I thought I was alone in thinking Jess was insufferable, the plot boring and the dialogue laughably unrealistic - like Dawson’s Creek where teenagers are ridiculously verbose. The messaging is very weird and I’m yet to meet a man who finds irritating and messy women cute unless they have something else going for them, such as charm or 10/10 hotness. I don’t buy it’s two lost souls finding each other. I actually liked Girls. I think the point was they were all meant to be so self-centred and awful that they ruined all their relationships and eventually their friendship group - an anti-SATC. I notice Dunham had co-writers for that. She needs them.
Honestly, Dawson's Creek sounds a lot more genuine than this -- these are "artsy" "studious" teens who think they can academi-fy their experiences and put everything in words because it avoids *feeling*, and eventually that blows up in their face because they're not saying what they actually feel but analysing to avoid feeling -- and still feeling without being able to verbalise.
Too much sounds about the same, but in a mid-30s that's just sounds ridiculous rather than "immature trying to pass for mature", yk?
Funny about that comparison is that Jess's ex is SO Dawson, now that you mention it! LOL.
Oh, I loved DC too -- I was about same age as them as it was airing and it *didn't* sound like unreal teen dialogue to my experience. Eventually I realised it was because, well, I was trying to work my feelings and experiences as if I were analysing a book 🤣.
Jess's ex is extremely Dawson. Think about each and every one of his love interests: strong women who he wanted to diminish to have by him. He is desperately attracted to Jen but needs to slut shame her into being in a relationship with him so he can "fix" her. He doesn't care about Joey until she finds someone else and then she must put him ahead of everything. Gretchen's maturity attracts him, but he can't deal with the reality that she just *knows better* than him. Etc etc. He's attracted to strong women -- but he needs to dominate them, and, ultimately, that's what makes Joey & him never work, that's what makes Jen leave him both times. You know, he's not *unlike* his dad in this. 😂
(Not because I think it makes sense for them to *end up* together, but also, with a time skip, it's hard to judge -- just that in the whole context, all of Dawson's behaviour towards Joey in this whole period made me despise him)
I guess its OK not to like a character but it's absolutely head scratching why she has so many people wanting to be around her. She seems to be just an attention-loving drama queen and in this day and age there is nothing very exciting about that.
I just finished watching and I was a bit baffled by the ending.
Because it doesn't feel like it makes any sense from a storytelling perspective?
I'll disagree that Felix should have made the gesture -- although I suppose proposing sort of is a gesture -- because... Sure, he cheated on her. But it's not as if Jess wasn't a cheater herself? She cheated on her ex (awful though he was, it's really bad considering the consequences), she cheated on Felix too.... And, unlike him, she never comes clean about it. He comes in and he tells her - specifically saying he doesn't ever want to lie to her or hide and he's crashing out and falling back into bad habits, and her reaction is to kick him out... As if she hadn't jumped into bed with another man at first opportunity (and if it didn't go all the way, it is because Jono crashes out, not her at all). As if she isn't going around fantasising with sleeping with her ex while he's right there.
Then he tells her he knows he's a fuck up, but so is she, and she STILL doesn't acknowledge her own behaviour. She keeps throwing in her face every thing she did to help him and dismissing his feelings. Not even a single "thank you" for having dropped everything and tried saving her dog, for staying there and waiting, of the fact he had to watch it all or that if he hadn't done all of this, she'd get home to a dead dog without any idea what had happened, when it had happened.
In fact, I don't know why he bothered coming back to her after her behaviour at the wedding -- when she's having all sorts of meltdowns for better reason than self-righteousness and treating him as shit because he wants her to be low-key and be there for him. When she asked him the same, at the dinner party, he kept his cool even through she was doing something actively harmful to him and pretending that he is at fault for being attacked by someone who's high (well, she's also high, but, again, no acknowledgement).
My biggest problem with the narrative is that it doesn't acknowledge her behaviour and constantly shits on the choices of the men? Yeah, we see her ex being a dick -- but we see her being terrible to him, constantly. Then she cheats and possibly gets pregnant, but he's the bad guy for... Doing the same. The whole thing with Wendy at the end felt like such a needless way of blaming him for everything, when beforehand it felt more complex than that (and Wendy never came across as being torn down either, so, it's out of the left field).
It's so ironic that this scriptwriter wants to claim to be "unfiltered women story" when all it comes across is as anti-feministic, literally. There's no accountability to any of the female characters, and all male characters are made to be total AH who just destroy women -- and mostly in contradiction of what's actually being shown.
Someone commented on the Dawson's Creek verboseness of the story, and, well, yes, it's verbose, but it's the diametrical opposite of Dawson's Creek. DC had teens that overanalyzed everything and talked about stuff non stop without allowing themselves to FEEL. Too much lacks any sort of self-analysis or self-awareness, it's all FEELS with the emotional selfishness of a 16 y.o., and, honestly, in a character that it's mid-30s it comes across as infantilizing. It's not just the toxic behavior, it's the narrative siding with it and creating patterns that weren't there to justify her toxic behavior.
(Also true about random side characters, and very poorly handled in some cases that could've used "less is more" in terms of storytelling -- boss/wife comes to mind, didn't need the dog scene; tattoo scene, etc).
Jess is not Too Much. She's simply Not-Enough and the show fails because of it.
Edited just to say: the ONLY way this makes any sort of sense is if you think of the show as a video-version of the Spice Girls' song and equally disjointed/contradictory as the song lyrics. ("but a short term solution ain't no resolution, that ain't no release for me", in fact, sums it up really nicely)
I think it’s just honest of who people are in this very sick society. It just felt accurate not like it was striving for moral superiority. It was refreshing to just see what truly happens in the face of our society collapsing among people. In 40 years, I haven’t met someone who isn’t toxic and anxiously attached in the United States.
Até que enfim achei uma crítica verdadeira e lógica, tava pensando que eu era a única a ter essa percepção. Francamente, eu acho que a ideia dessa pessoa, nessa série nem foi pensada, ela só fez por fazer e foi deixando acontecer...acho que é a mesma ideia das redes sociais: se gerar engajamento, falem bem ou mal, mas falem de mim, ela sabia que teria várias discussões e opiniões a respeito e isso foi bem sagaz da parte dela, tipo o que houve com a política na época do fake news, estamos vivendo uma onda em que não importa se algo é bom ou lixo, o que importa é que vai ser altamente comentado e vai gerar engajamento. É a única explicação para esse tipo de produção que consigo aceitar, porque é uma coisa sem pé nem cabeça, excessiva, desnecessária, você fica assistindo com a esperança de que em algum momento vai melhorar, vai fazer sentido e nada. Acho que a única parte boa foi ter usado atrizes fora do padrão de beleza das magrezas e dá um novo olhar para mulheres que antes tinham papel de coadjuvante ou de bullying, etc, e nessa trama a personagem é desejada, somente isso foi bom.
I recently started the show but something felt off... I couldn't put my finger on it so checked online, and here your article was; putting the exact words on exactly what felt wrong. I want a feel good show that really feels good and not glorifies toxicity or at least lack of awareness. I believe, I started loosing interest when she came back from the toilets during that dinner with the Polish footballer and made her glorious speech about being messy but actually not really because it was a label given to women by society, bla, bla, bla. And I thought "hmmm you are though... You're lazy at your job, you burnt yourself, your living situation looks like an illegal sublet and you are OBSESSED with you ex' fiancée" In my book, you are a bit of a mess and I refuse to see you as my hero
I think Jess is a young woman in need of therapy. Clearly traumatised by certain life events which shaped her in many ways. It’s a journey to get there-to realise only when we put the work in the self, life changes for us.. I don’t think she’s dislikable.. she tried throughout…and the outcome..?? Life… isn’t that what life is like?look around and see how many dysfunctional relationships exist in a society where the norm is emotional numbing yet simultaneously we are also all mental health advocates. I think it depicted so many life’s realities. From moving to new places.. to where unhealed trauma keeps one-in a viscous cycle. life is this messy… and the conclusion? The answer lies within.. the journey to healing and growing is hard but worth it otherwise one gets the same lessons from life over and over again..
Enjoyed this review, my wife and I were just discussing what a relief it was to hear this perspective. It's funny, but by your definition, if you strip away Dunham's millennial gloss, Curb Your Enthusiasm is a tox-com.
Thanks for writing so eloquently, I tried to like this show but really failed because Jess is so unlikely and unlikeable. 🤷🏻♀️
Thank you for reading and for the lovely comment! 🙏🏽
I thought I was alone in thinking Jess was insufferable, the plot boring and the dialogue laughably unrealistic - like Dawson’s Creek where teenagers are ridiculously verbose. The messaging is very weird and I’m yet to meet a man who finds irritating and messy women cute unless they have something else going for them, such as charm or 10/10 hotness. I don’t buy it’s two lost souls finding each other. I actually liked Girls. I think the point was they were all meant to be so self-centred and awful that they ruined all their relationships and eventually their friendship group - an anti-SATC. I notice Dunham had co-writers for that. She needs them.
Honestly, Dawson's Creek sounds a lot more genuine than this -- these are "artsy" "studious" teens who think they can academi-fy their experiences and put everything in words because it avoids *feeling*, and eventually that blows up in their face because they're not saying what they actually feel but analysing to avoid feeling -- and still feeling without being able to verbalise.
Too much sounds about the same, but in a mid-30s that's just sounds ridiculous rather than "immature trying to pass for mature", yk?
Funny about that comparison is that Jess's ex is SO Dawson, now that you mention it! LOL.
Ha! I like it. Never thought about Dawson’s Creek in that way, or about Jess’s ex! The funny thing is I loved Dawson’s Creek.
Oh, I loved DC too -- I was about same age as them as it was airing and it *didn't* sound like unreal teen dialogue to my experience. Eventually I realised it was because, well, I was trying to work my feelings and experiences as if I were analysing a book 🤣.
Jess's ex is extremely Dawson. Think about each and every one of his love interests: strong women who he wanted to diminish to have by him. He is desperately attracted to Jen but needs to slut shame her into being in a relationship with him so he can "fix" her. He doesn't care about Joey until she finds someone else and then she must put him ahead of everything. Gretchen's maturity attracts him, but he can't deal with the reality that she just *knows better* than him. Etc etc. He's attracted to strong women -- but he needs to dominate them, and, ultimately, that's what makes Joey & him never work, that's what makes Jen leave him both times. You know, he's not *unlike* his dad in this. 😂
That’s so true! 😆 I hated him and Joey together particularly
Oh, I'm firmly on the Pacey/Joey camp for life :P
(Not because I think it makes sense for them to *end up* together, but also, with a time skip, it's hard to judge -- just that in the whole context, all of Dawson's behaviour towards Joey in this whole period made me despise him)
I guess its OK not to like a character but it's absolutely head scratching why she has so many people wanting to be around her. She seems to be just an attention-loving drama queen and in this day and age there is nothing very exciting about that.
I just finished watching and I was a bit baffled by the ending.
Because it doesn't feel like it makes any sense from a storytelling perspective?
I'll disagree that Felix should have made the gesture -- although I suppose proposing sort of is a gesture -- because... Sure, he cheated on her. But it's not as if Jess wasn't a cheater herself? She cheated on her ex (awful though he was, it's really bad considering the consequences), she cheated on Felix too.... And, unlike him, she never comes clean about it. He comes in and he tells her - specifically saying he doesn't ever want to lie to her or hide and he's crashing out and falling back into bad habits, and her reaction is to kick him out... As if she hadn't jumped into bed with another man at first opportunity (and if it didn't go all the way, it is because Jono crashes out, not her at all). As if she isn't going around fantasising with sleeping with her ex while he's right there.
Then he tells her he knows he's a fuck up, but so is she, and she STILL doesn't acknowledge her own behaviour. She keeps throwing in her face every thing she did to help him and dismissing his feelings. Not even a single "thank you" for having dropped everything and tried saving her dog, for staying there and waiting, of the fact he had to watch it all or that if he hadn't done all of this, she'd get home to a dead dog without any idea what had happened, when it had happened.
In fact, I don't know why he bothered coming back to her after her behaviour at the wedding -- when she's having all sorts of meltdowns for better reason than self-righteousness and treating him as shit because he wants her to be low-key and be there for him. When she asked him the same, at the dinner party, he kept his cool even through she was doing something actively harmful to him and pretending that he is at fault for being attacked by someone who's high (well, she's also high, but, again, no acknowledgement).
My biggest problem with the narrative is that it doesn't acknowledge her behaviour and constantly shits on the choices of the men? Yeah, we see her ex being a dick -- but we see her being terrible to him, constantly. Then she cheats and possibly gets pregnant, but he's the bad guy for... Doing the same. The whole thing with Wendy at the end felt like such a needless way of blaming him for everything, when beforehand it felt more complex than that (and Wendy never came across as being torn down either, so, it's out of the left field).
It's so ironic that this scriptwriter wants to claim to be "unfiltered women story" when all it comes across is as anti-feministic, literally. There's no accountability to any of the female characters, and all male characters are made to be total AH who just destroy women -- and mostly in contradiction of what's actually being shown.
Someone commented on the Dawson's Creek verboseness of the story, and, well, yes, it's verbose, but it's the diametrical opposite of Dawson's Creek. DC had teens that overanalyzed everything and talked about stuff non stop without allowing themselves to FEEL. Too much lacks any sort of self-analysis or self-awareness, it's all FEELS with the emotional selfishness of a 16 y.o., and, honestly, in a character that it's mid-30s it comes across as infantilizing. It's not just the toxic behavior, it's the narrative siding with it and creating patterns that weren't there to justify her toxic behavior.
(Also true about random side characters, and very poorly handled in some cases that could've used "less is more" in terms of storytelling -- boss/wife comes to mind, didn't need the dog scene; tattoo scene, etc).
Jess is not Too Much. She's simply Not-Enough and the show fails because of it.
Edited just to say: the ONLY way this makes any sort of sense is if you think of the show as a video-version of the Spice Girls' song and equally disjointed/contradictory as the song lyrics. ("but a short term solution ain't no resolution, that ain't no release for me", in fact, sums it up really nicely)
I think it’s just honest of who people are in this very sick society. It just felt accurate not like it was striving for moral superiority. It was refreshing to just see what truly happens in the face of our society collapsing among people. In 40 years, I haven’t met someone who isn’t toxic and anxiously attached in the United States.
Até que enfim achei uma crítica verdadeira e lógica, tava pensando que eu era a única a ter essa percepção. Francamente, eu acho que a ideia dessa pessoa, nessa série nem foi pensada, ela só fez por fazer e foi deixando acontecer...acho que é a mesma ideia das redes sociais: se gerar engajamento, falem bem ou mal, mas falem de mim, ela sabia que teria várias discussões e opiniões a respeito e isso foi bem sagaz da parte dela, tipo o que houve com a política na época do fake news, estamos vivendo uma onda em que não importa se algo é bom ou lixo, o que importa é que vai ser altamente comentado e vai gerar engajamento. É a única explicação para esse tipo de produção que consigo aceitar, porque é uma coisa sem pé nem cabeça, excessiva, desnecessária, você fica assistindo com a esperança de que em algum momento vai melhorar, vai fazer sentido e nada. Acho que a única parte boa foi ter usado atrizes fora do padrão de beleza das magrezas e dá um novo olhar para mulheres que antes tinham papel de coadjuvante ou de bullying, etc, e nessa trama a personagem é desejada, somente isso foi bom.
E
I recently started the show but something felt off... I couldn't put my finger on it so checked online, and here your article was; putting the exact words on exactly what felt wrong. I want a feel good show that really feels good and not glorifies toxicity or at least lack of awareness. I believe, I started loosing interest when she came back from the toilets during that dinner with the Polish footballer and made her glorious speech about being messy but actually not really because it was a label given to women by society, bla, bla, bla. And I thought "hmmm you are though... You're lazy at your job, you burnt yourself, your living situation looks like an illegal sublet and you are OBSESSED with you ex' fiancée" In my book, you are a bit of a mess and I refuse to see you as my hero
I think Jess is a young woman in need of therapy. Clearly traumatised by certain life events which shaped her in many ways. It’s a journey to get there-to realise only when we put the work in the self, life changes for us.. I don’t think she’s dislikable.. she tried throughout…and the outcome..?? Life… isn’t that what life is like?look around and see how many dysfunctional relationships exist in a society where the norm is emotional numbing yet simultaneously we are also all mental health advocates. I think it depicted so many life’s realities. From moving to new places.. to where unhealed trauma keeps one-in a viscous cycle. life is this messy… and the conclusion? The answer lies within.. the journey to healing and growing is hard but worth it otherwise one gets the same lessons from life over and over again..
Enjoyed this review, my wife and I were just discussing what a relief it was to hear this perspective. It's funny, but by your definition, if you strip away Dunham's millennial gloss, Curb Your Enthusiasm is a tox-com.
your definition