Jennifer Mitchell
The beginning of He’s Just Not that Into You (2009) theorizes the tragic history of mixed signals within a romantic framework. After a young boy pushes a young girl down, her mother tries to make her feel better with the following explanation: “Do you know why that little boy did those things and said those things? It’s because he likes you. That little boy is doing those terrible things because he’s got a crush on you.”[1] For Ginnifer Goodwin’s character, this narrative is “the beginning of our problem” because it sets young, single, straight girls up to “think that if a guy acts like a total jerk he likes you.”[2] This sentiment that men are jerks and that women misinterpret their fairly straightforward negative behavior as something indirectly positive, of course, echoes that of the book by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccilo on which the movie is based. Whereas the book works to assure women that they are never the exception, most of the movie’s intersecting story lines reiterate the traditional fairy tale mythology where the “heroine” is, without question, the exception to all romantic rules and regulations. Ultimately, the “he’s just not that into you” mantra that underscores the entirety of the book is only applicable to one or two of the major plotlines of the film.
The introductory segment of the film reinforces the opposition between men and women in virtually all things related to love, dating, romance, and sex. For the characters in the movie, their respective partners in question are indicative of “types” of men, and, as a result, types of relationships. The dating drama chronicled throughout—a mix of bad Myspace encounters, adultery, casual sex, misinterpreted signals, ultimatums, among others—is a testament to the demand for “real” stories that address the spectrum of damage that one encounters whilst attempting to date. He’s Just Not That Into You, of course, is neither the first nor the last popular attempt at making a point about the complex and dynamic nature of heterosexual dating.
Focusing on the more nuanced and, one might argue, messier portraits of damage, HBO’s Girls is a reaction to cultural portraits of “damage”—both in terms of sex and in terms of dating—that have been chronicled over the last two decades. Television shows about friendship and dating that take place in New York City like Friends (1994–2004) and Sex and the City (1998–2004) each break down “damage” into two distinct categories: romantic deal breaker or fixer-upper.[3] The shows’ protagonists encounter a variety of dating “nightmares” deemed as such precisely because of the revelation of the insurmountable damage accompanying their partners. From horrifying doppelgangers to incompatible sexual proclivities, such damage proves itself impossible to overcome. As a result, the successful pairings—ultimately heteronormative, straight, all white couples—speak to the notion that romantic success comes from overcoming all that dating nonsense with someone whose damage is malleable and, well, surmountable. Thus Ross and Rachel find their way back to each other, with five of the six friends happily paired off by the series finale. When Carrie ultimately ends up with Big, she is the last of her foursome to end up in a long-term committed relationship by the end of the series.[4] Over the course of their runs, the characters on these shows eventually end up in their thirties or forties (or even fifties), but in the case of Friends, viewers follow closely the dating lives of twenty somethings for much of the series. Contrarily, in its first two seasons, Girls presents damage not as an obstacle to overcome but as a foundational part of Hannah’s and Adam’s personal struggles and romantic exchanges, presenting viewers with a whole new dating paradigm—one that is telling in its frankness.
In particular, all three shows attempt to convey the harsh, absurd, comical, and distressing “realities” of what it means to actually attempt to date in New York City. The significance of geography here cannot be overstated, especially when Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex and the City thanked New York as the “fifth lady” on the series during her 2002 Golden Globe Award acceptance speech. The proliferation of New York City as the setting for dating drama is a testament to its singularity. Indeed, if one does a Google search about dating in New York, one will stumble across all sorts of funny and somewhat depressing articles with catchy titles such as, “Ask a Native New Yorker: Why Is the NYC Dating Scene so Rough?” Native New Yorker, John Del Signore, provides a telling response to this question:
You say you’re looking for “Interesting, attractive, not insane people.” Take it from a native: in thirty-seven years I have never met a person in this city that embodied all three of these qualities at once. Perhaps this is possible in a simpler town—Minneapolis, maybe, or Vancouver. But you chose New York, a city so expensive that it drives the sane mad just trying to make rent, tempts the attractive with cronuts until they become morbidly obese, and forces all the interesting people to discuss real estate and careers until they kill everyone with boredom.[5]
Del Signore identifies the specific “type” of person attracted to New York as fundamentally lacking. In other words, “normal” single people interested in finding “normal” partners do not choose to live in New York City. Similarly, in “5 Reasons Dating in NYC Is Exhausting,” Madison Moore identifies the geographically specific proliferation of “weirdos”:
The Chances Of Them Being A Major Weirdo Are High: Everybody has some kind of ratchetness in their mind-closet. I don’t think there’s a single human being out there who doesn’t have issues. New York is an expensive city to live in, which means people work eighty hours a week and drink and do other stuff to relax, but it also means that they have developed some kind of weird neuroses that you will either have to learn to deal with or run away from. Just remember to be fair, though, because you have your own shit, too. Nobody’s perfect.[6]
There is an explicit connection being made between New York as “a city so expensive” that it is impossible to stay sane (or, to simply be sane) and those who are willing to sacrifice their sanity in order to live there. These articles, representative of dozens more like them, use a mix of humor and melancholy to cultivate camaraderie amongst those who believe they have been wronged by the harshness of the dating scene in the city. The thematic undercurrent of both articles is clear—in New York, “normal” is impossible.
As such, television shows that focus on heterosexual dating—which, for the purposes of this chapter, I consider anything that ranges from a traditional date in which one party asks another out on an actual date to contemporary hook-ups in which one party has some form of sexual interactions with another—pay particular attention to the not-so-normal. For the “not so normal” dating behaviors that I am going to discuss, I adopt the term “damage,” using the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition: “Loss or detriment caused by hurt or injury affecting estate, condition, or circumstances; A disadvantage, inconvenience, trouble; A matter for regret, a misfortune, ‘a pity.’”[7] Damage, then, becomes the umbrella term under which all sorts of dating and sexual demons can be categorized. From Chandler’s willingness to disregard potential partners for “big nostrils”[8] to Harry’s problematic tea bag situation,[9] the spectrum of damage ranges from the absurd and impossible to the traditional and forgivable. What both Friends and Sex and the City have in common, however, is that those two ends of the spectrum reinforce the notion that prospective partners are either too damaged or in need of some fixing up. Girls, on the other hand, presents a third—and far more interesting—possibility: that damage is itself a foundational part of the romantic package, chronicling the ways in which damage is simultaneously ubiquitous and attractive.
Monica, Ross, Rachel, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe all navigated the slippery slope of dating whilst young, straight, white, and in New York City during the mid 1990s. Their dating stories, the comedic backbone of the series, are filled with a slew of dating mishaps and misdemeanors. The first season, in fact, chronicles what may be considered the most fleeting of these issues. In “The One with the Stoned Guy,” Ross’s “hot” date with Celia becomes simply too hot for him. Mid-make-out, Celia says, “Talk to me.”[10] Ross’s response, “um, a weird thing happened to me on the train this morning . . . ,” reveals his fundamental inability to understand exactly what Celia is asking of him. Finally, after she demands something “hot,” Ross blurts out “vulva.”[11] Of course, there is no ensuing sex, but rather resigned cuddling. Accordingly, Ross spends the next few segments of the episode asking Joey, Friends’s resident ladies’ man, for advice. Ultimately, Ross attempts to face his fear and chronicles his wholehearted second attempt at dirty talk: “I was the James Michener of dirty talk. It was the most elaborate filth you have ever heard. I mean, there were different characters, plot lines, themes, a motif . . . at one point there were villagers.”[12] Despite this rather elaborate recollection, Ross and Celia spend this date cuddling as well. Here, Celia’s “damage” is barely that; yet, her predilection for dirty talk is particularly mock-able precisely because Ross cannot possibly adapt to it. Sex and the City tackles this same subject when Miranda sleeps with someone who loves dirty talk. In “The Awful Truth,” she, somewhat channeling the usually verbose Ross, explains that, “sex is not a time to chat.”[13]
In “The One with the Ick Factor,” Monica inadvertently sleeps with a high school student. Prior to what she hopes will be the first time that they have sex, Ethan reveals his virginity, romantically declaring, “I’ve kinda been waiting for the right person.”[14] The sex that follows, apparently, is remarkable for both Monica and Ethan. Yet, it inspires Monica to reveal a little something about herself: “Listen, uh, you told me something that was really difficult for you. And I, I—I figured if you could be honest, then I can too . . . Um, okay, here it goes. I’m not twenty-two. I’m, I’m twenty-five . . . and thirteen months.”[15] It turns out that Monica undershot her age to seem more compatible with young Ethan, who, inspired by Monica’s candor and declaration that “that shouldn’t change anything . . . [because] what the hell does it matter how old we are,” reveals even more about himself:
Ethan: Uh, listen um, as long as we’re telling stuff, uh, I have another one for you. I’m a little younger than I said.
Monica: You’re not a senior?
Ethan: Oh, I’m a senior . . . in high school.[16]
Thus, the titular “Ick Factor” surfaces. Despite the fact that what Monica shaved off of her age is roughly equivalent to what Ethan added onto his—and despite the fact that both of their lies made what happened between them in bed illegal, Monica places the blame almost entirely on Ethan and his adolescence. Her post-confessional freak out comprises much of the humor in this aspect of the episode:
Monica: What we did was wrong. Oh god, I just had sex with somebody that wasn’t alive during the Bicentennial.
Ethan: I just had sex.
Monica: Ethan, focus. How could you not tell me?
Ethan: Well, you never told me how old you were.
Monica: Well, that’s different. My lie didn’t make one of us a felon in forty-eight states.[17]
The “damage” that viewers can locate here, a basic lie about something fundamentally unchangeable about oneself, is something that resurfaces in subsequent decades with the proliferation of online dating: think height, weight, body shape, level of education, alcohol and cigarette consumption, desire for children, among others. In this early Friends episode, though, the obstacle to dating happiness is unquestionably insurmountable.
These two examples are indicative of the various tracts of damage that surface on the show. Celia’s dirty talk is indicative of a general sexual incompatibility that could, elsewhere, be overcome—and that, for Adam and Hannah in Girls, would actually signify sexual compatibility—whereas Ethan’s youth is a straightforward deal-breaker—as, potentially, Hannah’s admission to graduate school could be. In the show, both minor characters are ditched in favor of, first, more comedic damage, and second, more permanent commitment. After ten seasons, Ross ends up with Rachel, fulfilling their destiny as “the show’s emotional core” and Monica finds true love across the hall with Chandler.[18]
More nuanced “damage” surfaces throughout the series, which provides viewers with overt condemnations of particular sexual and dating choices. Chandler falls for a mysterious woman named Aurora in “The One with the Butt” and is initially smitten by her foreign intrigue. He explains, “she’s Italian, and she pronounces my name ‘Chand-lerr’. ‘Chand-lerr.’”[19] Her appeal only grows when, in brief flashbacks to their date, she explains her romantic situation:
Chandler: So explain something to me here. What kind of a relationship do you imagine us having if you already have a husband and a boyfriend?
Aurora: I suppose mainly sexual.[20]
While Monica and the other friends presume that this revelation means the end for Chandler and Aurora, Chandler is clear about the appeal of such a scenario:
Monica: Didn’t you listen to the story? I mean, this is twisted! How could you get involved with a woman like this?
Chandler: Well, y’know, I had some trouble with it at first, too, but the way I look at it is, I get all the good stuff: all the fun, all the talking, all the sex, and none of the responsibility. I mean, this is every guy’s fantasy![21]
All those involved in a relationship with Aurora are aware of her circumstances, yet Monica adamantly maintains that the dynamic Aurora describes is “twisted.” As Chandler continues to “date” Aurora, he becomes torn between the fantasy of getting “all the good stuff” and the reality of having to share a woman for whom he is developing feelings. That tension reaches its climax in the final encounter between Chandler and Aurora, when they both finally acknowledge his reservations:
Aurora: Why can’t we just have what we have now? Why can’t we just talk, and laugh, and make love, without feeling obligated to one another . . . and up until tonight I thought that’s what you wanted, too.
Chandler: Well, y’know, part of me wants that, but it’s like I’m two guys, y’know? I mean, one guy’s going “Shut up! This is great!” But there’s this other guy. Actually it’s the same guy that wells up every time that Grinch’s heart grows three sizes and breaks that measuring device . . . And he’s saying, y’know, “This is too hard! Get out! Get out!”[22]
Of course, when this episode is put in conversation with the future trajectory of Chandler and Monica, it is clear that Friends sides with Monica—Aurora and all the subversive, alternative sexual and romantic dynamics that she represents are “twisted.” Even the versions of what has been seen as extreme sexual objectification in Girls are primarily framed in terms of partnerships; aside from Jessa and Marnie’s momentary threesome, “twisted” sexual encounters exist between two parties.[23] Thus, the safe, traditional, heteronormative romantic narrative plays itself out in a proposal, a marriage, and babies for Chandler and Monica by the time the series ends. The same is, somewhat remarkably, true of Phoebe as the show progresses. In “The One with the Boob Job,” Ross is surprised to see that Phoebe is more traditional than her dating history would suggest. After boyfriend Mike asks her to move in with him, Phoebe tells her friends, who have already revealed their own personal interest in or commitment to marriage:
Monica: I hear wedding bells.
Phoebe: Monica, slow down! Ok? I’m just excited to be living with him. You know I mean, I don’t know, Can I see someday being married to Mike? Sure! Yeah. Y’know. I can picture myself walking down the aisle in a wedding dress that highlights my breasts in an obvious yet classy way. But do I want that house in Connecticut . . . you know, near the good schools where Mike and I can send Sophie and Mike Junior. Oh my god I do.
Ross: Phoebe, I had no idea you were so conventional.
Phoebe: I know! I guess I am! Oh my god! Load up the Volvo I want to be a soccer mom![24]
Free spirit Phoebe is probably least likely to get married given her atypical adolescence. Yet, just when Mike makes it clear that he has no interest in marriage, Phoebe comes to terms with the fact that she actually does and the two break up. Mike’s “damage” is fairly conventional, a man afraid of marriage, and when faced with a competing suitor willing to offer Phoebe that traditional commitment, Mike overcomes his “damage” and their reconciliation ensues. Friends embraces a fairy tale mythology, with five of the six main characters paired off monogamously by the final episode. Thus, for romantic fulfillment of the most traditional kind, damage needs to be overcome or recast—as it becomes a relic of formerly single days.
Because Friends aired on primetime network television, the “damage” that it chronicled was certainly tame by comparison. Without the nudity, explicit language, and actual sex scenes that are a commonplace element in Sex and the City and Girls, Friends can only go so far in terms of its coverage of the sexually and/or emotionally quirky. In their introduction to Reading Sex and the City, Kim Akass and Janet McCabe define the show as, “four women talking candidly about sex and relationships.”[25] Such candidness—what Dana Heller explains as “its unapologetic frankness with respect to matters of heterosexual sex and female sexuality” (151)[26]—is somewhat indebted to the freedoms that accompany HBO. Because of this limited-holds-barred framework, Sex and the City seeks to chronicle the realities of an older bracket of friends attempting to find love and/or orgasms. Within that narrative framework, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda all go through their fair share of dating drama. From suitors who secretly tape their sexual conquests[27] to gym instructors who “brand” their conquests[28] to unadulterated exhibitionists,[29] the men that are portrayed on the show are indicative of the vast array of damage that could be ascribed to a sexual partner.
From the first episode of the series, in which Carrie interrogates the concept of “having sex like a man,” the foursome of successful women become representative of the various dating tendencies and female archetypes available to young women in New York City.[30] Alexandra Silver-Fagan explains, “Ask any New York City woman if they consider themselves a Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda or Samantha and you’ll have an answer before you blink. We NYC women, a subspecies of the traditional female, have looked towards Sex and the City for guidance and comfort in the miseries of dating.”[31] Silver-Fagan’s identification of the NYC woman as a “subspecies of the traditional female” is particularly apt when considering the ways in which the show highlights the singularity of dating in New York.
That being said, the show itself tackles questions that are a cornerstone of many television shows and films that focus on love and courtship. In “Just Say Yes,” after finding a “bad” engagement ring in Aiden’s duffel bag, Carrie mulls over the big question that underscores much of the fourth season of the show: “How do you know when it’s right?”[32] Torn between Aiden and Big in multiple seasons, Carrie poses a question that, while applicable to the dating scene in New York City, has much broader reach than, say, the prevalence of Manolo Blanik shoes, the possibility of first “date” trips to Brazil, and the horror that is potentially moving to Brooklyn. Knowing when it’s right is the theory underneath the series. For many of the characters, the question of timing is incredibly relevant to the possibility of a happily-ever-after. Carrie tries to date Big monogamously numerous times unsuccessfully before their ultimate wedding bells (which, of course, ring not without complication in the first film based on the series) while Miranda and Steve attempt monogamous coupling several times before really committing to one another. Throughout this quest for partnered monogamy, all four women have their fair share of dating mishaps both inside and outside of the bedroom. Damage in Sex and the City—for Carrie and her great love affair with Big, Charlotte and her failed first “ideal” marriage but successful “quirky” second, and Miranda with her initially questionable choice of Steve the bartender—is, yet again, a hurdle. To overcome said hurdle is a sign of the impending success of the straight, monogamous relationship. Even Samantha, with her marginalized doctrine of non-monogamy, wraps up the television show in a monogamous, committed relationship. Sex and the City takes as its subject four successful women and focuses on the trials inherent in finding suitable partners—romantic and sexual—for them. Of course, the difference in age, experience, and ensuing economic and career trajectories between those four women and the younger, messier foursome on Girls, is telling. While Sex and the City itself certainly articulates the reality of needing to revisit damage in order to gauge circumstantial compatibility, it too suggests that certain types of damage are workable—Steve’s rough around the edges working class mentality proves attractive despite Miranda’s educated reservations—whereas some types of damage are permanent—regardless of how much Samantha falls for Richard, she cannot “cure” him of his cheating impulses.
In the age of OKCupid and group texts, where more and more people are not only meeting online but willing to admit that fact, it appears that dating—as television and film have captured it for decades—no longer exists. Gone are the days when Big’s car would pull up to Carrie’s brownstone prior to a late, swanky dinner reservation. Gone are the days when Joey could utter, “How you doin’?” in Central Park and have a dinner date for the following night. As such, television shows and movies that focus on dating are forced to adapt accordingly. Indeed, How I Met Your Mother’s romantic lead, Ted, still wants the fairy tale in which he takes girls out on dates, but acknowledges that that isn’t the only course of action. Girls is even more explicit in its acknowledgment of the shift in dating culture and its implications. In “The End of Courtship?” Alex Williams argues that traditional courtship and dating is no longer relevant in the realities of dating in New York City.[33] Accordingly, Williams cites Girls because “none of the main characters paired off in a manner that might count as courtship even a decade ago.” In response, Mary C. Hickey, writes, “if the cast on Girls is any indication, more people are hooking up a little more casually—and getting naked more quickly—than most of us did when we were that age. But to me, the overall experience of the twenty something dating scene seems very much the same. Experimentation. Guilt. Jealousy. Hurt. Confusion.”[34]
Like Williams suggests, dating might have changed its proverbial stripes—the combination of dinner, movie, and anxious kiss seems to have been replaced by group trivia night and subsequent no-strings sex. And, like Hickey suggests, the underlying emotional roller coaster of dating eerily remains the same. Yet, what Girls does far differently than its television predecessors is pay more explicit attention to the foundational role that damage plays in the contemporary dating game. Instead of the fleeting damage of incompatible, even wacky sexual proclivities or behavioral tendencies that need to be rectified in order for a relationship to progress, the damage exposed on Girls is, at least in the first two seasons of the show, more honest. Hannah’s primary love/sex interest, Adam, is more complex than Big or Aiden, Chandler or Ross. Critics have argued that he’s “disgusting”[35] and “vile,”[36] citing everything from his sexual proclivities to his general demeanor to condemn him. Crystal Bell responds aggressively to one of the early notorious scenes in which “Adam pulled a Nicole Kidman and peed on Hannah in the shower”—an encounter that she describes as “too repulsive for words.” While Hannah is horrified, this scene is most certainly not a deal breaker, which is likely how it would have been cast had Friends dabbled in golden showers and which is certainly how it was cast when Sex and the City attempted to approach it in “Politically Erect.”
While peeing in the shower is a singular instance in their sex lives on the show, other representations of sex between Hannah and Adam are equally awkward and fascinating. As L.V. Anderson explains, Girls is honest in its portrayal of bad sex, a facet of dating in New York City that often goes unrepresented:
Most TV and film sex scenes still involve two people undulating their bodies against each other as slowly as humanly possible and gazing nonstop into each other’s eyes—except when their lids flutter shut as they climax simultaneously. On the other end of the straight sex-scene spectrum lies, of course, hardcore porn, in which the women are always climaxing, sometimes for hours at a stretch, as men penetrate and manipulate their bodies in all sorts of ferocious ways, until we finally reach the money shot. Rarely do we see anything between these two fantasies—one neutered, one embellished, both purporting to show people having a great time in the sack.[37]
As most straight, sexually active twenty something girls attempting to date in New York City can attest, bad sex—whether the byproduct of incompatibility, inexperience, the influence of various substances, among other reasons—is simply part of the dating game. It is precisely the “bad” sex of Girls that Anderson is interested in, when the show focuses on “real life” and its accompanying “physically uncomfortable, emotionally complicated, politically imbalanced” bad sex.[38] Early sex between Adam and Hannah reiterates Hannah’s somewhat painful inexperience. While both Ross and Miranda are reluctant to talk dirty in the sack, Hannah’s verboseness heightens the awkwardness of the scene; after Adam asks whether he should come on Hannah’s “Face? Tummy? Those little tits of yours?” Hannah longwindedly responds: “It seems like you want to come on my tits, so I think you should come on my tits, because I want you to come, and it seems like you’re going to do it.”[39] As such, much of this early sex ends with an orgasm on Adam’s behalf but not Hannah’s. In that regard, Adam seems to understand his own sexual desires and demands much more than Hannah understands hers.
Indeed, that process of discovery, which happens both within and outside of her experiences with Adam, is, for many viewers, a part of the show’s appeal. Emily Nussbaum explains that such early encounters “presented sex as a rough draft, a failed negotiation, at once hilarious and real.”[40] Even though Nussbaum credits Girls as a “show about life lived as a rough draft—something well intentioned, possibly promising, but definitely begging for cruel critiques,” reality and hilarity are not presented as necessarily part and parcel of the same whole.[41] In “On All Fours” toward the end of the second season of the show, Adam and post-Hannah “girlfriend” Natalia have sex for the first time and it is, most certainly, not hilarious. She explains, “I’m ready to have sex now . . . You’ve been really nice all week. We can do it, if you want.” This somewhat hesitant set-up is undercut by how direct Natalia is about her sexual no-nos: “I don’t like to be on top that much. Or soft touching, because it tickles me and takes me out of the moment. But everything else is OK . . . ”[42] That clarity is something that Adam explicitly appreciates and their interactions here are lighthearted and straightforward. After this somewhat idyllic scene, the two go to a party during which Adam falls off the wagon, and they return to his apartment where he tells Natalia to “get on all fours” and crawl into his bedroom. Amanda Hess chronicles the scene as it unfolds:
Adam grabs her from the floor, throws her on the bed, and explains: “I want to fuck you from behind, hit the walls with you.” She consents, numbly. He removes her underwear and goes down on her. She does not consent. “No. Look, I didn’t take a shower today,” she says. “It’s fine, relax,” he tells her. He begins fucking her from behind. He asks her to confirm that she likes his apartment, that she likes the way he looks, and that she really likes him. She consents, limply. Then, he pulls out and masturbates over her. “No, no, no, no, not on my dress!” she says. She pulls off her top, grimaces, and looks away. He comes on her chest. “I don’t think I like that,” she says, when he’s done. “I, like, really didn’t like that.”[43] (Emphasis added)
This scene reveals a lot about its two participants. First, under the influence of alcohol Adam is even more aggressive in bed than the elaborate fantasies of his that we see in the first season of Girls. Second, the directness that both Natalia and Adam have previously acknowledged as crucial—Adam says, “I like how clear you are with me” and Natalia responds with, “What other way is there?”—is clearly only applicable to talking and not doing. In this scene Adam is alarmingly direct with his desires, yet regardless of Natalia’s previous celebration of clarity and directness, she does not seem to enjoy the sex that follows at all.
With critics asking whether the sex acts captured constitute rape, the coverage garnered by “On All Fours” is remarkably varied. Joe Flint declares it “a violent and hard-to-watch scene.”[44] Jace Lacob pushes that claim even further:
The semen that Adam deposits on Natalia’s chest is not meant to titillate or arouse. It’s meant to shock the viewer into opening their eyes, to see the damage that Adam perpetuates here, one based upon countless male fantasies enacted in porn. But while other cable shows might use sex and female nudity as window dressing, Girls strives for something both deeper and darker here, a revelation that there are repercussions to physical intimacy, that Natalia’s humiliation and debasement are not sexy, but painful.[45]
This scene is certainly complicated and it provides crucial insight into the depths of what viewers can consider Adam’s sexual damage. While both Friends and Sex and the City are not shy about discussing sexual incompatibility, especially in terms of comic relief, the seriousness with which this scene is treated emphasizes its significance. Although Natalia is unhappy with this sexual encounter—and the extent of her unhappiness is poignantly covered in the first episode of the third season—viewers are invited to consider Hannah as potentially more willing to engage in it. The season 3 opener sets up that comparison directly, with Natalia describing Adam as “an off-the-wagon Neanderthal sociopath” and yelling at both Hannah and Adam, “I hope you two just enjoy your urine-soaked life fucking like the two feral animals that you both know you are.”[46]
Natalia’s judgment here echoes much of the criticism of Adam and his sexual desires. Sarah Caldwell, in “Girls: How Are We Supposed to Feel about Adam,” posits: “In the book of Hannah’s life, Adam would be the guy she was with before she became the self-actualized woman she was meant to be. He was the guy who tried to debase Hannah by making her act out scenes from porn movies he had watched.”[47] Whereas many viewers of the show are quick to condemn Adam, his arc with Natalia retroactively solidifies much of what has been building since the first episode of the show: Hannah and Adam are, in fact, compatible; rather than assuming that Adam dominates Hannah, we learn that Hannah is equally interested in the types of fantasies that Adam instigates. Indeed, as Adam and Hannah become more and more conventional throughout the third season of Girls, it is Hannah who wishes to revive the elements of their sex life that involve “humiliation and debasement.” In “Role-Play,” Hannah dons a blonde wig and impersonates the wife of a businessman to entice Adam back to their early sexual encounters. Yet, her plan backfires as she switches roles mid-fantasy and Adam angrily criticizes her illogical narrative choices:
Hannah: What? I was trying to do something you’d like. Like have sex the way that we used to. Why are you getting so mad at me?
Adam: What do you mean the way we used to? You don’t like the way we do it now?
Hannah: Well, do you? You used to have all these ideas about me being like a little street slut or like an orphan with a disease or you said I was like a woman with a baby’s body or something. I was just trying to do it the way that we used to, the way that sex always was for us.[48]
While Hannah wants to rekindle the creative, narrative fire that once underscored their sexual encounters, Adam is upset that she even thinks their old dynamic is applicable to their current relationship. When she tries to justify her choices by claiming that she “was just doing sex the way [Adam] wanted to,” Adam replies: “You have an old idea of who I am. Sex was the thing that kept me from drinking. That’s why I fucked women I met in bars or whatever . . . But then, we fell in love. And then I just wanted to have sex with just you as us. Just fuck and be sweet . . . or whatever.”[49] This interaction, perhaps the climactic moment between Adam and Hannah in season 3, reveals that Hannah is actually far less interested in “being sweet or whatever” and that her initial interest in Adam had much to do with the crazy “ideas” that Adam brought into the bedroom.[50]
This particular interaction actually speaks to the ways in which Girls is explicitly rejecting not only the television tradition of recuperating damage that both Friends and Sex and the City participate in, but is also rejecting the traditional fairy tale component that Adam momentarily represents here. The final episode of season 2 of Girls involves Adam literally coming to Hannah’s rescue, running from his section of Brooklyn to hers, in order to protect her—the ultimate Prince Charming gesture. Caldwell, asking about Adam’s likeability, compares that moment to the traditional romantic comedy narrative: “So, about that rom-com ending? I get that almost everyone has fantasized about a guy running to see them. But still, is the idea of him forcibly breaking down her door to then hold her in his arms like she’s a baby really all that romantic? Isn’t it just him being the dominant person again? Is that the only kind of relationship he can actually thrive in?”[51] Caldwell reads Hannah as entirely dependent on Adam’s big, dominant personality—as molding herself accordingly. Of course, even Hannah admits to this malleability. Yet, the dynamic between the two of them is far more multidimensional and is more significantly based on a kind of mutual recognition. When Ross ends up with Rachel, and Monica and Chandler get together, and Phoebe realizes she wants a traditional marriage, viewers are satiated by the notion that these characters end up with partners who understand them as audience members do. Rachel and Ross evolve past their “on a break” damage; Chandler grows past his immaturity; Phoebe comes to terms with her conventional desires. The cast of Sex and the City explicitly follows similar trajectories. Big overcomes his fear of commitment; Samantha gets over her fear of intimacy; Charlotte abandons her unreasonably high standards; and Miranda, well, moves to Brooklyn. In this regard, the partnerships that survive are neatly packaged reminders that conventional monogamy requires both the discarding of insurmountable damage in conjunction with the treatment of moderate, quirky damage.
Girls, however, suggests that the type of recognition ultimately sought in these other television shows does not simply erase or soften damage; rather, such damage proves itself to be a foundational element in attraction, desire, and compatibility. Hannah is not interested in Adam in spite of his sexual proclivities, brooding temper, or general unpredictability[52]—all of which constitute various incarnations of the types of “damage” that I have been writing about here—and she is certainly not interested in him vis-à-vis a desire to cure him of those proclivities, as “Role-Play” articulates. Rather, Hannah is interested in Adam because of his damage. Indeed, for the early seasons of the show, their compatibility is contingent upon the appeal of such damage. The end of season 3, of course, leaves viewers on the precipice of the unknown, wondering what will happen to Hannah and Adam’s relationship with the looming possibility of graduate school in Iowa and a great acting career. As such, it would be foolish to speculate that Girls will maintain its nuanced and formative presentation of damage, though I certainly hope that the show resists the powerful magnetism of the fairy tale trajectory to which its predecessors most certainly succumbed.
Adalian, Josef. “How Friends Decided to Pair Off Monica and Chandler.” Vulture. 20 November 2013. Accessed 18 August 2014.
Akass, Kim and Janet McCabe, eds. Reading Sex and the City. London: I.B. Tauris, 2003.
Anderson, L. V. “Girls: Bad Sex Made Great.” Slate.
“The Awful Truth.” Sex and the City. HBO. 13 June 1999. Television.
Behrent, Greg and Liz Truccilo. He’s Just Not That Into You. New York: Gallery Books, 2009.
Bell, Crystal. “‘Girls’ Recap: The Golden Shower Incident in ‘Weirdos Need Girlfriends Too.’” Huffington Post. 3 June 2012. Accessed 19 August 2014.
“Boy, Girl, Boy, Girl . . . ” Sex and the City. HBO. 25 June 2000. Television.
Caldwell, Sarah. “Girls: How Are We Supposed to Feel about Adam?” Entertainment Weekly. 18 March 2013. Accessed 3 January 2014.
“Damage.” Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed 3 January 2014.
Del Signore, John. “Ask a Native New Yorker: Why Is the NYC Dating Scene so Rough?” Gothamist. 23 August 2013. Accessed 3 January 2014.
Flint, Joe. “Climax of Scene in HBO’s ‘Girls’ a Shocker.” LA Times. 11 March 2013. Accessed 6 January 2014.
“Games People Play.” Sex and the City. HBO. 29 August 1999. Television.
Heller, Dana. “Sex and the Series: Paris, New York, and Post-National Romance.” American Studies 46.2 (2005): 145-69.
Hermes, Joke. “Television and Its Viewers in Post-Feminist Dialogue Internet-Mediated Response to ‘Ally McBeal’ and ‘Sex and the City.’” Etnofoor 1/2 (2002): 194-211.
He’s Just Not That Into You. Dir. Ken Kwapis. New Line Cinema, 2009. Film.
Hess, Amanda. “Was That a Rape Scene in Girls?” Slate. 11 March 2013. Accessed 3 January 2014.
Hickey, Mary C. “HBO’s Girls: The Millenial Dating Scene.” AARP Blog. 14 January 2013. Accessed 3 January 2013.
Jones, Eileen. “The Horror of HBO’s Girls.” The Exiled. 26 April 2012. Accessed 19 August 2014.
“Just Say Yes.” Sex and the City. HBO. 12 August 2001.
Lacob, Jace. “‘Girls’: Graphic Content, Objectification, and That Scene.” The Daily Beast. 12 March 2013. Accessed 6 January 2014.
Moore, Madison. “5 Reasons Dating in New York City is Exhausting.” Thought Catalog. 26 November 2013. Accessed 3 January 2014.
Nussbaum, Emily. “It’s Different for ‘Girls.’” New York Magazine. 25 March 2012. Accessed 19 August 2014.
“Oh Come All Ye Faithful.” Sex and the City. HBO. 23 August 1998. Television.
“On All Fours.” Girls. HBO. 10 March 2013. Television.
“The One After the Superbowl.” Friends. NBC. 28 January 1996. Television.
“The One with the Boob Job.” Friends. NBC. 20 February 2003. Television.
“The One with the Butt.” Friends. NBC. 27 October 1994. Television.
“The One with the Ick Factor.” Friends. NBC. 4 May 1994. Television.
“The One Where Mr. Heckles Dies.” Friends. NBC. 5 October 1995. Television.
“The One with Russ.” Friends. NBC. 4 January 1996. Television.
“The One with the Stoned Guy.” Friends. NBC. 16 February 1995. Television.
Paskin, Willa. “Why Girls Got So Dark.” Salon. 17 March 2013. Accessed 6 January 2014.
“Role-Play.” Girls. HBO. 9 March 2013. Television.
Silver-Fagan, Alexandra. “Dating in New York: Right Swipe or Left.” Huffington Post. 18 September 2013. Accessed 6 January 2014.
“Together.” Girls. HBO. 17 March 2013. Television. (2.10).
“Weirdos Need Girlfriends Too.” Girls. HBO. 3 June 2012. Television.
Williams, Alex. “The End of Courtship?” New York Times. 11 January 2013. Accessed 6 January 2014.
“A Woman’s Right to Shoes.” Sex and the City. HBO. 17 April 2003. Television.
He’s Just Not That Into You, Dir. Ken Kwapis, New Line Cinema, 2009.
Ibid.
Given more time and space, this conversation could be extended to include other shows like How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014), Felicity (1998–2002), Will and Grace (1998–2006), and even What I Like About You (2002–2006).
The Sex and the City films attempt to reconcile this strange, heteronormative neatness. Miranda and Steve have marital problems, though their relationship ultimately survives those tests. And Samantha, whose commitment to Smith seems romantic at the end of the series, finally ends up realizing that she enjoys life more when she is single. See Sex and the City and Sex and the City 2, Dir. Michael Patrick King, 2008 and 2010.
John Del Signore, “Ask a Native New Yorker: Why is the NYC Dating Scene So Rough?” Gothamist, 23 August 2013. Accessed 3 January 2014.
Madison Moore, “5 Reasons Dating in New York City is Exhausting,” Thought Catalog, 26 November 2013. Accessed 3 January 2014.
“Damage,” Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed 3 January 2014.
“The One where Mr. Heckles Dies,” Friends, NBC, 5 October 1995.
“A Woman’s Right to Shoes,” Sex and the City, HBO, 17 April 2003.
“The One with the Stoned Guy,” Friends, NBC, 16 February 1995.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“The Awful Truth,” Sex and the City, HBO, 13 June 1999.
“The One with the Ick Factor,” Friends, NBC, 4 May 1994.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Josef Adalian, “How Friends Decided to Pair Off Monica and Chandler,” Vulture, 20 November 2013. Accessed 18 August 2014.
“The One with the Butt,” Friends, NBC, 27 October 1994. Much could be written on the presentation of “otherness” in all of the shows in question. The judgment about Aurora’s choices that ensues throughout the episode is itself a judgment on “alien” romantic ways. Aurora, from a strangely exoticized land, parallels other foreign prospects in the series, each of whom is discarded in favor of more traditional American values. See “The One After the Superbowl” with Jean-Claude Van Damme, for example.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“Weirdos Need Girlfriends, Too,” Girls, HBO, 3 June 2012.
“The One with the Boob Job,” Friends, NBC, 20 February 2003.
Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, eds, Reading Sex and the City, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003).
Dana Heller, “Sex and the Series: Paris, New York, and Post-National Romance,” American Studies 46.2 (2005): 145–69.
“Models and Mortals,” Sex and the City, HBO, 14 June 1998.
“The Cheating Curve,” Sex and the City, HBO, 11 July 1999.
“La Douleur Exquisite,” Sex and the City, HBO, 22 August 1999.
“Sex and the City,” Sex and the City, HBO, 6 June 1998.
Alexandra Silver-Fagan, “Dating in New York: Right Swipe or Left,” Huffington Post, 18 September 2013, Accessed 6 January 2014. Silver-Fagan explains “unfortunately, the ‘90s hit show is a bit outdated for the dating scene of today and for the generation of undergrad/post-grads gallivanting around Manhattan.”
“Just Say Yes,” Sex and the City, HBO, 12 August 2001.
Alex Williams, “The End of Courtship?” New York Times, 11 January 2013, Accessed 6 January 2014.
Mary C Hickey, “HBO’s Girls: The Millenial Dating Scene,” AARP Blog, 14 January 2013, Accessed 3 January 2013.
Crystal Bell, “‘Girls’ Recap: The Golden Shower Incident in ‘Weirdos Need Girlfriends Too.’” Huffington Post, 3 June 2012. Accessed 19 August 2014.
Eileen Jones, “The Horror of HBO’s Girls,” The Exiled, 26 April 2012. Accessed 19 August 2014.
L. V. Anderson, “Girls: Bad Sex Made Great,” Slate. Accessed 19 June 2014.
Ibid.
“Vagina Panic,” Girls, HBO, 22 April 2012.
Emily Nussbaum, “It’s Different for ‘Girls,’” New York Magazine, 25 March 2012. Accessed 19 August 2014.
Ibid.
“On All Fours,” Girls, HBO, 10 March 2013.
Amanda Hess, “Was That a Rape Scene in Girls?” Slate, 11 March 2013. Accessed 3 January 2014.
Joe Flint, “Climax of Scene in HBO’s ‘Girls’ a Shocker,” LA Times, 11 March 2013. Accessed 6 January 2014.
Jace Lacob, “‘Girls’: Graphic Content, Objectification, and That Scene,” The Daily Beast, 12 March 2013. Accessed 6 January 2014.
“Females Only,” Girls, HBO, 12 January 2014.
Sarah Caldwell, “Girls: How Are We Supposed to Feel about Adam?” Entertainment Weekly, 18 March 2013. Accessed 3 January 2014.
“Role-Play,” Girls, HBO, 9 March 2013.
Ibid.
There is a conversation to be staged here between this notion of sexual damage and the trajectory of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy. Christian Grey’s BDSM fantasies are traced explicitly back to two “bad” women in his life: his mother—the “crack whore”—and his first dominatrix, dubbed “Mrs. Robinson” by narrator Ana. The three books chronicle Christian overcoming the demons that underscore his alternative sexual proclivities in much the same was as Adam momentarily identifies his previous fantasies as coping mechanisms meant to distract him from his addiction to alcohol. While in the books, Ana primarily works to expose Christian to the root of his damage, Girls presents Hannah as encouraging Adam to reclaim the type of sex that was initially a crucial part of their relationship.
Caldwell, “Girls: How are we Supposed to Feel about Adam?”
What proves problematic, though, is the way in which Adam-in-the-bedroom—whatever “damage” viewers are compelled to assign him—is, at the end of season 2, presented as potentially parallel to Hannah’s OCD. Indeed, Willa Paskin, in “Why Girls Got So Dark” makes that connection clear: “The two episodes before the finale toggled between Hannah’s OCD and Adam’s uncomfortable sex choices.” That connection suggests that Adam’s “rape-y” intercourse with Natalia and Hannah’s OCD are meant to be read as parallel. Trying to treat Adam’s sex drive and Hannah’s disorder in the same way begs serious questions about cultural treatment of any form of deviance. See Willa Paskin, “Why Girls Got So Dark,” Salon, 17 March 2013. Accessed 6 January 2014.