Edgar Aroutiounian was sitting on the N train coming into Manhattan from Astoria, Queens, not long ago, when he noticed who he was sitting next to: Lena Dunham, the creator and star of the HBO series “Girls.”
As Aroutiounian, 23, a substitute teacher, sat there, he wondered if this was really Dunham, or a look-alike. But his seatmate was perusing a highlighted script with the name “Hannah” (as in “Hannah Horvath,” the show’s protagonist).
It was definitely her.
Aroutiounian never said a word. He was a little too . . . starstruck.
“I didn’t have the balls to strike up a conversation,” says Aroutiounian. “I told my girlfriend about it — she was really upset I didn’t talk to her.”
Initially, it had been a struggle getting him to watch the show. His girlfriend “had been getting on me to see it,” he admits. But once he did, he was hooked.
Aroutiounian is not the only guy who’s become a fan of the series — in fact, the majority of viewers are male (51 percent), according to HBO’s demographic breakdown.
The question is: Why?
The show details the lives of four hard-up, sexually hungry 20-somethings in Brooklyn, including the grim business of getting a cervical procedure and jerky boyfriends who sext photos of their family jewels. Not exactly what dudes discuss over chicken wings.
But for some guys, (those in their 20s), the fact that it’s nominally about women is besides the point. It’s really about youth and being broke — no matter the gender.
“I never even really thought about that aspect of it, [that it was] focused on girls,” says Payton Barronian, 22, who graduated from NYU last year and is a fan of the show. “It was more of the young 20-somethings trying to figure out their life that related to me and my friends, and that’s exactly what we’re trying to do right now.”
“We’re all kind of living it in New York right now,” adds Jake Goicoechea, 22, another NYU grad, who watches the show with Barronian and about six other friends (four guys, four girls in total) in a roving Sunday night “Girls” party. “It’s an honest representation of young people, especially people like us who are supported by our parents for a certain degree.”
These viewing parties, in fact, almost feel like they would appear on an episode of “Girls” — none of Goicoechea and Barronian’s friends can afford a luxury like HBO; they have their TV hooked up to their computer, and stream the episodes live from HBO GO. And Barronian and Goicoechea haven’t landed the dream jobs for which they just finished educating themselves.
Some male fans of the show point to its interesting masculine characters as a reason for watching.
Dan Schechter, 30, a filmmaker whose movie “Supporting Characters” comes out later this month, has professionally and personally crossed paths with Dunham, as well as Alex Karpovsky (who plays Ray on the show) in the past. “The portrayal of men is fair and balanced,” he says. “I’d say Adam Driver’s character is easily the most exciting in the show for me. I think everyone feels conversations are being displayed that we haven’t seen before.”
Meanwhile, some men in their 60s and 70s are watching it as an anthropological study of sorts. Food writer and radio personality Arthur Schwartz and his husband, Bob Harned, both in their 60s, were turned onto the show by a (straight) friend of theirs.
“It was a word-of-mouth thing,” says Schwartz, “it was a, ‘If you want to see what the young people are like . . .’ ”
Schwartz and Harned’s friend found the graphic sex and loose morals slightly shocking — but also hypnotic. “From an older man’s point of view,” says Schwartz, “the social changes are fascinating to watch.”
“The sex is very raw, very out there,” says Harned. Adam Driver, Hannah’s sexually depraved love interest, “is almost ape-like in his way of life. It’s all very raw and fascinating — and feels very real.”
For some older gay viewers, the show represents a kind of cultural inversion. Back in the 1960s and ’70s, it was gay men who were living a swinging lifestyle. The characters on “Girls” are “living the gay life of the 1970s,” says Schwartz.
“Instead of getting married, [single girls] are delaying all these things to have fun,” says Harned. “All the gay people now are wanting to have kids,” he adds with a laugh.