Sophie Tucker was a heavyweight performer—in every sense of the word. Right up to her death in 1966 at age 82, Tucker, the so-called “Last of the Red Hot Mamas,” took her act worldwide, combining her singing talents and bawdy humor into a legendary act that would manage to survive the demise of vaudeville and the dawn of the television age—all while remaining determinedly and definitively plus-sized.

Way back in 2012 when Lena Dunham’s Girls first aired, I admired Dunham’s sincere portrayal of broke young women with artistic ambitions. I could barely watch the show without cringing at its painful accuracies. Since then—since the show’s quick rise in popularity, the magazine photo shoots and Adam Driver’s Gap advertisement, Dunham’s perspective seem more stylized than real. Film and television portrayals of the lives of struggling twenty-somethings feel increasingly less unique and my experiences as a woman of the Girls generation—going to Brooklyn bars in a crop top etc.—feel aspirational and contrived.

I was really wary of watcing HBO's new female-driven comedy, "Girls." I'd heard a lot of not-great reviews and was afraid it would read like an emo version of "Sex and the City," which I was never fan of to begin with. I don't typically fall for awkward comedies a la "Arrested Development," either, as they tend to make me, well, uncomfortable - perhaps because my life often feels like an awkward comedy, and I like for my TV shows to hit a bit less close to home. Still, I was drawn to "Girls" because Lena Dunham, its writer, creator, and star, is just 25 years old - and, oh, she's also Jewish. It's also produced by funnyman Judd Apatow (also Jewish), who has turned out such comedic greats as "Anchorman," "Bridesmaids," and "Superbad." With a behind-the-scenes cast like that, I knew I had to give "Girls" a try.