The Triumph of the Media Artist: Girls wins (over) Richard Brody

Following in the path set by FX’s Louie, HBO began airing the auteur series Girls, created by and starring Lena Dunham, who also writes and directs most episodes. It was this show that moved The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody to try his hand at television reviewing. Brody, who has dedicated much of his career to studying and writing about the films of Jean-Luc Godard (one of the forerunners of auteur theory and the 1960s film movement the French New Wave), claims to have been drawn to the series because its creator is a filmmaker. She had written, directed, and starred in Tiny Furniture, her debut and only film to date. Thus, for Brody it is okay to like Girls, because it is a filmmaker’s work disguised as television. This is a rather absurd perspective, firstly because Dunham had been creating short videos and web series since her early days as a media artist. I say “media artist” because, at this point, it seems moot to say filmmaker. She is not making “films” (few filmmakers are anymore); she is making media.