Posts Tagged “HBO”

Lena Dunham wishes: I wish that Girls hadn’t been placed under such intense scrutiny before it had even premiered.

The Evil Genie replies: Boom, done. Your new HBO show, titled Specific Young White Women, premieres to very little fanfare. The internet fails to throw up on itself and then eat its own vomit, not unlike a dog, and you receive a handful of positive reviews from small outfits. You’re a 25-year-old woman with your own TV show! Crazy and amazing.

The week after the pilot airs, you feel fantastic. Your family and friends, all wealthy famous people, are incredibly happy for you. The women who seek out the show, hard as it is to find, really relate to it and think highly of your capabilities as a writer/director/producer/creator/actress. And no one thinks you’re racist or bourgeois or spoiled or disconnected or the product of good fortune! People don’t take any notice of any of you or your show’s flaws at all. #SpecificYoungWhiteWomen doesn’t trend on Twitter.

Feminist blogs discuss HBO’s Sunday nights with a passion, but the talk is all turned to Veep (Would you vote for a woman like Selina Meyer? What if she rocked flowery dresses and Doc Martens like Elaine Benes used to? Think pieces abound). There are no parody videos, or screencapped memes, or diatribes from men, or diatribes from women about the diatribes from men, or parody diatribes written by men about diatribes written by women, or parody diatribes written by women about diatribes written by men about women. There’s nothing.

In the second week, ratings fall. It turns out that your target demographic doesn’t really have HBO, unless they are living and/or staying with their parents… (Read More) »