The ‘Girls’ Are Back: Do We Really Need to Revisit Our Twenties?
We seem to be experiencing a collective inability to leave the 2010s alone. Tumblr aesthetics have returned, indie sleaze has been resurrected, and television executives have discovered that almost anything can be brought back, provided audiences remember loving it the first time. Now, ten years after Girls concluded its six-season run, Lena Dunham is bringing Hannah Horvath, Marnie Michaels, Jessa Johansson and Shoshanna Shapiro back to HBO for a five-episode revival, with production scheduled to begin in 2027. But the cultural landscape they are returning to has changed considerably. As Gen Z discovers the series while its original audience prepares to revisit their twenties from the other side of thirty, a question emerges: are we nostalgic for Girls itself, or a time when being a mess did not require an explanation?
When Girls premiered in 2012, it was heralded as a portrait of millennial womanhood. Dunham, then in her twenties herself, created a series that rejected the polished fantasies of female independence popularised by shows before it. Her protagonists were not in designer wardrobes or navigating their romantic lives with the benefit of hindsight. Hannah was an aspiring writer whose confidence routinely exceeded her talent, Marnie was perpetually dissatisfied with herself and everyone around her, Jessa confused recklessness with freedom, and Shoshanna was so preoccupied with missing out that she seemed to experience adulthood as a deadline she had already failed to meet. They were selfish, insecure and frequently unbearable. Their friendships were as competitive as they were affectionate, their relationships often disastrous, and their conversations an exercise in watching people talk without listening. Hannah’s relationship with Adam Sackler, played by Adam Driver, was similarly compelling because it refused to turn romantic dysfunction into a reassuring story about finding the right person. Their attraction was not evidence of compatibility, and their repeated failures to understand a convenient declaration of love rarely resolved one another.
Who Gets to Be Messy on the Internet? Kelly Clarkson vs. a $15,000 Bird
Kelly Clarkson, a Brooklyn Curiosity Shop & a $15,000 bird named “Molly” sounds like the beginning of an incomprehensible joke. Instead, it has become the internet's latest drama around customer service, celebrity privilege, and the (perhaps unintended) consequences of taking a grievance public. I mean, really, Clarkson's ongoing dispute with the Brooklyn boutique, Art of Play, has all the markings of any absurd viral moment of the past few years. It has everything — Twitter rants, internet dogpiling and a Pretty Woman reference. But the crazy price tag and the competing accounts of what really happened leave a less amusing inference: who has permission to be messy on the internet, and who has to live with the consequences?
The spat started with Clarkson tweeting about her trip into Brooklyn to visit Art of Play, a self-described “modern wonder emporium embracing the power of curiosity”. Amongst its collection of curiosities lived “Molly”, a mechanical singing bird with a (reported) $15,000 price tag. Clarkson alleged that she had been made to feel as though she couldn't afford the piece, drawing a comparison to the iconic Julia Roberts shopping scene from Pretty Woman. Naturally, Art of Play disputed Clarkson's account & challenged the high-profile callout, dubbed by Art of Play as an “attack”, maintaining that Molly was a display piece rather than an item available to purchase, and that an alternative bird had been offered.
From Derry to New York: Róise Nic an Bheatha’s Celtic Cinema
Irish-born Róise Nic an Bheatha is dedicated to bringing world-class filmmaking back to Scotland and Ireland, highlighting the power of celtic languages and culture on the big screen. Now, she’s set off to New York City to make connections and bring Scottish and Irish stories back to the screen. Director and filmmaker Róise was recently awarded $66,000 through the prestigious Fulbright BAFTA Scholarship, giving her the encouragement to go to New York City and study filmmaking at the School of Visual Arts. The 29-year-old is originally from Derry in Northern Ireland but moved to Edinburgh with her family when she was younger, where she learnt Scottish Gaelic. Before going into film, Róise completed her studies at Glasgow University and then worked at the national centre for Gaelic language, Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the Isle of Skye. One of her highest acclaimed films, Le Chéile, went on to be showcased at film festivals across Ireland and Scotland and is known as the world’s first narrative film featuring both Irish and Scottish Gaelic – exploring how language and place can bring people together in unlikely circumstances.
It’s Not Me it’s You: Lily Allen’s ‘West End Girl’ Album Review
Mainstream British artist, Lily Allen has been thrust into the media limelight with her divorce from sci-fi series Stranger Things actor David Harbour, of which she shines a harsh light on in her second album “West End Girl”. Allen, married to Harbour for four years, wrote and recorded the entire album in ten days, delivering a real-time account of the breakdown of their relationship.
Describing herself as a “modern wife” in ‘Relapse’, Allen gives a first-hand detailing of the toll her marriage took on her, and the guilt she felt trying to be a role model for her daughters amid her weary choice to agree to an open relationship. ‘Relapse’ is an album-defining track and an honest account of Allen’s unsteady relationship with alcohol, having been sober since 2019.