Bros

Coming soon to HBO, the generation defining series of what it really means to be young living in New York. John is an investment banker living in midtown Manhattan. He blows his massive salary on a cocktail of drugs and women each weekend and has lately had trouble hiding his personal life from his professional life. Mike still lives at home in Manhasset. He works part time for his dad and has no real ambition. He spends every Thursday-Sunday living on John's couch and has thrice had intercourse on the LIRR. Matt is an aspiring writer scraping by in Brooklyn, he often opts partying with his buds Mike and John in Manhattan to doing things like eat and pay rent. His parents always tell him this is "the last time" they will cover his bills. Said plug has yet to be pulled. Danny lives in a condo on the upper east side and is "self-employed" he blogs for a lifestyle "bro-site" and throws his trust fund around to gain local fame and notoriety along New York's underbelly.


This show will never be made. But it's a shame. It's as if the bro culture was given Entourage, and look what happened with that. It turned into a self-important turd nugget by the end of its second season. Now any show on television that attempts to tap into "bro-culture" is an over exaggerated parody of itself. Think to shows like Blue Mountain State, Workaholics, Always Sunny, they revolve around lovable losers, lazy pieces of shit that become endearing because of their ineptitude. I suppose it's a fair assumption that there isn't a particularly large faction of producers in Hollywood lobbying for more WASPy elitism on tv, so I just accept it for what it is. Television programming is more or less geared at middle America's women. Cop procedurals, medical dramas, eh...they're easy to follow. Show the other side what these cool jobs are all about. Need to fill a time slot? Copy a British reality series!

But then every so often a show like Girls comes along and totally flips the script on you. I'll admit that I have a bit of a culture identity. I grew up in Indiana, which is as middle as you can get (consequently ABC's show The Middle is about growing up in Indiana, and is one of two current primetime shows to talk about Indianapolis as "heading to the big city") However, after making the jump to Chicago and more recently to Los Angeles I think I have become a bit more metropolitan and I feel qualified to speak as a legit city dweller. Anyway, I watch this show about a bunch of misfits living in Brooklyn and I am equal parts impressed and horrified. The intellectual in me loves that there is finally a show trying to realistically diagnose what is going on with generation Y (though it pains me that it is coming from the female perspective...I'll explain later) the midwesterner it me though is appalled at the rampant pretentiousness of this endeavor. "You are from New York, therefore you are interesting."

I suppose I never understood the whole New York pride thing. It's a big city with frequently bad weather and lots of immigrants. Not that there is anything wrong with either of those, it's just whatever. Yes there are lots of cool places and things to do and it's crowded and has a hustle and bustle and it's expensive and it's on the East Coast. I...I don't know, cool I guess? I moved to LA because it's bad ass to move far away from where you are from and I like the beach. That said, I don't feel entitled to talk down to entire geo populations because I live in a more culturally significant hub than they do. I talk shit about people back home getting bored and married and all that, but I'm sure there are people in rural Illinois that drink and rage just as hard as I do. I talk down to people because I'm the fucking man, not because I live in LA.

Now that we have that little NYC rant out of the way (side note: I actually really enjoy NYC. I have a really swell time when I go, I just don't understand the self important nature of east coasters, like most of you are funny looking and a lot of guys have girl names. Was that anti-semetic? I'm sorry, Smallwood left me jaded) allow me to talk in general about the actual show and what I think it tries to accomplish. I've only seen the first 3 episodes, but my gut is telling me that everyone from the coasts will fucking love this show and everyone else will be like, ya quit your bitching about getting cut off, I'll be living in this studio apartment paying off my student loans for the next 15 years. But I won't demand that everyone have white guilt about this show. If you were born into privilege and decide that you are going to go out to hundred dollar dinners every night and throw it on the family credit card more power to you. I would give anything to be a trust fund fuck up entering my third stint of rehab, life is just easier that way regardless of how many people call you a piece of shit behind your back. (You may be a piece of shit, but you are a piece of shit that doesn't look at price tags)

I think the show nails the sense of entitlement that we collectively feel as a generation. We haven't really been asked to do anything for ourselves. I don't know what life was like in previous generations, but I'd say that we are collectively pretty hedonistic and selfish, the pilot episode featured the main character drinking away her sadness and then letting some dude ride her from behind...a typical Tuesday night apparently in Brooklyn.

My main criticism of the show though is it's almost accepted that these flawed characters earn instant redemption in the eyes of the viewer due to the stereotype of gender roles. The show is like "ugh life in your 20's is SO hard especially if you are a girl" when the whole plot is basically just about being a 20 something in New York. But because they are girls their behavior is forgiven as being quirky and at times feministic. Re-imagine that scene I mentioned earlier. A dude bitches at his parents for not giving him any more money (I loved this scene actually because it validated my asking my parents for money. I'm NOT the only one!) He leaves all pissed off, goes and rips it with his buddies and then calls over a slam piece and owns her from behind. That probably wouldn't resonate at all, except maybe with a bunch of frat guys who would high five. But because our protagonist is overweight and the guy she sleeps with is a dorky hipster it's like you know just part of being young.

Perhaps a show about a bunch of bros owning New York wouldn't be particularly heart felt or interesting, but at least it would be a show with some balls. I'm so sick of everyone apologizing for what they are. That was my main praise for Project X. Sure the writing and acting were suspect at best, but the whole idea of "we are going to rip it and we don't give a fuck" earned a golf clap from yours truly.

I suggest to you all to tune in on Sundays to watch Girls. I will continue to love that a show portrays living in your 20's as being much darker than Friends (my god there is blatant alcoholism, promiscuity and they know a drug dealer!) but the midwest me will continue to be perplexed by the New York superiority complex and contemplate if the show would be better as told from the perspective of 4 midwest transplants living in the big apple. Four girls drinking white wine talking about boys, or four bros huddled around a mirror crushing up adderall pitching their start up ideas before a late night on the town...what show do you want defining you? I'll keep pestering Sue Naegle with my scripts for a companion series and let America decide.