Season Four of Girls premiered last week, but it really kicked off with last night’s second episode, which opened on a cornfield and closed with Hannah Horvath slurring, “I want to go back to undergrad school, I don’t want to stay in grad school.”
For those fortunate enough to have passed through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, this season ends a year of speculation in the wake of Hannah’s fictional acceptance there: What would Girls make of the prestigious MFA program, and what would students make of its fun-house interpretation? After talking to a few teachers and alumni (some of whom shared their thoughts last year), it’s safe to say that reactions are mixed. “It’s just not possible to capture in 22 minutes,” says Thessaly La Force, class of ’13. “But if an alien came to planet Earth and saw Girls, and that was their only representation of the workshop, I would not be unhappy.”
For those fortunate enough to have passed through the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, this season ends a year of speculation in the wake of Hannah’s fictional acceptance there: What would Girls make of the prestigious MFA program, and what would students make of its fun-house interpretation? After talking to a few teachers and alumni (some of whom shared their thoughts last year), it’s safe to say that reactions are mixed. “It’s just not possible to capture in 22 minutes,” says Thessaly La Force, class of ’13. “But if an alien came to planet Earth and saw Girls, and that was their only representation of the workshop, I would not be unhappy.”
Unlike Hannah’s short story in last night’s brutal workshop scene, news of Girls’ coming Iowa arc was greeted warmly by the country’s highest-ranked fiction program. The greater University of Iowa wasn’t so enthusiastic: It turned down the show’s request to film on campus after deciding it placed it in “an unfavorable light.” Maybe it was that wrestling scene at the frat party? Lan Samantha Chang, the fiction workshop’s director, puts it down to midwestern squeamishness. “The minute I heard the word fuck in the episode, I thought, oh, now I get it.”
Chang decided, after some hesitation, to host a viewing of episode three — the spring semester starts this Tuesday — at Dey House, the workshop’s quaint, white-shingled home. Instructor and recent graduate Pramodini Parayitam urged her to go ahead with it. “It’s nice to see yourself portrayed,” she says. “Whether it’s good or bad, it’s comedy. We’ll get together and make popcorn.”
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