Mademoiselle Ethiopienne

In the past couple weeks, people have been going CRAZY over this show. From what I’ve seen people either love it or hate it.

Girls follows a group of 20-something girls (surprise, surprise), fresh out of college, in NYC, navigating the chaos of trying to balance love lives, being cut off from parents, and tumultuous friendships. Almost a younger Sex And The City. 

A lot of people seem to hate it because of its lack of diversity. 

If you just started following me, you should know that I’m a huge advocate for increasing diversity in TV and Film. So, after hearing all the negative press about Girls, I started the pilot episode thinking I’d hate it and be super annoyed that I saw no one I can relate to.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed the show. It’s not amazing, but it’s not horrible. Even in just the first episode, the storyline held on to my attention and I’m looking forward to the next episode. 
So, people have been saying is that it’s a shame that the writers/producers didn’t consider adding a minority character because there are minorities in NYC whose perspectives deserve to be shown on TV. I totally agree with that.  

But..

Why so much backlash on this show? There’s plenty of TV shows that have been on for years, and some that have premiered in this TV season, that don’t have lead minorities if any at all. Girls has only been on for about 2 or 3 episodes, have we even given it a full chance to tell more stories? 

I would love to see more minorities on the show, and I hope that the showrunner, Lena Dunham, who also plays a lead character on the show, adds some in the future. As tastefully as possible, though. Lena has stated in almost all the interviews for this show that most of what’s being portrayed  is what she has experienced or what her real life friends have experienced. How can we force her add something she hasn’t experienced or doesn’t think fits with her vision?
Sad truth.

I don’t want to knock Lena’s hustle. She’s doing HER and it seems to be working. Regardless of the lack of diversity, she does represent a portion of girls in this country. Unfortunately..I’m not one of them and that’s why I’m glad that in the pilot she went from saying “I may be the voice of my generation” to “..or a voice of a generation”. She is definitely a voice of this generation, but there’s many more voices of this generation that need to be heard too.

Why people are putting pressure on Girls to showcase the other voices is beyond me. It’s not this show, it’s not Lena Dunham, it’s TV studios and networks that need to realize how bad we WANT diversity and that if they put it out, we will support. That’s why Think Like A Man’s success at the box office is so important. 

So, to wrap this up, I enjoyed Girls. It needs diversity, but it doesn’t make sense to bash or boycott the show just because not everyone can relate to it. Instead, let’s call out the studios and networks! 

Catch Girls on HBO at 10:30 ET on Sunday nights and see it for yourself. 
The first 2 episodes are up on HBO.com.