End of “Girls”: Is the series of Lena Dunham truly generational?

In six seasons, “Girls”, the series of Lena Dunham, moved the lines of US television, but has it given a voice to a generation of viewers and authors? …

“I think I could be the voice of my generation. Or at least, a voice of a generation. In a reply, released by her character Hannah as soon as the pilot, Lena Dunham already said almost everything – on her series Girls , and on herself. After six years, and when the final season started Sunday on HBO, and Monday on OCS, what remains of this act of faith, this promise? So yes, Girls moved the lines, in front of and behind the camera, but has it become a generational series? Or at least, the series of a generation?

“They’re my girlfriends and I’ve never seen them on TV”
For the last 10 episodes, before a possible film , Lena Dunham returned for The Hollywood Reporter about the origins of the project and the memo she sent to HBO. Not a 30-page bible, not the pilot’s scenario, a memo. In HBO, the chain of Sopranos , Game of Thrones but also Sex and the city . ” Sex and the City portrayed women with brilliant careers, whose biological clock made them crazy,” she wrote. Gossip Girl talks about losing her virginity and gaining popularity. ”
“But between adolescence and adult life, there is an uncomfortable in-between,” continues the actress and screenwriter, where women are ejected from college for a world without glamor or landmarks. A period at once heartbreaking, hilarious and terribly human. These girls are overworked and underemployed (…), these girls are magnificent and exasperating, conscious and egocentric. They are your girlfriends, your children, your sisters, your employees. They are my friends and I have never seen them on TV. ”

Generational and especially American
Lena Dunham sees the worst pitch ever written, “frightening and pretentious,” but it identifies a generation, even an intergeneration. “This in-between is a social and cultural phenomenon deeply rooted in the United States,” explains Iris Brey, a specialist journalist and author of Sex and the series – Women’s Sexualities, a Television Revolution (SOAP Editions). Like the high school, the four years at the famous freshman, sophomore, junior and senior years – are a ritual of passage, something that we begin together and finish together. This is not always appreciable for us French, because there is no equivalent, it is always possible to resume his studies later. Once you graduate, you are left to yourself. So it’s both generational and American. ”

“It talks about sexuality, friendship, femininity differently”
The high school students have their stories and series ( Dawson , Hartley , Gossip Girl ), students ( Felicity , Undeclared , Greek ), but young people of 23-24 years? Even the heroes of Friends or Big Bang Theory are approaching their thirties. Lena Dunham has given a voice to these “left behind” of American society and television, “but also a contemporary language” adds Iris Brey: “It talks about sexuality, friendship, femininity differently. There was of course Sex and the city or The L Word , but for example, it is the first time we see girls educated with porn, and the influence it has had on their relationships. ”
But are four white girls and artists in Brooklyn representative of their age, their generation? “When the tv summarizes society to 40-year-old white men, no one says nothing, right?”, The journalist sends back. It is very reductive, a false trial itself. Why could not Lena Dunham talk about her generation through the prism of four white “girls”? ”

The Way of a Generation
With an average of 500 to 600,000 followers per episode, Girls was not a successful audience either. Its influence is nevertheless very real on a generation of spectators, and even more on a generation of authors. ” Girls is also generational, because she saw a 24-year-old woman create, produce and play in her own series. Lena Dunham paved the way, others saw herself in it and said it was possible, like the creators of the series Fleabag , Chewing Gum or even Transparent . ”
Lena Dunham will have made a lot of talk in six years of stances, polemic debates , social networks , sometimes to eclipse her series. But it should not be deceived, it is in Girls that she did the most work on her, her heroine Hannah and on the series herself. That’s why it was time to stop. Now 30 years old, she is no longer the same. More of the same generation?