Why Girls? Why now?

This chapter introduces readers to a range of scholarship and outlines the key reasons why the HBO TV series <i>Girls</i> has caused such controversy over its first five seasons, and why it is the show many feminists love to hate. The feminist content of this and other media productions, its relationship to a ‘postfeminist sensibility’, and the celebrity feminism of Lena Dunham are brought to the fore. This chapter reviews key critical scholarship in the area and highlights important new areas of investigation. With a helpful introduction to the work of each contributor, it responds to <i>Girls</i> as a millennial text with an important gendered message, whilst anticipating and foregrounding important criticisms of its blind spots, and the perils of putting feminism into popular culture.