I watch Girls and wanted to defend it because I see some verisimilitude in the way the characters are portrayed.  I identify with it viscerally, basically.  The thing I mutter the most when watching it is like "Oh, Hannah don't do that shit.  Don't do it.  She did it."  Whether kissing the junkie who was following her, making a move on Patrick who she doesn't know, allowing herself to buy into Adam's humiliation thing when he goes to town on himself while she's in the bathroom, when he doesn't even want her to be in on it.  He rides the bike with her in front of it, she asks him to stop, and she face plants.  This sort of humiliation is a good barometer of their relationship and what she allows herself to go through.  So many breaches of her own boundaries, concessions to a dangerous situation to feed a bottomless hungry self esteem.  How Marnie sleeping with Elijah for a few moments years after they dated cracks a dent in her already fragile self esteem.  The baseness and embarrassment of her behavior and some of her situations is sometimes pushed for extra humiliation (even small details such as, many of us do grab snacks or cupcakes when we shouldn't, but few eat them in the shower... in fact it is hard for me to identify with/get into the show because of the depths of humiliation covered in episodes that describe their situations, sometimes it seems to want to pillory the characters' many ugly qualities and bad choices.)  All of this is meant to bring into view and exorcise the demons of people in their 20s who are figuring it out through making mistakes, specifically liberal arts hipster transplants.  But, I'm sure some of the unhealthy relationships or self esteem issues are relatable to people at varying levels of privilege.  Sometimes her actions are so ugly, as though she lives in a vacuum that there appears not to be a shred of her that is likeable and can be identified with.  I understand her overwhelming jones for validation when, after breaking up Marnie and Charlie and causing a huge scene, she asks "...but, if it weren't my journal, just as a piece of writing, would you think it was good?"  But, I find it selfish in a way that mostly ruins her status as a good friend when taking sides first with Charlie, then with Marnie and forcing both to stay during an awkward dinner party.  The desire is to punish her suffering friend with awkwardness, but asking Charlie to choose, then telling them to enjoy the dinner party when he leaves is taking it too far.  So many things she does are at a plausible extent of self humiliation and the prostration of one's personal pride.  Sure, we can picture ourselves sleeping with the junkie who is following us, but this does nothing for her other than breach her safety.  Her style is structured as a screenplay, but I recognize the relentlessly confessional nature of a free verse poem.  The desire to continually expose her ugliness and hurt to an audience, or the lowest points and humiliations of Hannah's character, and somehow communicate the state of her age group grandly, or absolve her own pains and pecuniary compromises of being a girl.  People rag on the characters for not being paragons of self esteem, "having it together," or making use of their privilege.  The characters are not meant to be role models.  They are somewhat full fledged, but also canvasses meant to expose some of the uglier conceits and shared experiences of one's 20s.  There is something I facilly call "lack of boundaries," the inability to assert one's own tastes or nature, but kowtowing to what the other person wants or likes just to keep them around.  Not being fully aware of your own motives and getting into a sleeping situation in a way that hurts you.  "Figuring out who you are," as in the career path that you take and how to remain stable and happy in a relationship requires this period of bouncing around and butting against mistakes that hurt and teach you what not to do.  That teach you not to engage with people just to receive a shot of validation, not to hypocritically not want them to move on, or that others don't fill some sort of void.  I guess so many things Hannah does make me cringe in the "baby girl, don't go there" way, don't do that, don't get involved in that, you're prostrating yourself or going to get hurt.  I've made similar mistakes in different situations, made myself look stupid, sought out the wrong type of people, wanted attention, ate for the pleasure of it and ate too much, felt fat, felt ugly, felt like no validation was enough.  I continue to make mistakes like this, but I look at her from above because she is in a different or more extreme situation.  Doesn't mean that I don't understand the compromise of my comfort for the ego validation of getting an article published on a website (in exchange for being forced to do Coke), getting it with a glamorous together/older dude (who is a total stranger and wasn't making a move on her), it seems like more of a 23 or 24 thing to do.  I've gone through a small crucible, a very small crucible of dearth and attempting to mold myself in the image of what other people like, to earn a corner of a very small inch of self esteem.  It doesn't mean that I don't now want to change the horrible, intractable things about myself that are unfeminine and hard to deal with, my messiness, my tendency to pick fights, my laziness, my lack of ability to get myself together... interesting that earning the opportunity to vulnerably face to face someone requires standing your ground on being who you are, and the vulnerability of union requires you to start to compromise. 

People who treat the word Girls as meaning that this is a portrayal of all girls and they must therefore be role models in power suits misunderstands the nature of this show.  Yes, they represent some girls (the universality being in the humiliations, foibles, and opposite gender experiences), but the fact is that they are just girls.  A show about a group of girls.. becoming women, without any additional descriptor attached like "career" girls or "family" girls.  The name of the show also explains the fact that there are so many unlikeable male characters.  The male characters are this way because they are what these women find, accept, and want, they are the reaction to the womens own self image, their foil, and general examples of the type of men girls meet on the way to becoming women.

I found the end extremely affecting.  Not only is Hannah often told she's selfish because she vents her emotional garbage and insecurity about her body and craft on people when they are dealing with their own problems, she has also had problems with anxiety and OCD in high school.  This flare up, I can understand, is due to trying to suppress a complex of unpleasant emotions, mostly fear.. and stress.  Bringing up the safety and anxiety of these measures.  Adam calling her triggers it, along with the pressured e-book deadline that has the empty stigma of being an e-book, but is still too tight and adult for her to make.  She feels unsafe because of Adam's stalking, compromised by the stress of doing something she's unable to do, assailed by the insecurities and doubts that trailed her during all the seasons, and now she has a chance to prove herself, hence the rising stress and fear crests and breaks.  Like hippie ideas of toxicity induced acne, something that the skin eructs after several years of toxic lifestyle, OCD surfaces after an undertow of ignored stresses and fears.  It is mostly about uncertainty, fear, and the lack of safety.