The "Real" L Word

So, I just finished watching the pilot episode of the new series "The Real L Word." Now, I'm not a big fan of the original fictional show "The L Word," but that's another story.

This new "reality" show highlights lesbians in LA and their lives. This would be all hunky dory if it wasn't done in such a gross expectation of male arousal. With the exception of one of the couples, I think they picked the most polyamorous women they could find in order to emphasize the stereotype that the gay community is all about hooking up with many and multiple people on a regular basis. Now, I have absolutely no problem with polyamory. What I do have a problem with is reinforcing a stereotype of an entire group of people when in reality just a limited number of its members act in such a way.

They highlighted one woman in particular throughout the entire episode, Whitney. It's no shocker here that she took up most of the air time because of her flirtation with multiple women. Throughout the show you would see her consoling ex-hookups as she was at a club with a different woman. Sara, the woman she was hoping to see in a relationship sort of setting, got upset by her forward nature with other women while she was sitting right there. Hence drama, what "reality" TV feeds off. Towards the end of the episode you see her and Sara have sex, then Whitney takes her back to the airport after talking about how strongly she feels about Sara, a way she's never really felt before. So after you see the airport good-bye, you see Whitney pick up another very attractive feminine woman from the airport and take her home. I think it also important to note that Whitney identifies herself as being a more masculine woman because she is from New York.

Now the other characters were not as extreme as Whitney in terms of polyamory, but those who came anywhere close (Alyssa) became the next most highlighted, where you watch her flirt with other women in front of her significant other that wants to settle down.

So polyamorous stereotypes aside, there is this ever present heteronormative influence in how these women interact and discuss their relationships. One woman, Mikey, proclaims herself as being a gay man trapped in a woman's body, which by all means I am more than happy to see at least some gender identity diversity within this show. What bothers me as how they portray her as the dominating male figure. In her business she's yelling at models and cutting contracts. This is even somewhat tolerable, but what really pushed my buttons was the way she talked about and interacted with her girlfriend. She blatantly said that because she's dating the most beautiful woman, she won and everyone else lost. Basically, she looked at her significant other as a trophy wife. This was reinforced when she was sitting at home (for presumably an extended period of time) waiting for her girlfriend to come home from work. When she did arrive, Mikey asked her what she was cooking for dinner and absolutely refused to help her in the process. She said, "I'll just supervise, make sure you do everything right." HAH.

To take this a step further, she later went on to say that when she waits for her girlfriend to come back home from work, she'll have a few cocktails. So by the time her girlfriend does come home she inappropriately aggresses sex and touches her in crude ways. I'm not making this up, she admitted that her touching her the way she did was inappropriate. So not only is this show telling us that there needs to be a "man" in the relationship, and "woman" who waits on him, it's also saying that rape culture is okay, especially when in a committed relationship, because she doesn't say "no" and she "puts up with it."

The second couple, Nikki and Jill, see very little air time. They're a couple in the process of planning a wedding. For the most part, I had no major qualms against what they were representing. That was, until Nikki said that if Jill was wearing a dress she had to wear a suit so that it would look more tailored and correct. Jill tried to fight this, but quickly gave up. Yet again, the idea that one of them is the "top" and the other "bottom." HOORAY.

Lastly, the character Tracey gets little to no air time. Virtually the only time you see her on the show is when she's showering, changing clothes, or in a swim suit. So basically, she's the filler eye candy of this show.

Now lets move on to racial representation. I was actually quite pleased to see at least two (potentially three), latina women in this cast. While they didn't go into really any depth as to how living as a woman of color impacted their experience with their sexuality, it was better than nothing. There were however absolutely NO persons presented through the show that were of any other racial profile, it was strictly white and latina. Let's think about this for a second..... This is "real" LA right? So is there not a very diverse population of people? Is it really that difficult to find women that truly reflect this diversity?

Then class.... All of these women are of the high class, no questions about it. They all have money to spend and have fancy apartments and go to fancy clubs. What about lesbians in LA who are middle or working class? You can't tell me they don't exist, because I know they do. You can't call a show the real thing if it doesn't actually represent all aspects of what make it real.

Overall I give this show a major two thumbs down. You can tell the show was produced by a man, for men. Not a person producing a show for women who love women. I think this takes a huge step back for our community in further pushing propaganda that queers are promiscuous and can't hold down steady, equal relationships.

Not only that, but it saddens me to think that queer identified folks that don't have a large population of like-minded individuals to congregate with, especially the youngsters coming out and finding themselves, are watching this show to find some sense of community. This classist, sexist, "perfect" body depiction of what it means to be a lesbian is only going to lead to thought of not being true enough lesbians because they don't embody all of these qualities. To make a show for real women who love women, you have to show it how it really is, which isn't solely white, upper class, skinny women who fit into dichotomous relationships.

Until next time,

Rae