A lot of people watched Girls throughout the HBO comedy’s six-season lifespan. Most of them liked the show (why else would you watch a show for six full seasons?), a good percentage critically analyzed it with all the intellectual muster they had while still mostly enjoying things, and others tuned in to the story of a group of girls living in Brooklyn with the fire of a thousand internet takes. But no matter what someone’s opinion on the show was, everybody could pretty much agree that there was a constant struggle to represent Brooklyn on television with the same diversity levels as there is in real life. Whether that was even ever a goal or not is a different story, but if it was it definitely didn’t pan out as successfully as it could have.
Now, a new rundown from BuzzFeed lays out that diversity issue in stark clarity and it proves what most people were probably expecting about the casting choices made and the amount of lines the few diverse characters (and “characters”) received. While the show did noticeably improve its efforts to not only cast people of color, but also write them as actual characters rather than just background additions as the years went on, at its core it was consistently a very white show.
Hopping over to BuzzFeed for a look at the full list is definitely worth it, as it not only shows the comedy’s progression and effort to add diversity over time, but also will remind you of great guest stars that deserved better — like Sakina Jaffrey as Hannah’s Season 1 OBGYN, or Danielle Brooks as someone Jessa met in rehab during Season 3.