Intercourse together with City‘s show finale aired eight years that are long.
however for better or even for even even worse, HBO’s flagship that is former pop tradition’s default point of guide for almost any activity directed at females. Write A tv or movie reveal about ladies interacting, and it’ll inevitably get in comparison to SATC. Create your primary figures single female urbanites, while the evaluations have also easier. And when your show is just a intimately explicit, half-hour comedy featuring four young, white, feminine New Yorkers that takes place to air on HBO? Well, in that situation, you’re simply asking because of it.
HBO’s Girls hasn’t shied far from acknowledging its glitzy predecessor.
Creator/writer/director/star/key hold Lena Dunham has stated that her program couldn’t occur without Carrie and co. In final week’s premiere, a character known as Shoshanna additionally took the freedom of revealing which SATC character she believes she many resembles. (By also bringing this up, Shoshanna proves that she’s a Charlotte.) And night that is last Girls boldly went where SATC choose to go prior to by centering its 2nd episode around a principal character’s theoretical abortion. The episode proved that while Dunham’s show is, in certain methods, indebted to Intercourse, it is additionally a totally various animal.
Most of the time, Intercourse as well as the populous City wasn’t afraid to tackle taboos. So that it’s surprising that the show avoided the subject of abortion until halfway through its 4th period. In a episode called “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda,” workaholic Miranda understands that the possibility encounter by having an ex-boyfriend has kept her having a bun when you look at the range. No intention is had by her of maintaining the child. It happens when she reveals this to the gals at brunch, sexually liberated Samantha announces, “It’s less than a desirable situation, but. We’ve all been there. I’ve had two!”
Samantha’s flippancy aside, the episode treats abortion with sensitiveness. Miranda acts outwardly confident about her choice, but secretly is not sure she’s doing the right thing. Carrie additionally reveals that while she does not be sorry for having an abortion at 22, she’s never ever quite felt exactly the same since. Although the redhead eventually chooses to keep carefully the child, her option does not feel just like a cop-out — the show is supporting a woman’s straight to select while acknowledging that abortion is complicated and fraught. The actual only real element of the episode that actually feels off is a goofy, unneeded subplot about Samantha lusting after having a $4,000 Birkin case.
SATC utilizes Samantha’s pursuit of a Birkin as comic relief after having lot ukrainian bride of hefty abortion talk. However in Girls, the abortion talk could be the relief that is comic. The show’s episode that is second “Vagina Panic,” is partially occur a Manhattan wellness center. Shoshanna, Marnie, and Hannah show up to guide their 4th friend, flighty, pregnant Jessa (she’s the Samantha for the team). But Jessa’s too frightened — to attend the center herself. She spends the afternoon consuming White Russians and starting up by having a complete complete stranger as her friends keep her increasingly mad communications like this: “Uh, hey. You’re expecting once you don’t desire to be. So that you might desire to come get abortion now. Thanks.” In the place of segregating humor through the episode’s issue that is central Girls finds humor for the reason that problem it self.
And even though both programs utilize frank language, Girls pushes the envelope by placing the term “abortion” into its discussion whenever you can. On SATC, the definition of it self is uttered simply 3 times; otherwise, it is simply implied. Girls, but, has its own characters say “abortion” 11 times. Dunham can be attempting to surprise watchers into laughing; she additionally could be attempting to desensitize us towards the expressed term, therefore erasing a few of the stigma it carries. In any event, her show’s characters — from their attitudes with their language — are far more bold than their Manolo-wearing ancestors. Her show also is not afraid to tackle abortion through the get-go, in the place of waiting four years.
But although the Girls are bold, they’re also woefully ignorant. None of those women has much knowledge about intercourse, let alone its effects; Hannah, the show’s Carrie equivalent, tries to find out then comparing herself to the pictures that she finds if she has an STD by Googling “diseases that come from no condom for one second. Miranda doesn’t undergo along with her abortion because she’s carefully weighed the professionals and cons of getting an infant; Jessa, having said that, inadvertently discovers that she’s either got her duration or perhaps is having a convenient miscarriage, which frees her from needing to select when you look at the beginning. (Unlike the ending of “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda,” this one does feel just like a cop-out.)
Girls, then, is a show that’s both more audacious and less assured than Sex additionally the City. Maybe this really is for the reason that its figures are sheltered and young; perhaps since the show continues, Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, and Jessa will begin to keep a closer resemblance to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha. Having viewed the show’ very first three episodes, this appears not likely. But either means, it is unjust to help keep comparing the two — as this duo of abortion episodes shows, their similarities are very nearly completely shallow. (Well, all except one: Both programs function probably the most characters that are self-centered conceived for television.)