I think this tendency towards autobiographical interpretation is what frustrates me about reaction to this film AND Girls. People refuse to separate Dunham from her characters, and seem to insist that she's celebrating the pseudo-artistic, pseudo-intellectual meandering of twentysomethings. In other words, people appear to be arguing that she's an entitled white twentysomething interested only in marketing to and glorifying her own group of other entitled white twentysomething "hipsters" (ugh...) when I don't see much evidence that that's what she's doing. In any interview I've seen with her, she comes across as very genuine and passionate about her storytelling. Sure, she's "quirky" and is coming from a different place than a lot of people, but the criticism just seems ridiculous to me.onedimension wrote:Saw some of Tiny Furniture again last night while my girlfriend was watching on Netflix. Now that the hype has died down, it's a decent film- having seen a few episodes of 'Girls', it also helps to contrast the TF characters with the ones on 'Girls'- so the feeling that Dunham is just offering thinly veiled autobiography has faded, and it's easier to see critical distance in the presentation of the MILIEU.
I do give her credit for getting the quasi/pseudo-intellectual hipster narciss-artist Internet celebrity vibe of 20-somethings who try to compete in status and cultural capital because they don't feel competitive in economic capital (either they aren't, or don't have to be)- I don't think that's new, and I think some of the narcissism and shallowness ideally gets sublimated into actual artistic work as people mature- but the hi!, concept / low effort glib cultural products and the famous-to-15-people accomplishment of Youtube/blog/Tumblr success are accurate..
In other words, I think your last paragraph is entirely accurate.
"hipster" is such a meaningless and unnecessary designation though.