Thank Gen Z for the ‘Girls’ Revival

It’s official: Lena Dunham’s millennial magnum opus Girls is coming back, and it’s in large part thanks to Gen Z giving the show its long overdue redemption arc. Using their native tongue: the internet, Gen Z proselytized the show through memes, clips, and podcasts, and now, as if by collective manifestation, it’s being rebooted for five episodes, which HBO announced Wednesday.

官方消息：莉娜·杜汉姆（Lena Dunham）的千禧一代代表作《都市女孩》（Girls）即将回归，这在很大程度上要归功于Z世代为该剧带来了迟来的救赎。Z世代利用他们的母语——互联网，通过表情包、短片和播客宣传这部剧。如今，仿佛集体显灵一般，HBO周三宣布该剧将重启并制作五集。

When Girls first aired in 2012, it was cataclysmic. Rave reviews were usurped by the relentless onslaught of sexism and misogyny, which commented on Dunham’s body, the kind of sex depicted onscreen, and the nepo baby allegations against the show’s stars—as well as the series’ lack of diversity. There was endless backlash and backlash to the backlash; it became everyone’s favorite show to both fairly criticize and willfully misunderstand, and creator Dunham was the one stuck grasping onto the lightning rod of so much ire, as she began to stand for everything wrong with millennial white women.

2012年《都市女孩》首播时，引发了巨大的轰动。好评如潮被无情的性别歧视和厌女症浪潮所淹没，这些评论针对杜汉姆的身材、剧中描绘的性行为、针对主演的“星二代”指控，以及该剧缺乏多样性的问题。随之而来的是无休止的抵制，以及对抵制的反击；它成了每个人既想公正批评又想刻意误解的“最爱”剧集，而创作者杜汉姆则成了众矢之的，因为她开始被视为千禧一代白人女性所有负面特质的代名词。

But then something happened. A decade after it aired, everyone started rewatching Girls. It’s not just that people were talking about it online; the series’ viewership doubled between November 2022 and January 2023, compared with the previous three months, The New York Times reported. On Tiktok and Instagram, memes and supercuts started unfurling: Marnie poised with a microphone in the infamous teal dress; Hannah snapping “I am busy, trying to become who I am,” or Shoshanna saying, “Obvi we’re the ladies!” It finally clicked for viewers, spawning a cultural and critical resurgence. While the reviews aged like milk, the show had aged like wine.

但随后发生了一些变化。该剧播出十年后，人们开始重温《都市女孩》。据《纽约时报》报道，这不仅仅是因为人们在网上讨论它；2022年11月至2023年1月期间，该剧的收视率较前三个月翻了一番。在TikTok和Instagram上，表情包和精彩剪辑开始涌现：穿着那件臭名昭著的青色礼服、手持麦克风的玛妮；汉娜怒吼“我很忙，正在努力成为我自己”；或者肖莎娜说“我们当然是淑女！”观众们终于领悟了其中的精髓，引发了一场文化和评论界的复兴。当年的评论如今已过时，而这部剧却像陈年佳酿般愈发醇厚。

It was a phenomenon largely fueled by Gen Z viewers who had missed the show the first time around. (As well as prominent millennial Girls “truthers” like Hunter Harris, Peyton Dix, and Evan Ross Katz.) Among these Gen Z viewers were Amelia Ritthaler and Evan Lazarus, Brooklyn comedians who launched the Girls Rewatch podcast in 2023. “I think the rest of society caught up to (Dunham),” says Ritthaler, 28. “Everybody was kind of under the impression that they weren’t allowed to be publicly saying that they loved the show and thought it was great. But me and Evan were like, this show is amazing. Why is everybody mad at her?”

这一现象在很大程度上是由错过了首播的Z世代观众推动的。（当然还有亨特·哈里斯、佩顿·迪克斯和埃文·罗斯·卡茨等著名的千禧一代《都市女孩》“拥护者”。）在这些Z世代观众中，包括布鲁克林的喜剧演员阿米莉亚·里特哈勒和埃文·拉扎勒斯，他们在2023年推出了《都市女孩》重温播客。“我认为社会其他部分终于赶上了（杜汉姆的思维），”28岁的里特哈勒说。“每个人似乎都有一种错觉，认为他们不能公开说自己喜欢这部剧，觉得它很棒。但我和埃文觉得，这部剧太棒了。为什么大家都要生她的气？”

Gen Z especially was able to identify with a style that so many millennials had failed to grasp. “So much of what we were raised on was this post-ironic, emotionally removed, ‘world is burning, but let’s dance through it’ kind of social media,’” she says. “I feel like when it was coming out, millennials were just kind of in their earnest era. The millennial optimism of it all. I feel like Gen Z never got that, so we were always watching it from this satirical lens that Lena wrote it in.”

Z世代尤其能够认同一种许多千禧一代未能理解的风格。“我们成长过程中接触的大部分内容都是那种后讽刺、情感疏离、‘世界正在燃烧，但让我们在火中起舞’式的社交媒体，”她说。“我觉得当它刚出来时，千禧一代正处于他们的‘真诚时代’。那种千禧一代特有的乐观主义。我觉得Z世代从未经历过那个阶段，所以我们一直是用莉娜创作时所采用的讽刺视角来观看这部剧的。”

Ritthaler and Lazarus posted Girls memes on TikTok and Instagram, amassing a following that allowed them to have guests like Dunham, as well as cast members Allison Williams (Marnie), Andrew Rannells (Elijah), and Zosia Mamet (Shoshanna) on the show. “I think this was like 70% cuz of you guys,” Jemima Kirke (Jessa) commented on the podcast’s Instagram account the day the revival was announced. “I feel like I loved my favorite show back to my life,” Lazarus said in a teary-eyed video.

里特哈勒和拉扎勒斯在TikTok和Instagram上发布《都市女孩》的表情包，积累了大量粉丝，这使他们能够邀请杜汉姆以及剧组成员艾莉森·威廉姆斯（玛妮）、安德鲁·兰内尔斯（以利亚）和佐莎·马梅特（肖莎娜）作为嘉宾参加节目。在重启消息宣布当天，杰米玛·科克（杰莎）在播客的Instagram账号上评论道：“我觉得这70%都要归功于你们。”拉扎勒斯在一段含泪的视频中说：“我觉得是我对这部最爱剧集的热爱让它重获新生。”

The show’s redemption arc coincided with Dunham’s memoir Famesick, published in April, further fueling the Girls nostalgia. “I feel like reading Famesick felt like getting a director’s cut of girls,” says Dix, who hosts the podcast Lemme Say This with Hunter Harris.

该剧的救赎之路恰逢杜汉姆四月份出版的回忆录《Famesick》，这进一步助长了对《都市女孩》的怀旧情绪。“我觉得读《Famesick》就像是看到了《都市女孩》的导演剪辑版，”与亨特·哈里斯共同主持播客《Lemme Say This》的迪克斯说。

The book was an instant New York Times bestseller with a buzzy tour. More importantly, there was a public reckoning around the way culture mistreated Dunham. It felt like a bow tied neatly around the physical and mental toll making Girls. She had moved to London, gotten sober, written extensively about chronic illness, worked on shows like Industry and Too Much. Last month, she announced she’d welcomed a baby via surrogacy.

这本书迅速成为《纽约时报》畅销书，并进行了备受关注的巡回宣传。更重要的是，公众开始反思文化界对待杜汉姆的方式。这感觉就像是为制作《都市女孩》所付出的身心代价画上了一个圆满的句号。她搬到了伦敦，戒了酒，撰写了大量关于慢性病的文章，并参与了《投行风云》和《Too Much》等剧集的制作。上个月，她宣布通过代孕迎来了一个孩子。

There were never explicit fan calls for a reboot, particularly after the universally-panned Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That… But the swell in the show’s popularity undoubtedly caught the attention of HBO execs, thanks to the tenacious Gen Zers who spread the good word online. In a Substack post published Wednesday, Dunham credited the fans for helping her be ready to return to the series. “Maybe there was once a part of me that wanted to outrun Hannah and her ladies,” she writes. “Seeing the love you’ve so generously shared for it helped to turn me around.”

粉丝们从未明确要求重启，特别是在《欲望都市》重启版《就这样……》（And Just Like That…）遭到普遍抨击之后。但该剧人气的飙升无疑引起了HBO高管的注意，这要归功于在网上积极传播好评的顽强Z世代。在周三发布的一篇Substack文章中，杜汉姆将她准备好回归该剧归功于粉丝。“也许我曾经有一部分想要逃离汉娜和她的姐妹们，”她写道。“看到你们如此慷慨地分享对它的爱，这帮助我转变了想法。”

“The fans are just tender queers and sensitive girls who journal and heart their eyes,” says Dix. “The people she’s reaching and nurturing aren’t critics anymore, it feels like, or people who want to make weird comments about her body. It’s just young people, she wants to help inform or entertain.”

“粉丝们只是一些温柔的酷儿和敏感的女孩，她们写日记，在眼睛上画爱心，”迪克斯说。“她所触及和滋养的人不再是评论家，或者那些想对她的身体发表奇怪评论的人。他们只是年轻人，她想帮助他们了解世界或为他们提供娱乐。”

Part of the reason for the revival is, of course, that everything has come back: Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, iCarly, and countless others have also seen reboots and sequels in recent years. “It’s nostalgia-core for sure,” Ritthaler says. “But it sucks that we don’t have any new IP that has topped it. I walk around Brooklyn every day, thinking ‘how did we make Girls in 2012 and then everything went back to being worse?’”

当然，重启的部分原因在于一切都在回归：《绯闻女孩》、《美少女的谎言》、《爱卡莉》以及无数其他剧集近年来都出现了重启和续集。“这绝对是怀旧风潮，”里特哈勒说。“但糟糕的是，我们没有任何新的IP能超越它。我每天走在布鲁克林，心想‘我们是怎么在2012年拍出《都市女孩》的，然后一切又变得更糟了？’”

But Gen Z is also ripe for a millennial optimism they never got to experience. Nostalgia for the mid-2010s has been cropping up online, with people posting photos of themselves in 2016, longing for fixed gear bikes, sepia toned photos, and stomp-clap music.

但Z世代也渴望体验那种他们从未经历过的千禧一代乐观主义。对2010年代中期的怀旧情绪正在网上兴起，人们发布自己2016年的照片，渴望着死飞自行车、棕褐色调的照片和跺脚拍手式的音乐。

“I think there’s an energy, particularly in New York right now, that really embodies millennial optimism, and I think that Girls is absolutely a part of that cultural conversation,” says Dix. “It falls neatly into this new world we’re building that is kind of based on ‘Obama first-term joy.’ It’s nice to feel joy again when it’s really difficult to find it.”

“我认为现在有一种能量，特别是在纽约，它真正体现了千禧一代的乐观主义，我认为《都市女孩》绝对是这种文化对话的一部分，”迪克斯说。“它完美地融入了我们正在构建的新世界，这个世界在某种程度上基于‘奥巴马第一任期的快乐’。当快乐变得如此难以寻觅时，能再次感受到它真好。”