Some 'Girls' Are Better Than Others
Tom Gauld
By HEATHER HAVRILESKY
Published: April 12, 2012
Ah, to be a girl again! Not a child, of course, but an inhabitant of that rarefied, pH-balanced zone of romance and optimism where you might flirt and flounce and be easily bruised by a pea. Girls can put on a dress and twirl in a circle and others will clap and say, "How pretty!" Girls never question whether the attention they get is well-meaning. They skip through the forest with a basket full of treats for Grandma, happily telling every Big Bad Wolf they encounter exactly where they're headed.
Sooner or later, of course, some of us wise up. A combination of skepticism and feminist indignation sets in, and it becomes harder to wink coyly at strangers or to marvel innocently at Grandma's sharp and pointy teeth.
But for those of us who retain some sense memory of twirling and hearing someone coo, spotting the word "girl" in every other title these days ("2 Broke Girls," "New Girl," "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and, of course, "Girls") or just hearing it in a line of dialogue (think "Sex and the City," conspiratorial clinking of cosmopolitans, etc.) can bring on a faintly nostalgic twinge. Or is it a shudder? We recall that privileged but exasperating era when we were transfixing and special but also a little doomed. As a girl, you are a delicate glass vase, waiting to be broken. You are a sweet-smelling flower, waiting for life's hobnailed boots to trample you. That built-in suspense is part of your appeal.
"How will you
make it on your own?"
the theme song
for "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" asks, hinting that the slightest pothole in the road might ruin everything for our hopeful heroine, peering worriedly from behind her steering wheel. When modern TV shows use the word "girl" in their titles, it's this state of uncertainty they're hoping to conjure. Forget that Mary Richards herself was done with twirling, if not hat tossing, well before she stepped into Mr. Grant's newsroom. Ever since she (and "That Girl" Marlo Thomas before her) turned the world on with her smile, we've been offered coquettish creatures who mimic her second-guessing and nervous tics but curiously lack her complexity and gravitas.
With their forced laughs and their preening and those heavy bangs resting straight on their eyeballs, our current batch of TV ingénues seems designed to conjure the childlike poutiness of America's onetime sweetheart Ally McBeal. You can afford to be a little sassy and street smart when you have big doll eyes and the frame of a preteen.
Aside from a few exceptions — Tina Fey's Liz Lemon on "30 Rock," Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope on "Parks and Recreation," both farcical enough to have more in common with "S.N.L." personas than actual characters — we've largely been spared confident, complicated, single comedic heroines for a few decades now. Each week on "2 Broke Girls," the spunky leads flee confrontation, seek solace in each other's "You go, girl!" clichés and then stride out from their hidey hole to shake a finger in someone's face (only to be rewarded with more humiliation). For all of the single-girl bluster of "Whitney," our heroine seems to have few interests outside of her live-in boyfriend, whether turning him on, manipulating him or distracting him from ogling another girl's assets. Even Jess (Zooey Deschanel) of "New Girl," the least insipid of the lot, tends to go all bashful and pigeon-toed a few times per episode, forsaking weightier goals in favor of trotting out her oddball charms for the adoration of her male roommates.
After prolonged exposure to these smoldering doll-babies, it's hard not to long for some of the stubbornness of Lucy Ricardo (Lucille Ball), the insatiability and bad temper of Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall) or the nerve and self-possession of Mary Richards. When Mary and Rhoda go to a party amid young hippies and Mary notices that they are the only ones wearing eyeliner, we understand Mary and Rhoda as real human beings, complex entities capable of layered reactions to their surroundings. If this were "2 Broke Girls," Mary and Rhoda would dash off to the bathroom to giggle behind their hands, then wipe off their makeup and re-emerge, anxious to blend in with the crowd. Or Rhoda, after resolving to tell those nutty hippie kids a thing or two, would end up being humiliated by them in the process.
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