How old were you when you first watched Girls?
When the HBO show premiered in 2012, it hooked a generation of 20-something women also trying to navigate life against a backdrop of Facebook, hipster coffee shops, and fourth wave feminism.
The appeal didn’t stop after the 2017 season six finale either. As Gen Z entered their 20s, they resonated just as hard with Hannah, Marnie, Shoshanna, and Jessa.
I know what Girls means to me (a die-hard fan since the age of 13). But when news dropped that a reboot was on the way, it was the women who grew up directly alongside these characters that I was most excited for.
In a teaser shared online, creator and star of the show Lena Dunham revealed it would becoming back to screens for a limited five-episode run next summer.
While we don’t know much about the storylines coming to Girls 2.0, Dunham said in the announcement that she’d ‘only return to [it] if there was a specific story [she was] burning to tell’.
But after explaining that the characters began ‘talking to [her] in the shower’ just as she was about to hit 40, it appears she’ll be bringing her unique brand of relatable messiness to an older demographic.
Amid the peak of millennial optimism, we initially saw the foursome coming of age in refreshingly flawed, cringe, chaotic, and toxic glory.
Revisiting them in their 40s, it seems unlikely they’ll have fallen into the one-dimensional domestic drudgery that’s stereotypical forfemale characters of a certain age, even if they are facing a new set of issues, from perimenopause and motherhood to the pressure to harness eternal youth.
And just them being their complex, love-or-hate selves might be the reminder middle-aged women need to be unapologetically messy too.
As Hannah Horvath famously says: ‘All adventurous women do.’
@hbomax Guess who’s back, back again… GIRLS, created by and starring Lena Dunham, will return to HBO Max for five new episodes.
♬ original sound – HBO Max
In recent years, we’ve seen more and more examples of fabulous older women in pop culture, rejecting the Hollywood trope that only 21-year-old girls get to have fun and as soon as a woman hits 35 they become invisible.
Sharon Horgan’s new TV show Youth is just one example.
Showcasing a divorcée juggling troubled kids, confusing sex, and elderly parents succumbing to dementia, she recently told Vanity Fair that she wanted to capture the ‘chaos of middle-aged womanhood’.
Women make mistakes — no matter how old they are
Girls explored a lot of different themes: friendship, love, money, trauma. But at the heart of every storyline was a big, fat, whopping mistake.
We saw Hannah proposition not one, but two of her bosses, Marnie post the worst music video of all time on YouTube, Jessa pursue her best friend’s ex-boyfriend, and Shoshanna date…Ray?
We watched each of them fumble through life with zero poise — and it was invigorating.
While series like Pretty Little Liars and New Girl showcased strong women, they always received the loudest applause when they took the high road or grew out of old habits.
But Girls wasn’t about depicting growth, it was about depicting flaws. And making mistakes isn’t something that stops when the clock strikes 12 on your 40th birthday?
The idea women have an expiration date on hitting certain milestones is very real, with a 2022 survey of 2,000 Brits finding that by 29, we believe we should have secure friendships, and ‘the one’ should have fallen into our laps by 31.
Psychotherapist Becky Crepsley-Fox tells Metro that ‘there’s a widespread belief that by a certain age we should have our s*** together.
‘Many people now accept your 20s as a time to go out and live it up. After that, though, patriarchal expectations kick in: settle down, have children, run the home, take life seriously.’
@hbomaxuk POV: you agreed to a blind date. #YouthHBO #Youth #SharonHorgan
♬ original sound – HBO Max UK & Ireland
Becky explains that while we might not consciously accept that reality, it’s ‘woven into the society we live in’.
‘So,’ she adds, ‘a woman in her 40s or 50s who’s still chaotic, outgoing and a bit all over the place gets judged for the very things we celebrate in our 20s.’
Messy friendships follow us through life
With messy middle-age, comes messy friendships.
Towards the end of the OG (Original Girls) we see Marnie desperately trying to prove she is the ‘best best friend’ Hannah will ever have.
Oh, and let’s not even talk about when Hannah spotted Jessa and Adam lock eyes across the fire escape. The feeling of betrayal was palpable.
Enter Girls’ next important life lesson: female friendships are some of the most important relationships in your life, but they can also be incredibly traumatic. And that’s okay.
It will be fascinating to see how these character’s friendships will have evolved over the past 10 years. And even more interestingly, for viewers to see their own experiences depicted all over again.
‘It’s completely normal for friendships to evolve over time, because we evolve too,’ Becky shares.
‘One Dutch study found we replace around half our close network every seven years. Expecting to like the same people for our whole lives just isn’t realistic.’
Because I’ve always put female friendships on such a high pedestal, it’s nerve-wracking to admit that a connection may have wilted. But Girls didn’t hide away from that. They put a spotlight on unhinged friendships, and it was incredibly healing for thousands of women.
Becky continues: ‘I think part of this comes from how uncomfortable society is with women thinking well of themselves. It’s seen as vulgar or big-headed. If we aren’t allowed to acknowledge that we’ve grown and changed, it’s very hard to update our friendships to match.’
So, could Girls 2.0 have the power to help middle-aged women reconcile with their own social circle?
@neon_nz Marnie and Hannah = roommates no more 💔😢 #HBOgirls #girls
♬ original sound – NEON NZ
A reboot is nerve-wracking at the best of times.
You’re so desperate for the creators to get it right, to avoid any clichés or cheap laughs.
But, I think as long as we get to see four chaotic middle-aged women naked, sabotaging each other’s love lives, and or inappropriately crashing a baby’s christening, they’ll have succeeded in bringing back the Girls we all know and love.
First time round, it gave young women permission to be rude and obnoxious and ambitious. And this new iteration could be about to rebrand the midlife crisis in the best way possible.