NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had some harsh words for the HBO series Girls on Thursday.
Commenting at the Huffington Post in a piece conspicuously titled "Girls Just Wants to Have (White) Fun," Jabbar said of the characters in the program, "Their world is mostly white."
"This season," he continued, "that white ghetto was breached by a black character who is introduced as some jungle fever lover, with just enough screen time to have sex and mutter a couple of lines about wanting more of a relationship. A black dildo would have sufficed and cost less."
"I don't believe that people of color, sexual preference, or gender need to be shaken indiscriminately into every series like some sort of exotic seasoning," Jabbar added. "If the story calls for a black character, great...[T]his really seemed like an effort was made to add some color -- and it came across as forced."
But Jabbar wasn't done, next calling the characters "too self-conscious, too cutesy, and not that funny."
"We're supposed to find these girls somehow charming because of their flawed characters," he wrote. "Their intense self-involvement is meant to be cute and it can be... at times. But not enough to overcome our impatience with their inability to have any personal insight. They're all educated but fatally ignorant."
Ouch.
But what might sting the female stars as well as creator Lena Dunham the most?
"The guys are more interesting than the girls," said Jabba. "Could it be that Dunham actually is better at writing guy characters than girl characters?"
If Jabbar's correct, HBO should pay heed for it was announced moments ago that Dunham is going to co-write a new show for the cable network based on the the upcoming memoir by long-time Bergdorf Goodman personal shopper Betty Halbreich.
Maybe HBO should reconsider if Dunham "actually is better at writing guy characters than girl characters."
