Is “Girls”Relatable Now?

By Margit Detweiler

When Girls debuted on HBO in 2012, I was 45 years old and was, I’ll admit it, kind of mesmerized. Until then, I hadn’t seen a show that captured the messy, self-absorbed, and wide-eyed curiosity of women in their 20s, alongside the complex, life-saving power of female friendships. It felt raw and honest in ways that were sometimes uncomfortable. 

As soon as it aired, my bestie/housemate from the ‘90s texted me, “So do you LOVE the show Girls or what? It is us in the ‘90s!” Of course it was a hyper-stylized, monied, way-more-adventurous version of us, but there we were in 1994, dating assholes, going out late to see bands, walking home ALONE at 2 a.m., wearing nubby vintage sweaters, and trying to forge creative careers. It brought the dumb, awesome exploits of our 20s crashing back.

Controversial and problematic as she may be, creator, writer, director, and star Lena Dunham was then, at 23, such a unique ‘voice of her generation.’ Or, as her character corrects in the show, “a generation,” albeit a white, heteronormative, and privileged slice of it. 

Hannah Horvath stripped away the Carrie Bradshaw or Rachel-haired polish to something that looked more like an actual friend. When the show first aired, there was breathless thinkpiece after thinkpiece that centered around Dunham’s “chubby” body — evidence of how annoyingly “groundbreaking” it was to gaze at a normal human female. I mused that if my regular-looking 20-something self had seen a character like Hannah on TV, it might have boosted my own self-appreciation. Even though the rest of the coverage centered on hand-wringing about how “unlikable” the characters were (which was the point, right?), I had the gift of space from that time of my life and could see it for what it was: when we’re all kind of a self-absorbed mess bumbling through new experiences. 

Back in the ‘90s, I was a 20-something music editor working at an alt-weekly in Philly, supplementing my skimpy income by selling CDs at used record stores so I could afford to buy a pitcher of beer. By 2012, I’d had a two-decades-long career as an editor and strategy consultant. Part of watching Girls made me pine for my younger days of personal creativity. But the show reminded me that I was definitely not like these women anymore; I’d entered a new phase in life, not quite young and not quite old. I was inspired to write this piece on Medium about what it felt like to be reminded that this wasn’t my world anymore but one inhabited by “young women with topknots and thick black glasses [who] eye you like a strange, irrelevant species.” 

At the time, the millennial women I worked with scoffed at the show. Girls was a little too close to home for them, perhaps? I had enough critical distance that it made me wistful and fond of that goofy young me. I was further inspired to start my own midlife storytelling platform, TueNight, because I wanted to explain that basically we’re not that much different than we were in our 20s. Okay, our joints are creaky, we get occasional hot flashes, now we have decades of experience — but our dreams and our ambitions are still vibrant. (How many of us have recently entertained or pursued the idea of fleeing upstate to start over as — spoiler alert — Hannah does in the series finale?)

Recently, I watched Girls anew because I’m working on my own TV pilot, and Girls was one of the shows whose sharp dialogue I admired. Dunham writes with a Raymond Carver-meets-Nora Ephron crispness that is simultaneously cringey and insightful: “I don’t even want a boyfriend,” she says as Hannah. “I just want someone who wants to hang out all the time and thinks I’m the best person in the world and wants to have sex with only me.” 

Apparently, I’m not alone in my rewatch.

On TikTok, a cadre of Gen-Z culture vultures have been opining on a show they watched as pre-teens, having since gained a new perspective on Hannah and co. The realization being, ‘Oh, okay, Girls kind of nailed our mid 20s.’ 

The rewatch discourse was chronicled last week in the New York Times, where one expert noted that it wasn’t a ‘rewatching,’ but essentially a re-introspection. We’re appreciating, “how we have changed between viewings of a show that has remained the same.” We’re also witnessing TikTok’s ability to galvanize an enormous audience, creating a communal experience around even one small, out-of-context clip, which, as it circulates, serves as a reminder to millions of a great show that’s there for the (re)watching.

But why now? While many shows wait a respectable 25-30 years before finding a resurgence in interest (Friends, Seinfeld, Fresh Prince), it’s been a mere decade-and-change for Girls. I’d argue there are a few reasons: Gen Z, now in their 20s, can relate for the first time, and they’re better at grasping the satire baked in with the show’s truths. Millennials who seethed and cringed their way through a first watch, can sigh that they’ve made it past… all that.

For me, and I imagine others in my age group, a rewatch offers a newfound nostalgia. Much like the TikTok teenage filter, which shows us as we might have looked as teens, our midlife vantage gives us a bit of wistful longing. 

“I was very forgiving of all their flaws because you have that distance in life,” said a 56-year-old friend. “You’re like, don’t worry girl, you’re going to get through this. Things get better.” She added, “The flip side is that life [in our 20s] was full of possibility and in midlife your options become fewer and fewer: You have a mortgage, kids, a spouse. So it’s beautiful and bittersweet.”

Perhaps what else is at play is the speed of life in 2023 and the depth of our disconnect. We’ve been through a pandemic, after all, and gobbled up hours upon hours of entertainment while getting by without the kinds of close connections Girls is all about. Another friend in her 50s mentioned she re-watched the series during the pandemic because it felt like “real women hanging out in person” and she missed that. The show gives us a poignant reminder of how things used to be not so very long ago. Hell, media from 2019 feels like it came from a different world and lifetime already. And aren’t we ALL nostalgic for those not-so-far-gone IRL days?

Girls captured a particular cohort in the moment, as they were living it, and maybe, accidentally helped to shape how we view millennials. This scene featuring Fran, the beleaguered square boyfriend (played by Jake Lacy, who grew up to be the beleaguered honeymooner on White Lotus), is just everything that is hilarious about this show. And this episode revealed how deep and complicated it could go — where Adam tells Hannah he wants to raise her baby together and then 24 hours later, not so much. And recall how hard the show goes in just the first two episodes: from the random nakedness of unconventional-on-screen bodies to friends joining together at an abortion clinic like they’re going to grab a casual coffee. (That gave me a pang; this was a series under Roe v. Wade.) Now, the eldest millennials are 42, joining us in midlife. Those girls in topknots are entering their Eileen Fisher era. 

It’s fun to watch some of these performances again in that context. I’d forgotten how unique and richly articulated the characters were: in particular Dunham as the insufferable love her/hate her antihero, who might be more like her character than we thought. And Adam Driver who we all thought was just like his character, Adam, confidently awkward and dopily sadistic. (Turns out he’s just a pretty great actor.)

I was also reminded how hugely problematic the show is — the overwhelming whiteness of it all. On first viewing I remember thinking, “You’re in New York for chrissakes!” As the seasons progressed I found myself more annoyed at these self-absorbed characters but also saw more of the satire — a delusional Marnie covering Kanye West’s “Stronger” being the highlight. 

What stands bigger than that, and what encourages a rewatch, is the incredible lure of looking back on a really intense time in our lives, through misty-colored glasses. Because, sure, our lives in 2023 are intense and midlife is intense, but we’re leagues more capable and confident to handle the shit that comes our way. We’re no longer those girls.