“You can’t expect realism out of a program that has a straight man walk out in the middle of a three-way with two lesbians,” says Constance Reeder, a critic of The L Word. The show was the first of its kind, focusing on lesbian women and their lives in Los Angeles full of sex, love, friendship, and lots of drama…but is it a realistic portrayal of lesbianism and what does it mean for the identifying community?
The show was praised during the early years of its release as it provided representation that queer women had been deprived of previously. However, as the media has become more inclusive, the show has gained some traction. In this paper, I will delve into the drawbacks of the series and explain their negative effects on the lesbian and queer community, while shedding light on what the series did right and how the community gained from such aspects. The series’ reliance on negative stereotypes for humor and sex for entertainment, paired with a cast that lacks inclusion, reinforces homophobic and invalidating beliefs about lesbians and gender norms, discourages positive identity building in queer adolescents, and actively appeals to the fetishization of lesbians.
A Brief History of Lesbians on TV
Only seven years before The L Word launched, the first lead lesbian character came to the screen on the show Ellen in 1997. In the show’s fourth season and two weeks after Ellen Degeneres- who played Ellen Morgan- came out in real life, the lead character came out as a lesbian. With over 40 million views, the episode won a Peabody award and two Emmys, but also a ton of backlash; heavy criticism, protests, and boycotts lead to the addition of a parental advisory warning at the beginning of each following episode. Airing for one more season, the show ultimately failed and Ellen Degeneres, who played the character, feared her career would never recover as she said in an interview with Entertainment Tonight.
Due to the adverse reactions to and collapse of Ellen, there was not another lesbian on TV for almost three years- not even a brief kiss was shown between two women. In 1999 the lesbian dry spell ended with Neve Campbell’s character on Party of Five, who gets into a relationship with an older woman after leaving her abusive boyfriend. Over the next few years, there was sporadic lesbian representation on shows like The Wire, Friends, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Showtime’s The L Word created history.
Symbolic Annihilation
In the Sex & Sexuality Scientific Journal, Bradley Bond introduces the concept of symbolic annihilation. In simple terms “ if audiences do not see LGB individuals in the media, then heavy media consumers are likely to think that LGB individuals must not serve any purpose in society” (Bond). Prior to 2004, the media that existed is said to have been symbolically annihilating the lesbian and queer community through lack of visibility.
A New Outlet for Lesbian Representation
In 2004, lesbian representation in the media changed forever with the release of Showtime's, The L Word. Ilene Chaiken is the writer and producer of the show and is a lesbian herself (IMDb). The series follows the lives of a Los Angeles based friend group, consisting primarily of lesbians with a few bisexual or transgender characters. Whereas many of the previous sapphic moments on television were brief, diluted, or censored, Chaiken’s show is far from that. Within minutes of the pilot episode, a few of the women are seen skinny dipping, and
