HBO's 'Girls' Misses the Real New York

By: Rebecca Carroll | Posted: April 22, 2012 at 12:07 AM

Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images

There has been a lot of talk about HBO's new series Girls, writer-director Lena Dunham's creative relevance and the show's lack of diversity. Daily Beast columnist Rebecca Carroll weighs in, arguing that as a New England native, she couldn't wait to move to New York City to experience the multiculturalism that's so glaringly absent from Girls.

Another reason people move to New York City is to hang out with people from all over the world—people of every different racial and ethnic background imaginable. Not that you'd know it from watching HBO's new comedy series Girls -- or Sex and the City, or Friends, or Seinfeld, among other New York City-based shows. In these settings, you rarely see a black person in the periphery, let alone as a main character.

I noticed it immediately in Girls, although I admit I liked the show's very real, very funny, depiction of friendships among young women. I'm in my early 40s now, but the show brought me right back to my 20s. I have journals filled with pages written during that time. In some instances, they echo scene-for-scene the narrative plot of Girls, which is basically focused on four young women's awkwardly insistent efforts to make something meaningful out of their 20s, particularly in regard to sex.

Read Rebecca Carroll's entire column at the Daily Beast.

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.