Lena Dunham: The Obie Obies Love to Hate

  I spent this afternoon spent writing a mock grant proposal for an assignment for Career Services.  I am that scared about being unemployed next year.  I am utilizing Career Services.  In fact, I think I'm gonna utilize about $5,000 worth of Career Services in an attempt to pretend like I'm actually utilizing all the services Oberlin's tuition covered (pffttt... I haven't even used the Writing Center since I was a first year.  And I definitely haven't played Bat Out of Hell on all of the Steinways).

But that was just an awkward segue into my story.  As a reward for spending the afternoon on this assignment (which isn't finished, but it's all part of the process), I decided to finally watch Lena Dunham's Tiny Furniture.

Now for my peers who have seen Tiny Furniture, "reward" may not be the best word to describe it.  Lena Dunham, who wrote and starred in it, is a recent Oberlin alum.  And by recent, I mean we didn't overlap but she graduated from college the same year I graduated from high school.  Tiny Furniture is about a girl who graduates from college in Ohio with a silly degree and goes back to live with her mom and sister in New York.  She has a shitty job that she's really bad at, has sex in uncomfortable places with jerks, and awkward friends.  There are fights with the family, the age-old question of "How much of your parents' wine is okay to drink?" and weird reunions with friends from college.  While many parts of this film are funny, other parts ring all too true for recent or soon-to-be liberal arts college graduates.  After Tiny Furniture, Lena Dunham went on to create and star in HBO's Girls, which I haven't seen yet, but probably will as soon as I feel like watching some TV.  Did I mention (or did you do the math?) that Lena Dunham is only 26?  Tiny Furniture came out when she was 24.  I'm 22.  Holy shit.

The other evening after I got home from a lovely but kind of exhausting trip to New York, my dad mentioned that he'd read an article in the New Yorker by a girl who went to Oberlin.
"Huh. Who was it?  What was it about?" I asked.

"It's about this girl's first boyfriend and a lot of it takes place in Oberlin.  I think she's some kind of film maker?" [this is all paraphrased but I'm practicing writing dialoge because as you might have noticed, I'm not very good at it].

I knew instantly who he was talking about.  "Oh, you mean Lena Dunham," I said, rolling my eyes.  "Yeah, her.  She's a really big deal." Here I actually think I said something mean about Lena Dunham.  But then I realized that there's an infinitesimal chance that Lena Dunham would actually read this blog, and didn't want to hurt her feelings.  Silly, I know, especially considering all the flack she got about her Girls' character's quote about being the "voice of a generation."  But she is a fellow Obie, and I feel a little bad about all the conversations I've had that eventually ended in trashing Lena Dunham.

Why do the 2012/2013 Oberlin graduates I know love to hate on Lena Dunham?  It seems ridiculous, especially when we're all essentially cut from the same stock, creative, funny, smart girls who went to Oberlin.  Only one of my friends that I know of has met Lena Dunham.  Most of us enjoy her work.  Even though Tiny Furniture and Girls often hit close to home (The awkward introductions of college friends to high school ones.  The scene with the weird date and pet death), they don't tell us anything new about our lives post-college.  Watching Tiny Furniture made me laugh and feel a little better, it didn't send me into a depressive spiral that made me wish I'd gone to WVU and majored in Physical therapy.

Is it jealousy?  In a perfect world, we could stand on her shoulders in the wake of her astounding success and launch as a new generation of intelligent women film and tv writers.  There's definitely room on television for more than one female-written sitcom, and there's a clear niche for one that includes women of color.  I'm really glad that a recent Oberlin graduate has had so much success, especially one that I can relate to on a vary basic level.  However, I am jealous of Lena Dunham.    I'm not gonna lie.  It's easy for me to say "Well, I don't have the same kinds of connections Lena Dunham has.  I'd never try to make my parents support me after I graduate.  Could my parents even support me after I graduate?"  Lena Dunham is privileged in ways that I will never be, but she also has talent.

I find Lena Dunham vexing because in the process of distancing herself from the new college graduate with skills that seem useless, a hippie ex-boyfriend, and friends who are just as confused as she is, she has surpassed the kind of success that I dream of.  The question is, do I respond to her success?  Do I work even harder, writing, photoshopping, creating and networking?  Do I chalk it up to the difference between 22 and 26?  Do I remind myself that I don't need my own Wikipedia page to be happy?  Do I bemoan my lack of connections and the fact that I didn't go to a private New York city high school?

I honestly don't know.  I started out writing this with a conclusion in mind that I've entirely thrown out the window.  Does Lena Dunham do this????????

So in summary:
- The world could use more female writers/comedians/film makers/bad asses
- I'm not Lena Dunham.  My friend's aren't Lena Dunham.  We're prettier.
-I'm probably gonna post this then start watching Girls.
-There are 47 issues of the New Yorker per year.  There are plenty of New Yorker articles to go around (in theory).
-Lena Dunham if you are reading this I genuinely don't want to hurt your feelings.  I am just trying to make myself feel a little better because I am jealous.  After all, you are the kind of girl who would go to Oberlin.  And this, more than anything else, makes me feel like 26 will not feel as bleak as 22.

Self-deprecation and Bonnaroo

As I prepare to finish my last semester of college and enter the World of the Working, I've had to come to terms with the fact that self-deprecation, while often amusing and unfortunately, all too easy to do, is kind of a cop out.  For example, I could say something like "Well I spent Saturday night picking fleas off of my cat with my mom.  Guess this will prepare me for my future job as a homeless person."  In my humble opinion, this is pretty hilarious, however, it's not the kind of attitude, or humor I want to be exhibiting as I start the long process of convincing potential employers that I'm awesome.  The kind of joke I should be making doesn't come as easily.  "I spent my Saturday night picking fleas off my cat with my mom.  I just hope we get enough by next Saturday so I can take them to the Farmer's Market." Was that funny?  Not really.  Did that joke come easily?  I don't want to talk about it.  Did I attempt to turn something potentially lame into something that sounds creative, entrepreneurial, and interesting?  Yes.  So I guess I'm going to try to do that kind of thing in job interviews.  In theory.

The point is, self-deprecation has an important place in American humor.  But as someone who really struggles not to shoot myself in the foot and look like an idiot during interviews* I really need to cut it out for a while.  Not to mention the fact that as a young woman with not a whole lot of experience, I will probably already get less respect than my male counterparts.  Not to mention the fact that I'm cute and sweet.  See?  I really have a lot of things in my nature working against me.  But I've also got a lot of good stuff going on and know that I could be an awesome employee.  But first I need use my sense of humor to do something better than make fun of myself.




*For evidence of me looking like an idiot during an interview, I suggest the documentary in which I played a supporting role to Mike Seeger, Why Old Time?  At 18, I was much less articulate than the 6 year old in the documentary.
** Or, you can consider the quote from me in one of Cleveland's newspapers, when I use the phrase "The Bonnaroo of the Midwest" to talk about what Folk Fest could be.  Fortunately, after saying that, I told the reporter that that's not really what we were trying to do.  Both of these things got published, so I only looked like a slight idiot.  I don't know why I said that.  I don't even LIKE the idea of Bonnaroo. In fact, my favorite thing about Bonnaroo is this guy I know, Brad's Facebook statuses about how bad the line up always is.

Shameless Self (and Friend) Promotion

Hello dear readers,

  My amazingly talented friend Zoe, who posts about things on the internet that I dare to dream of posting, but never would, as my internet presence is already sullied by my refusal to give up Facebook and a horrible memory for the passwords of at least 3 social networking tools, is on the road to fame and glory as a bad-ass, funny woman.  One of the first steps has been getting her own domain name, where she writes lists and parodies and parody lists and demonstrates a finesse with Photoshop that is the envy of all our friends (or at least me).  You can check out her stuff at http://www.madamezooble.com.

  But I will admit that the point of this post was no solely to get more traffic for my friend's website, but to mention a piece of writing that is my favorite thing I've written in a long time.  It's on another one of Zoe's blogs, Nurse Jackie Chan, which was started as a collaborative humor blog that has sort of not been updated in a while because its moderator is busy kissing pigs or something (follow Zoe on her award-winning Twitter for more on that).

  So without further ado, here is a link to this post: Fantasies I Have While At My Day Job:
http://nursejackiechan.wordpress.com/2012/07/15/fantasies-i-have-while-at-my-day-job-episode-1/

  Sorry for the repost, friends who have already read it, and you're welcome those who haven't (and Zoe!).

-ejl

What I Learned from Reading Fifty Shades of Gray

1.  If you are annoyingly innocent, rich, powerful, attractive men will fall in love with you.
    Alternately: If you are annoyingly innocent, creepy, controlling, moody, men with lots of baggage will want you to become their submissive, so it's probably better just to slut it up.

2. It is easier for women to orgasm from penetrative sex than it is for men.

3. If you in your annoying innocence attract a rich man, you will receive awesome gifts like computers, Blackberries, sports cars, and first editions of Thomas Hardy books.  It's probably best to just accept them without question or he will spank you.

4. BDSM is a whole bunch of work.

5. If you refrain from getting drunk until you graduate from college, then start dating a rich man, you will instantly love and appreciate the expensive wine he buys for you instead of drinking Andre and Franzia like your more experienced college roommate.

6.  If your 27 year old boyfriend has slept with other women, you should probably be really jealous.  If your 27 year old boyfriend hasn't slept with other women and isn't super religious or super gay, he probably has absolutely no baggage and you should totally go on a camping trip with him in a strange state because it's not like he's going to break your heart in a tent or lead you on or anything because he is probably the perfect mate (okay this is no longer about 50 Shades of Gray).

7. It's pretty normal for people to be business tycoons by the age of 27.

8. If you're not orgasming when someone touches your nipples, there's probably something wrong with you.

9. There is a 3 hour time difference between Seattle and Georgia.

10. You don't have to be a good writer to get a book published.