Ten years later, I re-watched GIRLS.
looking back at Lena Dunham’s iconic millennials as a thirty-something!
Lena Dunham’s new show Too Much premieres today on Netflix. I haven’t watched it yet, but I’m excited to. In the meantime, to celebrate, I thought I’d take a trip down memory lane via a nostalgic detour, because I recently re-watched all six seasons of Girls. For those who don’t know, GIRLS is a HBO series (2012-2017) about messy millennial life in NYC, created by and starring Lena Dunham, executive-produced by Judd Apatow.
For context, I first watched GIRLS in 2012, as a fresh-faced 22-year-old (I’m now 36.) I’d just moved to London straight out of university and was living in a flat in Stoke Newington with one of my best friends. The flat had a small terrace where we’d sit on Sunday nights, smoking (ew), ordering sushi, gossiping, working, dating boys, dancing, laughing, and watching TV.
Watching GIRLS together was our thing. I had the time of my life in that flat, living with my best friend. She has two children now and lives in California—and I miss her all the time. Watching GIRLS will always remind me of her and that very specific period of my life.
(In my twenties, I was a completely different person. Except, also not?! I wanted to write. I had a blog. Not much has changed.)
20 thoughts I had while re-watching all six seasons of GIRLS as a 30-something:
Lena Dunham is a genius writer.
A genius who also wrote herself sexy scenes with hot men (Donald Glover, Patrick Wilson, Adam Driver). Excellent moves, really.
I didn’t fancy Adam Driver in my twenties. But now I do?
I feel older now / Being in your twenties was a wild ride / I’m glad I don’t have to go to warehouse parties anymore / I feel a bit homesick.
For years, people assumed Lena was just playing herself on screen. In reality, she created a pitch-perfect Millennial satire in Hannah Horvath: a sharp, often brutal mockery of her generation, including privilege, big dreams, and chaotic friendships. Lena wasn’t telling her life story—not even close. She has even said recently that she is ‘more of a Shoshanna’ IRL than a Hannah. (You can also read about Lena’s own complicated relationship with New York City here.)
Hannah being obsessed with her e-book, even when she finds out her editor David has died in season three (“but what about my book?”) made me cringe with weird recognition about the narcissistic obsession 20-somethings have—desperate to get some sort of professional validation, as quickly as possible.
Can we talk about the soundtrack? e.g. Rihanna’s Desperado and All Hands on Deck by Tinashe! And of course that scene where Hannah and Marnie dance to Robyn’s Dancing On My Own!!
Desi in GIRLS recently won an Emmy in The Bear!
On the rewatch, I felt more motherly—almost protective—toward Jessa. In my twenties, I thought she was cool and sassy. Now, I just see her as a troubled, confused young woman.
I now understand Ray.
Marnie is the funniest character. The YouTube video of her singing What I Am? Her cover of Stronger at the party? The scene where she is listening to Eckhart Tolle while making a smoothie?? Obsessed.
Shoshanna’s obsession with Sex and The City feels like a hidden easter egg that I didn’t notice before.
Hannah waking up in Coney Island eating cake (season one, episode ten) reminds me of all those nights accidentally falling asleep on the night bus and ending up in the arse-end of nowhere (the less chic London version.)
The old school media references! Hannah getting her news from Gawker. Her describing Jezebel as a place “feminists can go to support each other.” (🥴)
In season two, episode nine, when Hannah is commissioned to write an e-book by an editor at Pumpt, he tells her her writing is “very Jane Austen”—and not in a good way. What he really wants is for her to mine her sex life for trauma and sadness. It’s hard not to think of the “personal essay boom” of 2014, when you got paid £70 to write about your teenage trauma—and got trolled on Twitter for it. Remember that?
IS THAT JENNA LYONS? (playing Hannah’s boss)?
The celebrity cameos are very enjoyable. Jenny Slate as Hannah’s frenemy. Chris O’Dowd playing a sleazeball. Ben Mendelsohn as Jessa’s Dad. Riz Ahmed! RICHARD E GRANT!
The writing is so good, but much of the emotion lies in what isn’t said. It’s in Hannah’s tears, a look between two characters, a long pause, a subtle shift in expression. It invites you to read between the lines, to project your own meaning onto the silence.
The bottle episode American Bitch (season six), about an older man harassing a younger writer, feels even more poignant, shocking, and sharp all these years later. It aired pre-#MeToo, but it was laying the groundwork.
When I first watched the show in my twenties, I’d never even been to Williamsburg. Now, I love spotting little corners of New York that appear in the series—like Spoonbill & Sugartown, the charming bookshop on Bedford Avenue.
ps I enjoyed this video of Lena guessing the lines from her shows on Variety’s YouTube channel — and here, she’s on the GIRLS Re-watch podcast!
(Speaking of New York… come and celebrate Table For One (the US version) at The Strand Bookstore in October (I’ll be in conversation with
). Tickets here.)
Footnotes:
I first met Lena, in 2014, at the height of GIRLs-mania, she had green hair and I had blue hair.
I interviewed her for The Debrief magazine. It was so incredibly exciting for me—I was (and still am) a HUGE fan of the show, and her work. We’d been DM-ing a bit on Twitter. I was invited by fancy PR companies to celebrate the DVD release (that’s how much the world has changed since then!) Lena mentioned me in Time Out, in 2015, as one of her ‘favourite London girls’ before anyone knew me. She generously gave me a quote for my first book in 2016. I met her again in 2017 when I interviewed her for my podcast Ctrl Alt Delete—and again in 2019 at a premiere for her film Catherine Called Birdy. I have a longstanding love for Lena Dunham and always will.
Thank god gross Twitter culture is over
To me, GIRLS stands the test of time—it somehow doesn’t age. And Lena couldn’t be having a better time in her career or personal life. She is now married and lives in London, with great friends and surrounded by pets. She has a film in the works starring Natalie Portman called Good Sex. She is working on the 10 Things I Hate About You musical. She has a first-look deal with Netflix, via her production company
.In the last few years, it seems as though people look back in hindsight and think: hmm “Do we owe Lena Dunham an apology?” Think-pieces along the lines of: “I quit having a grudge about Lena Dunham” and “hey, Hannah Horvath wasn’t so bad.” The way people skewered public figures on Twitter was obscene. Lena has often joked: "I need a T-shirt that says, 'I survived New York media in 2012 and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
Even Gen Z love GIRLS
It also feels as though Gen Z are starting to soften towards Millennials. They think we’re cringe (apparently we used emojis all wrong)—but endearing, I’ll take that. The very online Substack Embedded recently wrote about this ‘redemption arc’ for Millennials and included an interesting meme on TikTok doing the rounds, which said:
“I'm watching GIRLS on HBO for the first time and I realize I wasn't meant to be 23 in this age. I was meant to be a 23 year old hipster living in Brooklyn in 2012 wearing too many floral patterns, listening to vampire weekend, and writing absurd listicles on buzzfeed while, it was at its peak. I'm a converted millennial apologist now because what a time to be alive.”
I agree. WHAT a time to be alive.
GIRLS merch — for some added nostalgia:
This framed quote about eyebrows.
This Hannah Horvath bookmark.
Did you watch the show? any favourite moments? xo
Very with you on point 10. One of my favourite scenes is when Desi says to Ray something along the lines of 'hey man, I need to know if you and me are sympatico?' and Ray deadpans 'I'm afraid you're not going to get that assurance from me today'. Be more Ray!
This made me happy. Thank you for your service 🥰