Lena Dunham’s Girls Stands Out From the Herd in 2014 Emmy Nominations

Nominations for the 66^th Prime-Time Emmy Awards were announced Thursday, June 10^th, and among the starry contenders is HBO’s Girls writer/director/actress Lena Dunham (up for Best Actress in a Comedy Series) and her on-screen boyfriend, actor Adam Driver (up for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series). The series, which centers on the lives of a dubious group of New York City twenty-somethings, poignantly lends itself to the (uncomfortably accurate) plight of the modern “girl”; overeducated and underemployed, they teeter between girlhood and womanhood as they struggle to discover their place in the adult world (or rather, to carve such a pace in the shape of themselves).

Its avant-garde approach to sitcom television is ripe with a literary aesthetic unprecedented for a young adult audience. In the season one finale episode, after a tiff with boyfriend "Adam" and falling asleep (on the F Train, no less) Dunham’s character wakes to find herself lost, in Coney Island, where she devours a slice of leftover cake on the beach. After confronting an array of comedic-tragic scuffles with the carnival-like “real world” throughout the season, Dunham’s striking use of visual metaphor perfectly captures the bittersweet cost of an uncompromised sense of self, as she “has her cake and eats it too”.

This week, as "hot trends" grow "hotter" with the torridness of summer, it isn't a terrible idea to borrow from Hannah's brazen attitude and liberate yourself from the confines of a seasonal trend destined for extinction.  Stomp on the grapevine and make wine, because, in the words of Hannah Horvath, “It’s really liberating to say ‘no’ to shit you hate.”

Don't forget to watch the Emmy's live on August 25, 2014 8pm ET/7pm CT