Girls (Maya and Emma) on Girls (TV show)
During this especially bleak time of year, the only thing that brings me consistent joy is a TV show rewatch, so it comes as no surprise that I have found myself revisiting HBO’s Girls a decade after it initially aired. In what is literally just a slightly cleaned up version of how we usually talk throughout the day, my friend and Vogue culture writer Emma Specter joins me in a special installment of the newsletter we’re calling Girls on Girls to chat through the finer points of our respective Girls rewatches.
MK: Emma thank you for joining me for what I hope is the first of a fruitful series of conversations about Girls (the show). We've both been doing Girls rewatches recently. What inspired yours?
ES: This is very different than our normal conversations about girls (the gender). But thank you for having me! I would say my rewatch was sparked by a rare long stretch of travel free time alone in my apartment in Austin, and a lack of desire to assault my smooth brain with any new content. What about you?
MK: That's fair. I think I was sort of craving familiar dumb tv, which is not an insult to Girls, but just like, I don’t have the brain power or emotional capacity to invest into a new sho
MK: show* fuck
ES: Sho
MK: This mf said sho
ES: Girls is the perfect rewatch show bc they never learn or grow so u can really dive in anywhere
ES: I originally just wanted to watch the peer reviewed ten best eps but it got away from me
MK: Can you say more about the peer reviewed ten best eps? Like name one or two of those, how did you arrive at this list
ES: Absolutely, I started with the one where they learn the dance in the Hamptons (which you and I both treasure) and then kind of just went by episodes that I and people on my IG close friends remembered: eg, the Japan one, American bitch, the Crackcident, the one where Marnie sings “Stronger”
ES: Like I did NOT watch the really critically acclaimed Marnie-Charlie ep
ES: But I did watch the one where Hannah and Marnie do Rent karaoke
MK: I’m also including in this dialogue for transparency that you joined me from the bath with a smoothie for our conversation, which feels very Hannah of you
ES: It’s really really giving Hannah especially bc my bathtub is not clean
MK: I kind of have to say, and I don’t really know what I mean by this but: justice for Hannah who everyone said was fat when the show aired. She isn’t fat????
ES: She’s literally not fat
MK: Like it would be fine if she were fat. But she’s not
MK: She’s like a Zara size 10/12
ES: I feel like within the context of us both being fat women it is OK to say Lena Dunham was not fat at that time
ES: Lena def was bigger than a lot of people on tv at that time and I genuinely think I needed to see that for my own growth but also she was like, Hollywood Fat
MK: Exactly. Like I was glad to see a Bigger Normal Body onscreen next to like, Allison Williams but for sure Hollywood Fat
MK: No shade to Allison Williams. Loved her in M3gan
ES: Yes and like I was her weight or less at the time and felt fat
ES: But that’s because we are all unwell
ES: Shoutout to Allison Williams she has done so much for the haunted gay community w M3gan
MK: Ok I want to talk about the first time we watched Girls (tv show). I remember it aired in 2012 and I think I watched it when I got back from my semester abroad, my most distinct memory of watching it for the first time is the end of the episode where Hannah meets up with Elijah and he’s like “yOUR DAD IS GAY” Hannah tweets something about her gay ex boyfriend and then she dances to “Dancing on my own” by Robyn with Marnie
ES: That is a pivotal season 1 moment
ES: I feel like I watched it after finishing a gay college 100 miles from Lena Dunham’s gay college and refused to like it because of narcissism of small differences, but then I fell in love with Shoshanna Shapiro
ES: Like she’s not my show crush (that’s Jessa unfortunately) but I was just like I love this Jewish American princess on Adderall with a donut bun
MK: All the characters on the show were people I had not yet met but knew I would meet when I eventually moved to New York. The closest reference point I had was shoshanna, because I feel like I knew many versions of her in the journalism school at Syracuse
ES: Okay yes Shoshannas go to Syracuse j school or Penn. Hannahs go to Kenyon or Oberlin
ES: Jessa was so mf real for dropping out of Oberlin bc she couldn’t get her Adderall refilled
ES: Sorry to keep talking about Adderall
MK: I think I watched Girls when I was 20 and did not understand that part of the charm of the show was that none of the characters were supposed to be likable
ES: Me neither dude. I just discussed this on The Girls Room podcast (promo!)
MK: I don't know what it says about me now that I consider Girls like, a beloved relic of a bygone era
ES: Like I was like: they all suck! And it’s like: so did me and all my friends
ES: Yeah Girls is from the era when a Lyft from Brooklyn to Manhattan was 25 dollars
ES: I’m so upset to be nostalgic about Girls
MK: It does feel like grasping at things to be nostalgic for…it’s like missing Tandem (perfectly adequate and now-closed Bushwick bar where I went on so many Tinder dates in 2015)
ES: Oh wow Tandem. I was living in LA during peak Girls era so forgive me, but I feel like my friends went to Elvis Guesthouse
ES: A bar that did not survive the Trump administration
ES: To clarify: Trump didn’t shut it down
MK: You self-identify as a Hannah. Can you tell me why?
ES: Well it’s a mix of biography (I too am a writer who until recently lived in Brooklyn) and self roast (I am also narcissistic and love to take baths w my friends)
ES: At one point I considered making my display name “Gay Hannah Horvath,” but then I hurt my own feelings
ES: Can u delineate your Marnie identification for our audience
MK: Absolutely, thank u for asking. Like Marnie Michaels I am a type A control freak, though unlike Marnie I would like to think I’m not a narcissistic monster who needs to be the center of attention.
MK: I’m also not nearly delusional enough to start dating an older married 2010s style Mumford and sons aesthetic singer songwriter and pursue a musical career with him
MK: Also unlike Marnie, I would never make you sing the Joanne part in “Take me or leave me” at Rent karaoke at your birthday party that I meticulously planned the details of
ES: I think we have learned specifically through travel together paralleling the Hamptons episode that you are the person who will roast the meat, which is a Marnie trait. And I am the person who will invite over a ton of gay guests and abdicate responsibility
ES: But I think we have both just a shred of that now, as opposed to being actual Marnie and Hannah, aka hating each other
MK: Exactly. Real life Marnie and Hannah could never be long term friends because they would both be sooooo terrible to each other
MK: But I also think that’s like, being 25. I didn’t know you when we were 25 but I think I was a disaster human until I was old enough to be on my own health insurance plan—selfish, naive, myopic
MK: Girls (show) just takes those 25 year old traits to their extreme conclusion
ES: Exactly. I was very miserable and self-obsessed, and now that I am happier and more of a reasonable adult I feel some compassion for the version of me that was sleeping with Adam type guys
ES: It’s hard to be a mid twenties narcissist!
MK: Maybe that's why a girls rewatch feels almost therapeutic. i can look back and see how these characters who are supposed to be 25 are acting and recognize my old, worst qualities in them, and also be thankful I grew up a little
ES: Paul Rudd meme: Look at us
ES: We have self awareness and savings accounts
ES: What’s in mine? That’s a secret I’ll never tell
MK: Lmao
MK: As a final activity please do FMK with any Girls characters
ES: Amazing. Fuck Jessa, marry Ray, kill Hannah. I also want to kill Jessa so this is all very complex
MK: That’s a really good one
ES: What about you
MK: F: Charlie, but only in the iconic Charlie-Marnie reunion episode in season 5 where he's like bulkier and a drug dealer, M: Shoshanna, K: Mimi-Rose
MK: Immediately I said “Mimi-Rose has to die”
ES: Wow. That is a really good response
ES: Fuck Mimi-Rose, me and all my homies hate Mimi-Rose
MK: She’s the worst kind of new girlfriend for your ex to date
MK: I think we’ll cap it here but do you have any lingering last thoughts??
ES: This, and only this: in the words of the great Shoshanna Shapiro: l, I love products