If you have been anywhere other than under your covers in a dark room listening to audiotapes of FDR’s Fireside Chats over the past few weeks, you have probably been bombarded with information about HBO’s “Girls.” Prior to its premiere, there was a wave of reviews and thinkpieces discussing how groundbreaking and hilarious it was. Then, naturally, the forward progress of the wave stopped and turned into an undertow, and there was an equally loud and histrionic backlash against the show. Well, it turns out that’s all A-OK with Judd Apatow.
“When we made it, we always knew that it was a show you should fight about,” he told Vulture when we asked about the backlash. “It was built to be a show that you’d have to defend or argue about — for some people, it would make them angry — and we go over that terrain for the course of the ten episodes. So hopefully people will fight about it every week! Not just one week.” [Vulture]
Allow me to present this counterpoint: Please stop yelling at me. All of you. Did it get a little annoying seeing TV critics spill a goddamn billion words about how great it was all over the Internet? Sure. But the flip side of that coin — “EVERYTHING IS STUPID I HATE IT SOME OF THEM HAVE FAMOUS PARENTS IT’S NOT FAIR AND I HATED THE SONGS THEY PLAYED” — is at least as bad, if not worse. I mean, if those are your major arguments against the show, then it probably wasn’t for you in the first place, and yelling and stomping your feet anyway does nothing but raise your blood pressure. And, as a related note, if your analysis of the show consists mainly of whether or not its stars are attractive enough for you to sleep with, please take this opportunity to go jump in Lake Goon with the rest of your meathead compadres.
By no means am I saying you have to like “Girls,” or that you can’t have your own opinion on its merits as a television show. (Personally, I thought it was good, but I can see where people might have some issues with it.) What I am saying, on behalf of reasonable people everywhere, is that HOLY HELL let’s all dial things back a little on both sides of the spectrum. There are far more important things to focus your energy on, like this picture of a child dressed like an astronaut, and I think it’s important to remember that.
Astronaut via Buzzfeed
