By Drew Grant and Noam Cohen 9:32am

Girls recaps

Illustration by Alex Bedder

Five Essay Prompts for Girls 2×10: ‘Together’


These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. When Googling “Normal Tongue,” what is your favorite hit? Please quote from the source text, and if there are images, definitely include them, because this is something I am actually wondering about now. Read More

By Drew Grant and Alex Bedder 3/11 8:00am

girls

b

Five Essay Prompts for Girls 2×09: ‘On All Fours’

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Please welcome The New York Observer’s recap illustrator Alex Bedder as tonight’s visiting scholar-in-residence of Girls studies. Alex Bedder comes to us as an associate professor of pop culture from Paper magazine university, and is the author of a New York Times best-selling Tumblr. Catch his Grammy-winning* podcast, “Let’s Talk About It Pod.” Read More

By Drew Grant, Noam Cohen and Alex Bedder 11:54am

Girls recaps

Boys (illustration by Alex Bedder)

Five Essay Prompts for Girls 2×6: ‘Boys’

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. The title of this episode, “Boys,” is clearly meant to be read as a contrast with the name of the show, and though it spends a lot of time with Hannah and Marnie as well, it certainly gives us a fuller picture of three of Girls’s male characters. Given this theme, what is the implication of the episode’s opening scene, which features John Cameron Mitchell, an artist well known for gender-bending, but here playing a fairly straight role? Read More

By Drew Grant and Noam Cohen 1/28 11:06pm

girls

Hannah contemplates where the magic happens. (Illustration by Alex Bedder)

Five Essay Prompts for Girls 2×3: ‘Bad Friend’

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. No. 2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and sample responses.

1. The first scene this week has Hannah going to interview for a freelance job writing about drugs and experimental sex for a website called JazzHate, run by a woman named “Jame” (not Jamie). First of all, what the hell does JazzHate even mean, and secondly, which website will have the most convincing blog post claiming credit for the reference: XOJane, Jezebel, or Vice circa 2002? Read More

By Drew Grant and Aaron Gell 5/28/12 3:28pm

Girls Recap

Crack is whack (HBO)

Updated GIRLS: Five Essay Prompts (Episode 7: ‘Welcome to Bushwick a.k.a. The Crackcident’)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

1. The episode begins at a warehouse party. Describe the scene in light of Bakhtin’s Theory of the Carnivalesque. How are characters altered and the relationships upended by this event, when the established societal rules are briefly suspended (i.e., “tits out for Christmas”)?

Bakhtin’s’s theory of carnival was actually published in a later version of his essays, Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics, and the term “carnival” was used to explain what he considered the Russian author’s “”polyphony”: the ability of many voices to speak at once, interact with each other, and most importantly, strengthen individual arguments while finally being heard by one another. Read More

By Drew Grant 5/21/12 5:45pm

girls

Our generation, on an off-night. (HBO)

Five Essay Prompts for This Week’s Girls: Episode 6, ‘The Return’

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from Episode 6 (‘The Return’) only, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

1. At home in Michigan, Hannah denies her physical needs to her parents, declaring, “I said I wasn’t hungry. You don’t know about me.” But in a private moment, she binges on food. Discuss nutritional sustenance as a metaphor and the body of the woman-child as a site of generational conflict and shifting power dynamics.

Hannah would do well to change her iPod from Robyn and Alanis once in awhile, because this guy named Bob Dylan once wrote a song about her. Read More

By Drew Grant and Aaron Gell 5/14/12 9:15am

girls

Ira Ames is so confused (HBO)

GIRLS: Five Essay Prompts (Episode 5: ‘Hard Being Easy’)

These questions regard last night’s episode of HBO’s Girls. Please answer the prompts with specific examples from LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE, though supplementary material will be accepted as a secondary source. Please write legibly. #2 pencils only. You have an hour to finish this test. See below for questions and example responses.

1. Lena Dunham has been described as “the voice of her generation.” Her generation’s other contributions to American culture include artisanal house-made infused vinegars and responsibly sourced small-batch chocolate bars. How is girls Girls the premium-cable equivalent of a pizza from Roberta’s, and how is it not?

Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines the word ‘generation’ as, “A body of living beings constituting a single step in the line of descent from an ancestor.” That doesn’t really seem to apply to Girls, since Hannah is an only child. Marnie and Shoshanna are cousins, so perhaps that’s it.

In this essay I will compare and contrast Girls to a pizza from Roberta’s near the McKibben lofts in East Bushwick (Slogan: “What, your restaurant doesn’t double as a radio station?”), using examples from both real life and the show. I will also compare and contrast Girls to the general aesthetic of what our culture defines as quote-unquote hipsters. Read More

By Drew Grant and Aaron Gell 5/06/12 11:00pm

girls

Just chatting about 'Girls' (HBO)

GIRLS: An Intergenerational Dialog (Episode 4: ‘Hannah’s Diary’)

In which the voices of their generations (or two voices…of two generations) discuss The World’s Most Important Show, seeking common ground on the series’ hot-button issues. Like that stuff that comes up around the sides, etc.

Back to Races; Meditations on Creepy Father Figures

Generation Y:  I’m so glad we didn’t jump the gun with accusing the show of racism before Lena Dunham got herself some Mexican eyebrows.
Generation X: We also had a black nanny. And maybe a Tibetan nanny.
Generation Y: And a gay redhead nanny…
Generation X: And Jessa very eagerly taking up their cause.
Generation Y: We’re learning a lot more about Jessa, I think. Because how creepy is that dad that she’s always digging? And why do really beautiful, confident women always end up with daddy issues?
Generation X: Jessa’s confidence has always seemed a little thin.
Generation Y: Though it does round out her character. She’s now more than just “snobby Brit.”
Generation X: And if I may speak for the creepy dads out there. We’re people too.
Generation Y: Aaron, I see you as more of the best friend of the creepy dad. So: what is with your “ass like Rihanna” comment? Do old people know about Rihanna’s ass? Is it great?  I feel like Shakira would be a better, more outdated reference.
Generation X: I think Rihanna is a beautiful woman. but yes, I’m a devotee of Shaki. I interviewed her once and remain wholeheartedly in love. Partly because she was wearing a Psychedelic Furs t-shirt and, well, they were this band that like, in the 80s… Drew, I imagine you’ve done some babysitting. How creepy are these dads? Read More