Girlfriends vs. Times Square

Coincidentally my last night viewing turned into a sudden double-bill watching. Watching Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends and Allan Moyle’s Times Square sort of led me to a comparative thinking. While the first, pinpoints a decline of an era, the latter manifests the uprising of another epoch. Although both concerning the issues of female friendship in New York, Girlfriends is focused mostly on the distance and separation of its two protagonists, Susan and Anne. A sad farewell to the deeming (hippie-feminist) idealism of the 1970s; A pre-mumblecore dealing with questions of personal/social despair and giddiness.

But, Times Square, as the other side of this coin, takes up where Girlfriends left off. On the contrary, Nicky and Pamela form an almost seemingly impossible duo, as two ill-matched teenagers from different social classes and backgrounds. And here, they can find same ambition and idealism to rock on by: Punk is there, and so literally the “Anarchy in the U.S.”

No wonder Susan in Girlfriends was so enthusiast of photography, as if it was the only way to capture and save what was disappearing right in front of her eyes; she should have taken pictures before all the ideals, dreams, and memories of the decade vanish into thin air. But the Moyle’s teens find a resisting bastion at the beginning of 1980's Times Square, they don’t save or capture, all they (need to) do is to shake the city!