HBO's highly anticipated new show "Girls" may have been a hit with the critics, but not everyone loved Lena Dunham's brand of humor after the series premiered on Sunday night.
On the new comedy, Dunham (the creator, director, writer and star) gives viewers a unique look into the lives of young twentysomethings living in New York City. "I think that I may be the voice of my generation," Hannah, played by Dunham, tells her parents, who have recently cut her off. "Or at least a voice. Of a generation."
Critics of "Girls" have blasted the series trying to speak for a generation of young women living in the city and for not including much diversity in the process. But despite the joke that Dunham makes in the pilot episode, "Girls" doesn't intend to represent everyone, said the show's co-executive producer Judd Apatow on Wednesday night at the Tribeca Film Festival premiere of his latest movie "The Five-Year Engagement." As for the show's backlash? Apatow says it was expected.
"We wanted it," he enthusiastically explained. "That's the point of it, really. It's supposed to be a comedy about women in New York who are really smart, but their lives are a mess. They know they should be doing great things, but they don't know what it is, and they have kind of a feeling of self-entitlement about it. That's the joke of the show."
Gawker's John Cook blasted the show, calling Dunham's "Girls" a "television program about the children of wealthy famous people ... and how hard it is to know who you are ... and the exhaustion of ceaselessly dramatizing your own life while posing as someone who understands the fundamental emptiness and narcissism of that very self-dramatization."
Obviously, some people didn't get the joke.
However, Apatow believes that the reviews for the show have been generally positive. Emily Nussbaum praised the show as revolutionairy in New York magazine and HuffPost TV's Maureen Ryan called the series "a fresh and wonderfully realized show that feels like nothing else on TV."
"Most people get that, but I guess some people don't," said Apatow. "I think most of the responses have been incredibly positive. There have only been a couple of people who took any issue with it, but anytime most people are positive, there are some people -- just out of boredom -- who will write the contrarian review because who wants to read only good reviews?"
When asked about the show's lack of diversity, Apatow responded: "The show will be on for a long time, so there's plenty of time to have every type of person on the show."
We want it to reflect an honest life in New York, and we'll do all sorts of stuff by the time the show is over," he continued. "Hopefully, we'll be around for a long time."
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Reactions To HBO's "Girls"