On Class and Work in HBO’s “Girls”

On the occasion of last night’s season finale of HBO’s Girls, we’re publishing online for the first time Heather Havrilesky’s essay “Sit-Cons: Class on TV,” from Issue 20 of The Baffler. In it, she examines how the subject of class is treated (and should be treated) on Downton Abbey, Revenge, Gossip Girl, and more.

Here’s an excerpt of her discussion of Girls:

It’s odd, then, that the one show that dares to burden its privileged heroines with both aggressively entitled and infantile urges of the urban elite would come under fire for focusing on rich white women. Forget the whitewashed, class-bound portrayals of every male-dominated TV show of the past half-century; HBO’s Girls, a comedy about the demeaning post-college years of coddled white girls, should shift its premise, its focus, and its tone in order singlehandedly to carry the banner of multiculturalism and class unity.

Yet it’s hard to think of a single TV show that approaches upper-crust decadence with as much transparency (and, at times, outright scorn) as Girls does. [. . . ]

Hannah herself is often set straight by more sensible denizens of the regular working world: when she shows two coworkers at her office the photo her sort-of boyfriend sent her of his penis, the two women tell her she’s devaluing herself and should dump him immediately. This clash of post-elite-college idealism and working-world reality, playing out in the slightly shameful realm of condescending, training-wheels internships, lies at the heart of the show’s mission. It’s the reason it’s called Girls: drifting through the trust-fund-enabled, fun-seeking romper room of Manhattan and Brooklyn, these clueless children couldn’t be more out of touch with the rigors of the real world.

Read Heather Havrilesky’s full essay here.