‘This is How the Rest of Your Life Should Look’: Young Women’s Intimate Engagements with HBO’s Girls
Date
2013
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Producer
Director
Performer
Choreographer
Costume Designer
Music
Videographer
Lighting Designer
Set Designer
Crew Member
Funder
Rehearsal Director
Concert Coordinator
Advisor
Moderator
Panelist
Alternative Title
Department
Haverford College. Department of Anthropology
Type
Thesis
Original Format
Running Time
File Format
Place of Publication
Date Span
Copyright Date
Award
Language
eng
Note
Table of Contents
Terms of Use
Rights Holder
Access Restrictions
Haverford users only
Terms of Use
Tripod URL
Identifier
Abstract
My thesis explores the intimate engagement of young women with the popular HBO television show Girls. While the show emerged amidst a storm of controversy and critiques, my subjects found that Girls spoke to their lives and experiences. Watching the show and engaging with it critically and intimately allowed them to articulate the experiences, fears, anxieties, and desires of their own lives as they saw a reflection on screen. I merged my ethnographic work with these young women with the larger popular and critical discourses and interpretations about Girls online within news and entertainment media, as the reality of millennial daily life is constantly mediated by the internet. Looking at how these young women interpreted, questioned, and struggled with Girls at this particular “postfeminist” moment, we are reminded that individuals are embedded with particular social fields and dominant ideologies. In examining the struggle with Girls we gain a more nuanced understanding of how these young women engage with television, and what they want from it.