Where Are the Black Girls in "Girls"?

Lena Dunham's "Girls" has been subject to scrutiny over its all-white cast; the reasons for this are clear, as the hit drama is set in Brooklyn, NY where only one-third of the population is white.

Dunham plays the main character of Hannah, a struggling twentysomething writer in New York City. In the show's pilot, Hannah earnestly tells her parents of her hope to become the "voice of [her] generation." Response to criticism from Dunham and the show's writers can be summarized as Dunham not feeling she could adequately portray the experiences of women of color. However, this claim does not coincide with the show's intent to focus on the realities of young women in New York trying to find themselves; the city is not a lily-white and the characters only seem to encounter people of color as nannies or bartenders with one-liner roles.

This pictures the casting call for Girls.
The characters in the show, echoing Lena Dunham's own experiences, are cossetted by their own self-segregation. While Girls presents educated young women feeling their way around independence in progressive messaging, the white privilege of not having to include others because of their difference is still present.

Dana Ammann