The universal and particular in "Tiny Furniture"

Every so often, some piece of entertainment comes along that so resembles my own biography that I have trouble judging how it might be received by those for whom the material won't be so incredibly familiar. I don't mean 'sitcoms set in New York.' I mean really specific situations, like being the less-appreciated brunette best friend of a universally-admired blonde at a girls' school on the Upper East Side. Or being the only woman and non (astro-) physicist in one's housing situation. ("Gossip Girl" and "The Big Bang Theory," respectively.) It's not that I can't say anything about these shows, just that they get an automatic... something from me. Not necessarily a boost. I often just end up annoyed that I'm watching something so familiar and lose interest. But questions another viewer might have about whichever technicalities are automatically filled in for me, like when you're writing something yourself.

So, "Tiny Furniture." (Spoilers, yes.) Lena Dunham's breakout movie tells the story of a young woman (Aura) who's just graduated from college in the Midwest and moves back home to a posh neighborhood in Manhattan. She doesn't have a job lined up, or a figured-out love life. She has a brief stint in hipster food service. So far, we're also talking about my immediate post-college experience. I moved out and got an office job by that September, started grad school the following year, and had my first date with my now-husband at 23, exactly six years ago today (!). I have not subsequently become a Big Deal ala Dunham (and it's hinted that Aura will do the same), nor was I ever in a position where getting a job or not was optional. My parents are not artists. It's not exactly the same. But I totally arrived back home unsure of everything, annoyed my family by my mere presence, and had that only-in-NY experience of being in this center of ambition and adventure yet living at home, the very antithesis of what the city is supposed to be about.

But I did like the movie, and do think a lot of it is applicable even if the plot doesn't closely match up with your own life. First off, the post-college moment. No matter where you grow up, if you move back home after college, even for a couple weeks, there's an inherent awkwardness to the situation, all the more so if there's no set end date. On the one hand, you're accustomed to thinking of the house/apartment as home, not your parents' home, because when you're a kid, it's not as if you have the option of your own place. On the other, you're used to living life by your own rules, coming and going as you please. (See the second letter here.) It's easy for an adult to look at this and think, how entitled, but if you're at that specific moment in life, you are, I think, genuinely confused. You're not home like you were in high school, or free as you were in the dorm. The trick is to move out, which is what virtually everyone in that situation wants to do approximately five minutes after setting down their luggage. The post-2008 economy complicates things, but that Dunham's character has a friend to move in with and opts to stay living at home is significant because it fits with the broader pattern of this character making the wrong choice at every opportunity. That "home" is a Tribeca loft only matters because you get the sense that Aura confuses her life on paper with the reality. She loves living at home, except that you've never seen anyone as miserable.

Next, the stuff with guys. It's the classic low-self-esteem scenario, made specific by Aura's presence in a very glamorous world, one least likely to be forgiving of a more-than-plain-looking appearance (and this is Aura we're talking about, not Dunham), but cringe-inducing in a more universal way. There are these painful details, like her job, which is to be the hostess at a hip restaurant in Tribeca. Except that instead of a greeter (a job once held in that neighborhood, I might add, by the girl generally recognized as best-looking in my high school class), she's a day hostess, which means answering phones and not being seen.

We're used to assuming, in movies and life, that an early-20-something woman spends much of her time fending off offers for sex. Maybe there are guys who won't commit, but there's at least a certain affirmation that these women are desirable. The problems we hear about women of this set experiencing are sexual assault and its lesser cousin, street harassment. All that these young women ask is to be able to walk down the street in a miniskirt in peace. But Aura is forever offering herself up, dolling herself up, and getting shot down in new and more humiliating ways. One guy moves in with her, even shares her bed, and they never so much as kiss. Another stands her up, and it wasn't even for a date, exactly, so much as a drug deal in which she wasn't even going to get paid. That same guy later on confesses to having cheated on his girlfriend, then quickly tells her he won't sleep with her because he still lives with his girlfriend. When he finally capitulates, further humiliation (and danger) ensues. It is so, so bleak, and a kind of bleak we rarely hear about (too much male attention is also bleak, but a more familiar bleak). It's in no way mitigated by the fact that Aura comes from privilege.