Dammit Girls! You Win…

Yeah you smile you smug bitches….

Okay I am just going to get right into this and admit

I LOVE GIRLS!

The television show not girls in general, but I digress from the first moment I laid eyes on episode 1 of this show I knew I adored it, and was genuinely excited about this series… then the whole race issue came up. I was so excited that there was someone so much like me on-screen that not seeing any people of color was a minor blip on my radar.  It wasn’t until I looked again and started reading articles that I began getting more annoyed by this. I felt like I connected with Lena on some level because we shared similar experiences and when I realized that she didn’t even think of the fact that someone who looked like me could be so similar was kind of hurtful.  It was like being reminded yet again that we will always be thought of as the other.  So being the good black person I am I too joined in on the protesting of Girls even going as far as hoping it would do poorly.

I held out for a while, like five weeks, then I read this article (which I cannot find, sorry y’all  found it!) by Awkward Black Girl writer/producer/actress Tracy Oliver and found myself shaking my head to a number of her points.  I particularly agree with the point that the problem with lack of diversity has less to do with Lena and Girls and more to do with the Hollywood system and it was at that moment it hit me… I have no reason to be pissed at Lena. Am I still a little disappointed she forgot the minorities? Yes, but I also realize that when you write something from your perspective it can at times be limiting. Even as a black girl I realize that my perspective could exclude a lot of my fellow minorities thanks to education, location, and class differences. Does that mean I don’t acknowledge them or know they exist? No, it just means that in my limited perspective I cannot write something honest about someone else’s experience.

But we also have to acknowledge that despite the fact that characters have some minor aesthetic differences from us (race, sex, age, etc.) we can still have shared experiences.  In my mid-twenties I completely connected with the book It’s Kind of a Funny Story despite being neither a teenager nor a boy.  And in that same way I can connect with Hannah’s experience, the girls on the show don’t have to be black for me to understand exactly where they are coming from. As a matter of fact on paper I most likely have more in common with Hannah than with any black character on television or in movies.  Do I wish representations of black girls like this…

Or this…

were on television? Yes, but I also realize that Lena’s Girls is a step in the right direction. For once we don’t have to watch a show about some skinny blond chick in a $600 Marc Jacobs dress (love ya Marc!) complaining about being broke and how she can’t get a date. Girls is about as real as television is going to let us get for now and I’ll take it because I realize change can’t be over night.

Later ;0)

What Just Happened…

That was my exact reaction after seeing the next three things I am about to show you….enjoy!

After this trailer I literally said, “I don’t know what you are, but I love you!”

I have long expressed my belief that Rob and Kristen could do much better than Twilight and finally it looks like I’m going to be proven right. They are both attached to some pretty badass projects and it seems that very soon we will all be asking the question, what was that vampire movie they were in again?

Happy days people, happy days!

If you doubt Kimbra’s abilities this should kill that doubt. Two mics, an IPad, a tiny machine, and her voice is all she needed to make this…. yep call me when Britney, Katy, or Beyonce can do that.

After reading this, spending ages scrolling through this, and seeing the majorly f**ked up reaction to this…

Sidenote: One tweeter was so pissed off by this picture she actually begged Charlize Theron to (not making this up) open her legs to Fassy to “save” him. Yes because the only way one of the hottest new actors right now would be interested in a black girl was if we were using our special black voodoo magic on him, which can only be broken by a willing white girl.  And the really sad part is I bet Robert DiNiro has had less hassle than Mike over his preference for black women and his career actually spans a time when America was apparently (racism wise) worse…guess we were wrong about that.

But I digress, this song is long overdue in my opinion because black girls don’t get nearly enough love.  Sure the song may not be perfect and I am positive many will criticize it, but considering the fact that this kid…

Guy in front.

is saying I like black girls and you’re a complete idiot for asking me why…well that’s pretty damn groundbreaking. Ten times more groundbreaking than Lena Dunham’s show Girls.

Another Sidenote: I’m not hating on Girls, I actually liked it and felt like I had a lot in common with the main character of the show. My big problem is Lena and crew created characters based on her friends and she never even considered the fact that a girl of color could have those same problems. The characters could have still been based on her friends and been more diverse looking, I can’t even tell like two of them apart. Lena is not the first (nor will she be the last) to place women of color as the other, but she is one of the few that I felt genuinely let down by. As a young woman with a rare opportunity and the ability to have control over what she put out into the world Lena chose to stay in her comfort zone because she, like many I have come in contact with, lacks the ability to see anyone different from themselves as anything but the other. In the end we may not all be the same, but we are also not as drastically different as many would choose to believe.

Also making the only two people of color in your pilot be complete stereotypes (Asian computer nerd and Black homeless man) is just fucked up Lena and no amount of tweets about how much you love Sherri, Whoopi, and Gayle will make that less fucked up. Take a note from Woody Allen he may not use people of color often, but when he does he at least has the decency to not make them a stereotype.

And ten million detours later we have reached the end of this post, hope you thought these were awesome as well.

Adios!