The tidal wave of reviewer praise for the foul new HBO show Girls has washed up against a wall of resistance recently. But as far as I can tell, nobody, whether praising or blaming, has actually conveyed what this miserable crap-colored show is like to watch.

First scene: our homely heroine Hannah, played by writer-director-producer-monster Lena Dunham, is trying to persuade her parents to continue supporting her while she lives and perpetually interns in New York City, where everything looks drably brown. These are immediate tip-offs: we’re in mumblecore territory here. Mumblecore’s an indie film genre about contemporary affluent young white people who don’t know what to do with their lives and are generally dreary and despicable. And indeed, Lena Dunham is a mumblecore film director, who did Tiny Furniture in 2010.

So get yourself a bullet to bite, here comes the pain.

Next we have a scene featuring Hannah passively enduring rotten sex with a vile jerk named Adam (Adam Driver). Adam insists that Hannah pretend to be an 11-year-old girl he’s raping after abducting her on her way home from school, and she goes along: fine, whatever. Critic Dave Wiegand, in his rave review of the show, describes this as one of Adam’s “hysterically inappropriate fantasy scenes when he’s having sex.” Yeah, I guess Dave laughed and laughed at those.

Lena Dunham is getting hosannas from critics for exposing her nude doughy depressing body in humiliating ways throughout the show—makes it all so “real,” somehow. They’re all calling Dunham “the voice of her generation,” and maybe she’s the body of her generation too. She must’ve known she could count on critics to dutifully take dictation when she had her character Hannah ironically describe herself as “the voice of my generation…or of a generation.” You can picture them all noting it down carefully, muttering, “’Voice of generation’…oh, yeah, that is GOLD.”

There’s been no irony in the way show-creator Dunham augments her generational-voice status by making the PR rounds, talking about how she was inspired to create Girls because she never saw herself or her friends represented on TV shows. So she set out to remedy this by showcasing her particular demographic, the creepy white female.

The half-hour show drags on as you meet Hannah’s horrible friends, all of whom hold forth with bizarre self-importance on the topics of sex and abortion and AIDS and media and female identity, even the one who’s a cruel caricature of a provincial inexperienced girl (Zosia Mamet). There’s also the mean, square-jawed, gimlet-eyed “best friend” (Allison Williams), and the nasty Brit bitch (Jemima Kirke). All have hard poker faces and flat affectless voices. It’s impossible to imagine them laughing out loud, or relaxing, or having a nice meal or non-grim sex. Maybe they do those things in later episodes, but like I said, it’s tough to imagine.

The backlash against the show has been mainly about the all-whiteness of the cast, the way there are no people in color in Lena Dunham’s NYC except bit-part, background workers here and there. Personally I think people of color have dodged a bullet, and should celebrate their own non-representation in this TV-mumblecore hellscape. While this show slimes along, I like to imagine the whole rest of mixed-race NYC having a terrific time everywhere that Lena Dunham and her friends are not, letting Dunhamites move around in a permanent bubble of privileged-white-girl malevolence, shunned by all decent people.

In response to the criticism about the show’s blinding whiteness, one of the Girls writers, Lesley Arfin, tweeted sarcastically: “What really bothered me most about [the movie] Precious was that there was no representation of ME.”

Later she tried to erase it, but Max Read at Gawker did a fine job tracing Arfin’s history of vicious racist rhetoric. Unfortunately he followed it up by tying himself in knots trying to be “reasonable” about Arfin and Dunham and race and Girls:

Even if Arfin’s dabblings in race jokes and shock slurs are repellent, and beneath her, they’re appropriate; if Girls is the voice of this generation, it needs to give voice to this generation’s discomfort with race, one important manifestation of which is “hipster racism.” (See not justVice but the “Kill Whitey” parties, “Blackface Jesus,” and so on.)

Dunham, for her part, is not a “hipster racist.” When asked about her show’s lack of diversity, she’s been contrite and open to criticism. But her answers are still awkward, and reveal the other way that the kind of people depicted in Girls — should we say upper-middle-class urban millenials? — deal with race: by rendering the nonwhite members of their community — their “generation” — invisible…

Girls is the white people problems show; Precious is the black people problems movie; look, everyone’s been represented. Dunham is self-deprecating, Arfin self-aggrandizing, but the result is the same: there’s no room for people of color in the self-representation the two have created on HBO.

None of which makes Girls‘ portrayal of urban millennial life unrealistic. I’ve been to plenty of dinner parties where everyone was white, including myself. In fact, I’d argue that the show, taken as a whole, is even more accurate for these shortcomings. It really is the voice of a generation: a generation of white people who suck at talking about race.

It’s tough to know where to start grappling with the over-mildness of Read’s argument and the way it sails steadily off course, away from the most important point: the show as a whole is an evil lie. The racial stuff is just bitter top-dressing. Even if you can meet real Dunhamites at certain all-white dinner parties in NYC, why condemn a whole generation of unoffending females by claiming Dunham represents them? I know droves of twentysomething women, a lot of them nicer than I ever was at their age—and I was nice as hell. And they’re rushing around trying to be accomplished and succeeding to a degree that’s downright weird. There’s no reason to accept Girls as an ex cathedra pronouncement from “the voice of a generation” in the first place, much less hope people of color can get in on the horror of it all.

Dunham is already trying to shore up her voice-of-a-generation status by threatening to diversify the cast of Girls in subsequent seasons. Don’t cooperate, people of color! If she tries to cast you, punch her right in the face! Just watch the awful final scene in the first episode of Girls and you’ll see why you want nothing to do with this freak show!

The final scene features Hannah at a clinic where she’s getting tested for AIDS, a personal obsession of hers. There’s a woman of color as the gynecologist who’s forced to play the role as the wise-subaltern, feeding straight lines to Lena Dunham while squatting between her legs, so Dunham can toss off more of her dubious wit and wisdom about the harsh realities faced by snotty white mumblecore females today. I’ll let Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly, who loves the show, tell it:

“You could not pay me enough to be 24 again,” says Hannah’s OB/GYN. “Well, they’re not paying me at all” [Hannah] shoots back, feet in stirrups, gazing at the ceiling.

I don’t even get why that dialogue’s any good, but Tucker just can’t get over the genius of it.

Dunham…has created a character, Hannah, who’s vividly funny but also poignantly vulnerable and bristlingly smart. I’ve been reading that she’s a new voice for her generation, but I’m hear [sic] to tell ya: I ain’t in Dunham’s generation, and I think this show is superb….

Unemployed twenty-somethings and older: Start saving up for that HBO subscription….

Here Tucker illustrates the real menace of the show. It’s not enough that it’s regarded by many fatheads as practically unvarnished reportage, documenting the reality of young female life in contemporary America. On top of that, young women are urged to watch it in those terms. Y’see “girls,” it’s YOU. A barbarous insult! Them should be considered fightin’ words. But instead, gushing reviews, high-praise blogging and tweeting, all that voice-of-a-generation stuff, egging on gullible people to accept this heinous propaganda as authentic female experience.

One final note of gloom: it was only a few weeks ago that I started ranting about the dangers of mumblecore, but already this makes it official. The mumblecore cancer has metastasized. It’s spread from DIY indie films rarely seen outside film festivals to Judd Apatow-produced comedies playing in the smallest theaters in the multiplex and now to Judd Apatow-produced cable-TV shows in homes everywhere. It’s hopeless merely trying to cut out the tumorous growths. Time to crank up the radical radiation therapy, but we have to face facts: the prognosis is pretty damn negative.

You know how even Bush haters will admit that his one undisputed good deed was getting all that AIDS prevention funding to Africa? But, boy, do they have it all wrong. More than anything, Bush’s efforts show how little anyone really cares about saving Africans. It’s the same with the Melindas, Bonos, Geldofs and all the other UN Mother Teresas out there. To them, the potential social costs of really fighting the epidemic and having all its uncomfortable details out in the open are just not worth it. Let me explain:

It all goes back to a news story I read a few years ago about a curious twist to the tale of the unstoppable HIV epidemic in Africa. It was about a study done by a team of German scientists who proposed a controversial, yet very commonsense, explanation for Africa’s grizzly AIDS transmission rates. Their data showed that anal sex — both homo and hetero — was the second largest cause of infection. First place was taken by transmission in medical settings: dirty needles, compromised IVs and tainted blood supplies. The kicker is that vaginal transmission came in a distant third.

Allow me to quote:

Anal sex could be a major cause of the HIV/Aids epidemic in Africa, according to new research.

A study published in The Journal of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS claims awareness of the risks posed by anal sex is ignored in many of the continent’s health campaigns.

Just like the story said, the study’s findings never hit big. In fact, it felt like it was downright buried. It seemed the anal sex connection was just too taboo for America, both the left and right. At some point, everybody understood that anal sex was a big culprit in HIV transmission. But then, on behalf of the gay community, the great PC whitewashing occurred, and the knowledge fell through the cracks. And so began the HIV Dark Ages, a period which we’re not out of yet. The times have been good for some, but disastrous for others. On the one hand, it buffered the gay community from a continuous wave of anti-gay paranoia. But on the other, it distorted the facts and scared the shit out us non-anally inclined straight folks. Zeroing in on vaginal HIV transmission and pretending that anal sex did not exist ruined sex for a whole lot of people. Basically, our doctors dreamed up a problem and a solution that was about as real and effective as the War on Terror.

Fifteen years ago, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine observed 256 straight “mixed status” couples (one infected, the other not) banging regularly for some lengthy period of time. Half of them used condoms all the time and not a single partner got infected. The other half was a bit more careless and didn’t use condoms so much. Out of them, only 10% of the partners were infected with HIV. Sure it’s a bummer, but these people were banging each other day and night for months. For months! And still there was only a 1 in 10 chance of getting infected. They’d be more likely to give each other the common cold than to pass around HIV. (It’s also hilariously easy to imagine that at least some of that 10% were doing anal but were too embarrassed to put it down in their little progress reports.)

Sure, the study showed that condoms work well. But that’s not the whole story. You do not get Africa’s infection rates — something like half of the population — from just unprotected vaginal intercourse. And that’s exactly what the Krauts who published the anal-sex study six years ago were trying to say. For Africa’s runaway HIV epidemic, backdoor love was the missing link.

Now, I’m no health professional, maybe a couple of billboards in every village and town with something like “If you are stupid and careless enough not to wear a condom, please don’t have anal sex” might help a little.

But despite the butt-load of evidence, no Third World health crusader has been willing to admit that anal sex plays a big role in the continent’s AIDS woes. The do-gooders have way too much baggage. With them, you don’t talk about the statistical disparity between anal and vaginal transmission of HIV. Jesus and the hard-won acceptance of the gay community hang in the balance. The latter I can understand. The admission would probably bring back the anti-gay AIDS hysteria of the ’80s and cause a surge in homophobia all over the world.

So in the end that means a whole lot of dead Africans on our hands.

Today’s question comes from a reader named Tom. Send in your own questions, concerns and worries to ask@exiledonline.com. Team eXiled is here to help.

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Dear eXiled,

I’m actually totally new to your site. I’ve been having this GILF obsession lately. All I can think about is boning grandmas. And that’s how I found your site. (You guys were like the third Google link but all I got was a link to some British article about old people having sex and orgies.) That’s not what I’m into! I’m not really sure what I’m into. But I do feel an attraction to old women. Especially ones that don’t look that old, those whom I see in natural food stores. Is it normal to want to fuck older women? I’m not talking about nasty sagging grandmas with walkers. But just older women in general. I just turned twenty and am in a liberal arts college.

Sincerely,
GILF-seeking student

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Dear GILF-seeking student,

Your GILF-ophilia makes perfect sense. GILFs come from a different time, an older, more traditional, sexier time. Sure they are wrinkled and old, but with today’s progress in cosmetic surgery, some of them might not look half that bad. If you’ve got to satisfy your GILF craving, my advice would be to go to either coast, take a job as a bag boy in Whole Foods and find yourself a 60-something lefty divorcee. She’ll be thinner than girls your age, more educated, richer and infinitely more appreciative.

Benjamin Franklin, the bed-hopping Founding Father, openly advocated GILF intercourse. Here’s some sex advice he offered a younger friend of his:

Because when Women cease to be handsome, they study to be good. To maintain their Influence over Men, they supply the Diminution of Beauty by an Augmentation of Utility. They learn to do a 1000 Services small and great, and are the most tender and useful of all Friends when you are sick. Thus they continue amiable. And hence there is hardly such a thing to be found as an old Woman who is not a good Woman.

Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the Breast and Arms; the lower Parts continuing to the last as plump as ever: So that covering all above with a Basket, and regarding only what is below the Girdle, it is impossible of two Women to know an old from a young one. And as in the dark all Cats are grey, the Pleasure of corporal Enjoyment with an old Woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.”

Meaning, put a bag over it and do your business. And like Benjamin says: “They’ll be so grateful!!”

Send in your own questions, concerns and worries to ask@exiledonline.com. Team eXiled is here to help.

*****

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Dear Mr. Virgin,

Listen carefully. You’ll have to change the way you see the world. What you think is important isn’t going to help. Things you may consider trivial are very useful in the quest to end virginity.

Step one is the hardest, and you may not even be able to do it alone. You may need to ask for help. Here it is: look at yourself. Painful, yes, but that proves nothing. Here are the things that DO NOT MATTER, though you probably think they do:

being short

not having muscles

being “shy”

There are other things that matter a little, but keep in mind they’re only SLIGHT DISADVANTAGES, NOT DISQUALIFICATIONS:

being fat

being a nice person

Moving outward from the body, we come to the clothes. Clothes are an indication of vanity, and–listen carefully here — VANITY IS GOOD. You need to become vain right now. You need to preen. It doesn’t actually matter whether your clothes are good or bad, they just have to be carefully arranged and expensive and arrogant. The point is to look like you have a functioning male ego.

This leads us to the next point: be a little mean. And above all, be inconsistent — mean one minute, nice the next. Don’t tell the truth about what you think. In fact, talk less and be more aggressive. Ask questions, then let a nervous silence hang over her answers. This is how the game is played.

And the last, biggest lesson: ask. I bet you don’t ask. I bet you believe the movies, where the beautiful female lead just naturally gravitates to the passive nerd. THIS IS A LIE. You will waste your youth waiting for it to happen and IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Put yourself–once you’re dressed expensively and acting a little arrogant–in situations where lots of cute but not club-wise young women go. Try volunteering at a local animal shelter. Or get a job at a library. And for God’s sake, TALK TO THE WOMAN YOU WANT TO GO OUT WITH. No matter what the movies told you, she will NOT just naturally seek you out in your fetid room. You have to find her and you have to talk to her. It gets easier once you’ve done it a few times.

So, to sum up:

1. Dress expensively and carefully.
2. Stop abasing yourself.

3. Go to the places cute young women hang out.
4. Talk to them.
If you don’t do these things, you will be a bitter old man. I know.

—Dr. Dolan

*****

Send in your own questions, concerns and worries to ask@exiledonline.com. Team eXiled is here to help.