Before I tell you how that changes I want to briefly say how happy I am that they showed that. It is very rare that you see a guy that a girl is not equally in love with on TV! I mean think about it, how many times have you watched a show or a movie where there is a woman who has a man in love with her and she just doesn't care about him? Not many. This definitely does not include the girls that wont admit they like them or they are in the process of "falling in love" with them. I'm talking, there is a normal girl and an annoying guy following her around. Its funny because this isn't shown often on TV, especially in relationships. I think that this happens a lot more than the media shows! Girls aren't always as obsessed with their boyfriends as they are expected to be. This makes me question whether it is intentional that men are never seen as the "weaker" one in the relationship. They are almost always seen as the one that goes after the girl, makes the mistake, makes an apology, loses interest...etc. It is obvious that Marnie doesn't really love Charlie, and she should get rid of him.
So Hannah basically gets rid of him for her when Ray and Charlie find Hannah's notebook, which tells all of Hannah's feelings about their relationship. Almost immediately after he finds out and leaves Marnie to what she wanted, she runs back to him. She feels like she made a mistake and she still loves him, but they quickly discover it just isn't working. Marnie continues to struggle with this breakup throughout the series. While I think that it sucks that Marnie is so pathetic in this situation, I think it is realistic. There are way too many girls that just cant live without their boyfriends, and Marnies character, if anything, shows girls how pathetic they are when they do that. She struggles to put her life together and winds up sleeping with Booth Johnathan.
Booth is an artist that Marnie is a fan of, and she eventually starts a "relationship" with him. At first I think this is liberating for her because Booth is so different from Charlie and she randomly leaves work to have sex with him, a total Jessa move. I was proud of her and excited to see her change out of her pathetic role. Instead, she assumes Booth is her boyfriend and becomes too involved in the relationship too soon. She finds out that he isn't her boyfriend at a party she thought they were throwing together and she cries right then; while her reaction is typical of a girl like her it is Booth's response that I think is critical to Lena Dunham's point. Watch this short video from the episode:
http://youtu.be/Eex9HdWkjlc
(ignore the weird "I love him" someone put on the end of the video)
You should be able to tell from just watching that how much of an asshole Booth is. He puts up this huge front that he is perfect and overly talented and he tries to be an asshole on top of it. I think that is because he is trying to be a popular artist in NY and in order to do that he needs to fill his role as a man. I mean, we see in the end of the video that he is just as capable as Marnie to throw a hissy fit. The first time we see Booth in the series he warns Marnie that the first time he has sex with her he "will scare her because he is a man and he knows how to do things". I think that Dunham does an awesome job in illustrating how men have these ridiculous roles to fill. Being a tough man just doesn't fit his character, yet he tries to look that way and I think there is a lot of that in our society. Men are pressured to be this powerful figure and it is often over looked that they are human too and have emotions.
After this, Marnie seems to have an easy time getting over Booth, probably because she saw how annoying he really is. Then she finds out that Charlie has suddenly become successful from an app he created. He now has a fancy office and a decent amount of money. The first thing she does is walk right in the office to see him! This is crazy, it makes you want to slap her for being so pathetic. As soon as she sees what she is missing she runs right back, even though she doesn't love him. It may seem bad that this is in the shows, maybe the complete opposite of everything Lena has shown us so far, but I think it shows one of many realties girls face. I have had one too many friends who have not been able to get themselves out of a relationship because they feel so attached. They wind up miserable but never leave because the relationship guarantees them male attention. I think it is important for GIRLS to have a character like this. If you watch Marnie and you don't think she is pathetic, I'm not sure you're really watching. Her actions show women how horrible some of the decisions she makes are! Maybe girls will be less likely to act this way if they see how it turns out and how they really look. She winds up back together with Charlie in the end of Season two, but will she continue to "love" him next season?
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