Lena Dunham knows it’s tough to be young and creative and struggling to find a purpose in life, and she’s not alone. Not by a long shot. Aaron Eisenberg, Alex Forstenhausler, and Austin Breslow, creators of Your Dad’s Friends, have come along with another shrewd look at a talented generation making a career out of being unemployed. (As I write this article, two of my jobless 24-year-old friends are firing off emails into the Craigslist tv/film/video/radio abyss and discussing their favorite bits of The Sopranos first season — all of which they watched today.)
We city-dwelling creatives, children of parents who were too tolerant, products of colleges that were too supportive, plebes in urban kingdoms whose executive rulers are too busy for us, vacillate between “reach out again in a month or so” brushoff email panic and “maybe I’ll just write a funny web series” self-discovery optimism. Eking through the uncertain corridors of our twenties, we wonder: WHEN’S GONNA BE OUR TIME?! But do we ever stop to think that it might actually be right now? As long as Obamacare stays in effect, moms and pops keep us on the old wireless family plan, and we continue to “dance like no one’s watching,” it might not be that crazy to think so. Either way, the likes of Dunham and Eisenberg give us all some much-needed hope.
Your Dad’s Friends follows unemployed recent grad Ben Hurwitz (Eisenberg) as he pursues leads for longshot entertainment jobs teed up by his well-meaning father. It’s a Seinfeldian spin on real-life tropes familiar to emerging adults trying to make it in fields that don’t want them. Goofier than Girls, Your Dad’s Friends is undeniably similar in its accessibility for the self-effacing millennial set and while installments run a bit long, Eisenberg’s honest portrayal of conversational nuance makes them much more watchable than most two-minute series I’ve come across.
Take a break from job searching and turn your attention toward a show that feels your pain. Here are three reasons to watch:
1. Employment theme
2. Parents
3. Underdog humor
We all need money, so we all (or, most of us) need jobs. Employment is the great equalizer and comedies about employment (or the search for it) are widely relatable and almost always well received.
Your Dad’s Friends’ focus on parents is more than shtick. It’s a commentary on a generation heavily reliant on and proud of our baby boomer elders. If their successes are ours, our struggles become diluted, and it gets a little easier to wake up at 11 am, gaunt, prospectless, and woefully low on Brita-filtered water.
In today’s world, the anti-hero is king and there’s just nothing like a good, hardy commiseration sesh.
