't trust television as a story-telling medium anymore. I refuse to watch a show in its first season, because so many of them don't make it past the first 6 episodes, and I'd rather catch up on old episodes via Netflix than get invested in*


*See what I did there?

Ahhh these are my own feelings about Girls. Glad to finally see someone else that agrees with me. lol. I wish I could avoid it, but alas it seems like everyone I know watches it to complain about it. *sigh*

Agreed. Here in Australia I'll I hear about is Master Chef; Professionals.

I was an apprentice pastry chef breathly.

There's a reason why I quit...I don't need reminders...

Every time I see an advert for that show I want to vomit or yell at it for being so shallow and for what it promotes. Glad to know I'm not alone.

I used to watch primarily SFF shows or dramas on TV, but I've been enormously disappointed with the offerings lately. The shows people are raving about (Downton Abbey, Homeland, Doctor Who Eleven, BBC's Sherlock -- which, notably, are made by the same guy) have disappointed me in their cheesy soapiness (the former two) and appallingly sloppy plotting/characterization (the latter). Revolution was shockingly bad, esp. in its dealing with women, and I've never liked procedurals, which are the bulk of what's left on TV, so actually, the only shows I watch with any regularity are sitcoms. I unabashedly love Parks & Rec. It's a truly quality show. It's just so heartwarming and also extremely funny. The eccentricities are laughed WITH instead of AT, which is rare in this day and age. You can tell that everyone on that show loves everyone else. It's rare to see such a group of truly nice and accepting and loving and supporting people -- and it's SO FUNNY.

Modern Family is also very funny (and diverse, as half the cast is Latino, Asian, or gay), I'm really enjoying the Mindy Project, and How I Met Your Mother and New Girl also have a lot to recommend them.

My cousin is an editor on the show. I tried to watch it a few times, but I just couldn't. I just don't get it. Maybe it's a sign I'm too old or something...

I really don't understand sitcoms, myself. I enjoy the occasional episode of How I Met Your Mother simply because morals aren't usually being actively approached in mainstream media, but that's where my appreciation comes to an abrupt end. A lot of people have told me that Big Bang is a great show and that it's about "nerdy things," but I read comic books, watch anime, and actually write for video games. Having been a nerd my entire life, and having surrounded myself with the culture and people who like the same things, I can't help but look at Big Bang and wince. The characters aren't realistic in the least. I couldn't get a ten minutes in to an episode in without thinking to myself, "Wait - people I know are idolizing this character! (Sheldon.) What are they doing? He's rude, inconsiderate, and NOT a person people should be looking up to." Same goes for a lot of other sitcoms I tried. In the end, sitcoms are force-feeding new stereotypes that need to, frankly, die. With How I Met Your Mother it feels like they're actively approaching the stereotypes like they're jokes, and I guess that makes it some sort of Meta-fiction sit-com with morals. And it's gotten to the point where HIMYM is quite possibly the only show on American television from the last decade that I can watch without feeling like my brain is leaking out my ears.

I tried watching Girls... I can't say if it was good or bad. I think it was so far from anything I am interested in or can relate to that I'm not even qualified to say whether it was good or not.

As I read all these comments, but one thing comes to mind.......I cannot wait for Battle Magic to be released.

they could always go on about the honey booboo child...

why is that TV? too many tv shows are made that really really should not lol.