The first time Jemima Kirke, Jessa from ‘Girls’, appeared on screen in ‘Conversations Between Friends’, the series that adapted Sally Rooney’s first novel, an entire generation felt a pang. For one thing, it was easy to project onto her new character, a writer with the magnetism of self-confident people and an open look at relationships, a plausible future for the character of ‘Girls’. But, on the other, she put a mirror in front of us: Jessa was no longer young and neither were we.. Or she was definitely not young for the younger ones anymore.
It was May 2022 and ‘Girls’ was about to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its premiere on HBO. Just ten months later, The New York Times asked in an article: “Why are so many people rewatching ‘Girls’?& rdquor; Since then, the presence of the Lena Dunham series has multiplied on social networks such as TikTok, Instagram or Twitter. The uptick in viewings not only confirms that millennials are checking it out, but that a new generation, the one born around two thousandis discovering it.
Indigo Carbajal (24 years old, co-editor of the magazine ‘Ventall’ along with four girls in their twenties, and known on Twitter as @indicatiu) explains how she came to the series. “I knew it existed, but it didn’t call me at all. One day, two years ago, I was bored, I started it all over again, and suddenly I realized that totally represented my experience at that time. I think we’re seeing her now because we’re the people who weren’t the right age when she came out, and now we have the age of the girls from ‘Girls’& rdquor;.
But, perhaps, the big question is why he manages to question so many people, including the new generations. “Because you understand them a lot. For me Hannah is the representation of each intrusive thought that I have ever had. It is very difficult to be twenty years old, to be satisfied with yourself and to know who you are. These four characters represent that: how mediocre your life is when you are this age and the terrible person that believing you are the center of everything can make you”.
Carlos Catena (28 years old, writer and author of ‘Los días labores’) is clear about why the series has not lost its validity and is having a reboom. “The short answer is because it is very good.. The series negotiates its most artistic aspirations very well with the mainstream, something that seems quite generational to me. It is also one of the first series made taking into account the question of representation, and since it is a paradigm in which we are still anchored, it is not out of fashion& rdquor ;.
In her case, ‘Girls’ was above all that feeling that there are movies, songs or series that come at the right time to make you feel that you can find your place in the world. “See chaotic characters, scared but pretending security, in a world where it seems impossible for a fagot to live in the closet and where precariousness has replaced all possibility of poverty was encouraging and reassuring. I think it also had a lot to do with his professions. At a time when I had to fight with adults to convince them that the exits of a career did not matter so much, the characters of ‘Girls’ thought the same, they suffered the consequences of dedicating themselves to literature or art but they did not regret it. It was everything I wanted to be.”
Journalist Paula Carreras (29 years old, one of the authors of the ‘Gent de Merda’ podcast on Radio Primavera Sound), considers this idea of representation key. “For me ‘Girls’ meant that non-normativity had a space and could be represented in fiction. They were not the typical four friends that we had always seen as in ‘Sex and the City’. In ‘Girls’ there was clumsiness, there were uncomfortable things and there were things that were not very pleasant to look at.” Conce Almeida (29 years old, VOD distribution on a well-known streaming platform) reflects on the nostalgic regrowth with these series. “I think they are two of the latest series that have really penetrated the collective imagination. The creation of icons is something super difficult and now it doesn’t happen so much because many white label series come out”. Almeida also highlights how these two series marry with the codes of the new generations. “These are very easy series to share on the networks. They have very instagrammable scenes and they are closely linked to fashion & rdquor ;.
Carreras also remembers that when there is a lot of talk about something we want to be part of the conversation. “When someone starts reviewing something, it’s very easy to create that sounding board effect: everyone is commenting, and we all want to be part of the conversation. There is also that thing that to cure anxiety, it is best to watch a series again that you already know how it ends. ‘Girls’ is a safe place for a lot of people& rdquor;. Marina Porras (32 years old, writer and literary critic) is not surprised that the series continues to be seen, because she says, “the idea of representing a micro-society of friends always works& rdquor;, and because, she stresses, there has not been a similar phenomenon. “It seems to me like the last really successful attempt to make a series of generational representation & rdquor ;.
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The broadcast of ‘Girls’ was marked by hate in the networks and controversy: from the accusations of nepotism to Dunham to the absence of racialized people. But, no issue was as commented as the nudes. Carreras remembers: “The scenes were poorly carried out at an audiovisual level. There was something very raw in seeing sex as it is and as you have experienced it. I think now there is a trend that reaps the fruits of ‘Girls’. I think of ‘Self Defense’ or ‘Selftape‘”. Dunham questions the nature of the bonds throughout the series and ends up making an unkind portrait of friendship, but no less realistic for that. Carreras highlights: “’Girls’ was able to capture a very specific audience, girls between 18 and 25 years oldand make them worthy of intelligent content when all they were sold were romantic comedies & rdquor ;.
For an entire generation it was a cornerstone of their education. Almeida explains it, who remembers that it coincided with the fourth wave of feminism: “It was the series we needed but didn’t know yet. ‘Girls’ put you in front of things that you hadn’t considered and you still didn’t know would form part of your personality. Things I was going to face at some point as a woman. ‘Girls’ was suggesting things to me that I had never seen on screen or heard said aloud& rdquor ;.
