Campus Carrier sports editor Avery Boulware writes about Lena Dunham’s ‘Girls.’

Avery Boulware, Campus Carrier sports editor

My roommate doesn’t even ask me what show I’m watching when she comes into the room anymore. She knows it’s “Girls.” In fact, she’ll probably roll her eyes when she reads this piece because, after talking her ear off for the last month, I finally have a proper outlet to discuss one of the most ingenious shows on television.

I devoured the first season of Lena Dunham’s “Girls”on Amazon Prime in a single day over winter break. In the interest of paying the least amount of money possible for my entertainment consumption, I signed up for a month-long free trial of HBO (which I highly recommend — it’s free) to finish the rest of the seasons. I completed the series in less than a week, and for the rest of winter break, watched a few of my favorite episodes every night.

Though my love for comedy knows no bounds, I have only been enthralled by two TV series in my life, neither of which are particularly funny. The two shows are “Girls”and “Mad Men.” In both of these shows, the characters are meticulously developed and have layers upon layers of motive and inner conflict. 

While “Mad Men” was certainly a work of art, I think I have been drawn to “Girls” because I am, in fact, a girl. Dunham writes such realistic characters. Few are inherently good or inherently bad. They just are. They are all so redeeming at times, and the next moment so incredibly stupid. But all the while, I know exactly what they are feeling, because I have either felt the same, or know someone who has felt the same. 

Think about it — the best friendships, in my opinion, are with people that you know so deeply that you can hate and love them interchangeably, but it never lessens your interest in their lives. But now I’m sounding like the girl that thinks TV characters are her friends, so we can steer away from that rabbit trail.

If you’ve heard anything about the show, you know that Dunham is notorious for portraying her body, as well as others, in rawest form. I’ll admit to fast forwarding through several scenes, and I’ll credit it to my beliefs on putting good things into the heart in order to reap good things from the heart. But I so appreciate Lena’s sentiment in being so unbridled. Why paint unrealistic pictures of bodies or of sex? Neither are pretty sights. They are just parts of life. 

This sentiment finds its way into everything Dunham creates on the show. Life is raw. It doesn’t always make sense. Things don’t tie themselves up in neat little packages full of symbolism and a fitting soundtrack. And people do things that don’t make sense and sometimes don’t coincide with our preconceived notions of them. 

But real people are complex. Real characters should be, too. Real life doesn’t imitate art. But good art should imitate real life, because that is what tugs on the heartstrings.