All over America last night, perfectly pretty and well-adjusted young women voluntarily subjected themselves to an extreme session of humiliation and degradation.
Think: “Sex and the City’’ — for ugly people.
Last night, HBO premiered its depraved comedy about life in New York’s outer boroughs, “Girls’’ — a show as insidious and hotly anticipated as a sexually transmitted disease.
“Girls’’ features four 20-something white gals who double up in apartments in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, dress in mismatched consignment-shop rags and moan about unplanned pregnancies, men who like to inflict bruises and moms and daddies who refuse to pay the rent.
“You should never be anyone’s f–king slave, except mine,’’ croons Adam, the greasy bed buddy of the heroine of “Girls,’’ a fat chick named Hannah (played by the show’s writer and director, Lena Dunham).
One pivotal scene in Episode 1 features Hannah on a visit to the apartment of Adam, an unemployed actor and woodworker who hasn’t seen a paycheck, or a urologist, since he plopped himself on the couch years earlier, courtesy of Grandma’s money.
“He never texts me back,’’ desperate Hannah whines, before promptly being plopped on her stomach by Adam. Somehow, she manages to beg the guy to engage in an ordinary sex act, which is visible to the viewer in all its dimpled ugliness.
“So you’re not mad at me?’’ Hannah bleats with guilt after denying Adam the right to demean her sexually. This, to a man who, minutes earlier, pulled at her stomach fat. And not in a good way.
“No, I’m great,’’ he replies unconvincingly.
And that, my friends, is the show’s cringe-worthy high point.
In another scene no less miserable, Marnie (Allison Williams, above with Chris Abbott), the token pretty girl, can’t look her adoring boyfriend, Charlie, in the face when they’re going at it — and in an homage to Hannah, she turns around, asking to be debased.
Marnie tells Charlie to do “what men do’’ — and treat her like pond scum. Women. Can’t live with them. Can’t kill them. Can’t cancel this twisted series.
Executive-produced by Judd Apatow, of “Bridesmaids’’ fame, “Girls’’ purports to be a realistic look at 20-something New Yorkers. It should have another name:
“Men Suck.’’
As it turns out, “Girls’’ is not really about girls at all — a species uniformly presented as neurotic sex toys or psycho man-eaters.
It’s about guys.
And the guys in “Girls’’ are even less appetizing than the women who love and despise them. They are abusers, date rapists or pathetic doormats. Ex-boyfriends, and even fathers, are explicitly gay, which seems a 1950s method of bringing them down — by making men sleep with other disgusting creeps.
In the end, the joke is on the audience. For the message behind “Girls’’ could easily be that conservatives are right and that wanton sex leads to disease, despair and failure in a gal’s career.
But the true message behind “Girls’’ is: If you want to succeed in big, bad New York, you don’t have to be beautiful or thin. Just make sure you have fabulous parents.
Every cast member is an heiress. Williams, who plays the uptight Marnie, is the daughter of NBC News anchor Brian Williams. Jemima Kirke, the free-spirited baby sitter Jessa who comes to hate her whorishness through a “whoops!’’ pregnancy, is the daughter of Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke. The parents of Zosia Mamet, the virginal college student Shoshanna, are playwright David Mamet and actress Lindsay Crouse. And Dunham, as Hannah, is the child of artist and photographer Laurie Simmons and painter Carroll Dunham.
One good thing might come of this “realistic’’ series: No girl from Podunk, Neb., will ever again dream of moving to this city.
It’s amore with Alec in Rome
Alec Baldwin’s head might be in Rome. But his heart is here with me.
After days of tweeted flirtation bordering on obsession with little old me, Alec and fiancée Hilaria Thomas flew to Rome. Alec presumably obeyed flight attendants’ orders and safely stowed his mobile device.
But as soon as he landed in the Italian capital last week, Alec took to Twitter, like a crack whore to the pipe.
“And there’s no Today Show in Rome!’’ Alec tweeted upon landing, complaining that the program’s employees camped out at his house. “And no Andrea Peyser.’’
He cares!
The next day, he wrote, “Andrea Peyser is face down in the saw dust at Langan’s [a great bar on West 47th Street] repeating every tired fabrication on the Post’s hit list.’’ Also, “Andrea Peyser . . . The illegitimate love child of Leni Riefenstahl and Roger Ailes.’’
Baldwin is the alleged victim of a pretty Canadian actress, Genevieve Sabourin, charged with stalking The Bloviator from Montreal to New York. She claims they were lovers. Alec says he merely wined and dined Sabourin. Twice. In a “professional’’ manner. Just sayin’ . . .
I hope the big guy found time to enjoy the sights of sexy Italy, although an order of protection looks appealing.
New Yorker’s trash trouble
Hoarding — it’s not just for rednecks anymore.
A man who lives off a trust fund on the Upper East Side has jammed his East 64th Street apartment to the ceiling with everything from ancient VCRs to microphones — the kind of extreme junk that fascinates and repels viewers of the A&E TV show “Hoarders.’’
Kevin McCrary, whose parents have stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, isn’t letting up. He’s piled suitcases on the roof of his green van parked outside his building. Full trash bags are shoved underneath.
“I don’t have a girlfriend,’’ he told The Post. “No room.’’
No kidding.
The mommy’s curse
Ann Romney was unfairly slammed by Democratic National Committee adviser Hilary Rosen for staying home to raise her five boys. Now, Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, has fired a grenade into the mommy wars, behaving as if she’s the first mom of two ever to work.
“I feel guilty when my son says, ‘Mommy, put down the BlackBerry, talk to me’ and that happens far too much,’’ Sandberg said in a grating interview with PBS and AOL.
Sandberg long insisted on leaving work promptly at 5:30 p.m. to have dinner with the kids — and, she says, you should, too!
“If you marry a man, marry the right one,” she lectured. “If you can marry a woman, that’s better because the split between two women in the home is pretty even, the data shows.” And devoted dads?
Not in her nanny’s world.
Miley’s dodo dad is Billy Ray Clueless
Miley Cyrus attracted attention to herself by walking the streets of LA, commando, and getting photographed knickerless. What’s a dad to do when his meal ticket goes rogue?
Guest-hosting the “Today’’ show, the “Hannah Montana’’ starlet’s father, Billy Ray Cyrus, begged author Jill Smokler for a copy of her book, “Confessions of a Scary Mommy,’’ to give Miley.
Smokler joked that Miley, 19, could use the book as “birth control.’’ Dad agreed!
The American celebrity family needs help.