17 April 2020
In the early 2000’s, queer identities were still scarcely represented in a positive way in traditional broadcast television. When The L-Word first “came out” on 18 January 2004 on Showtime as the “first ever lesbian-themed serial drama”, it represented a major breakthrough for lesbian visibility. The show gained wide popularity, was renewed directly after the broadcast of the pilot episode, and was met with rapid critical acclaim. The series has since attained a cult status in the queer community, as it represents a milestone in making the minority visible on the small screen on a national scale. Simultaneously, The L Word also played to a larger (heterosexual, female) audience, aesthetically stepping into the shoes of cinematic sitcoms such as Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. Joining the ranks Quality TV programmes which were newly emerging at the time, The L-Word appeared as a queer novelty. From today's perspective, however, the show’s representation of lesbian identity can be analyzed more critically. This essay will demonstrate how The L-Word uses different cinematic and narrative strategies in order to appeal to a fragmented audience; it will be argued that although it does promote lesbian visibility, it simultaneously reinforces heteronormative structures through its hybrid nature. This will be done by comparing the gender and relationship constructions present in the show with those featuring in Sex and the City.
The television drama The L-Word aired for six seasons from 2004 to 2009 on Showtime, gaining “critical acclaim and instant popularity” (Glock). The show revolves around the lives of a group of queer friends in West Hollywood, California. The series’ first season, consisting of 13 episodes of 50 minutes each, establishes the main characters and their relationships. The plot opens with Jenny Schecter as she moves in with her boyfriend Tim and gets acquainted with her new neighbours Bette Porter and Tina Kennard and their friends Alice Pieszecki, Shane McCutcheon and Dana Fairbanks. In the course of the first season, Jenny is introduced into the circle of friends and realises her sexual attraction to women, while Bette and Tina are looking for a sperm donor for their planned parenthood. In the meantime, the frequent sexual adventures of Shane are opposed to Dana’s struggles as a closeted tennis star and Alice's bisexual endeavours of finding a lasting and loving relationship. Beginning with the pilot episode, the show employs flexi-narratives and places its focus on the sexual encounters and the tensions in the relationships of certain characters, with the former constituting the episodic story arcs and the latter ensuring the show’s seriality (Nelson 82). Furthermore, The L-Word follows cinematic television aesthetics that were firstly introduced by Quality TV shows, such as HBO’s Sex and the City, making use of a single camera setup and digital movie cameras that imitate the aesthetics of 35mm film motion picture (Mills 40). This aesthetic and narrative correlation is also visible in the shows marketing “Same Sex. Different City” (Moore 121) and thus targets a broader (straight and affluent) as well as a queer audience. This is achieved by the way in which lesbian sexuality is focalised in the show: the viewer can either identify themselves with one of the lesbian characters on screen or assume a voyeuristic gaze onto the highly sexualised “girl-on-girl action” (Glock).
In this way, The L-Word integrates homo- as well as heterosexual perspectives into the programming of the show, thus maximising its potential audience. In the pilot episode, for instance, the (heterosexual) viewer follows Jenny as she is peeping through her garden fence in order to see Shane and another woman having sex in the neighbours’ swimming pool. In this scene, the camera moves “purposefully from subjective to objective points of view” (Moore 119), showing Jenny’s (straight) voyeuristic gaze as well as using birds-eye and crane shots to appeal to a queer viewer “in the know” (121). Subsequently, Jenny reports what she has seen to Tim and, as he is aroused by Jenny’s narration, they “re-enact” the sexual activities. It is striking to what extent lesbian sex is depicted in an “exhibitionistic and heterocentric” way, using voyeuristic tropes of heterosexual male porn, in contrast to the “intimate close-ups and narrative complexity” of the show’s representation of heterosexual sex (122).In this way, one can see how lesbian visibility in The L-Word does not automatically grant and represent the queer community as a part of normative society, but plays to heterosexual fantasy through the spectacularization of homosexual identity and intimacy (Dove-Viebahn 76).
Furthermore, when looking at Bette and Tina’s relationship and their issues, one can see that the lesbian couple and their interaction is structured in a heteronormative way. Throughout the series, the lesbian relationship mirrors the gender constructs known from Carrie Bradshaw's on-off relationship with mysterious Mister Big in Sex and the City. This becomes clear as Bette’s characteristics and actions, which are coded as “male” in traditional (Hollywood) productions, are constantly emphasised and cause conflict with Tina’s overly feminine excitement for the impending pregnancy. For instance, as the couple is debating their decision on the sperm donor, the dominant Bette appears inattentive and impatient as she is distracted by a work call, while Tina is generally represented as submissive, having naturally given up her profession to be a stay-at-home (expecting) mother. When the couple has troubles in their relationship, these are always addressed first by Tina, while Bette appears emotionally distant and rational. Through this, the structure of the queer relationship is constructed analog to traditional (heterosexual) couples, as represented, for instance, in Sex and the City. It thus suggests that all romantic relations are based on the combination of the male and female gender performance. Therefore, the couple’s dynamic, imbued with stereotypical representations of heterosexual relationships, does not account for alternate modes of interaction common in queer culture. In this way, the representation of Bette and Tina’s lesbian relationship appeals visually to a queer audience, yet reaffirms the centrality of heterosexuality through the couple’s interactions, and thus remains relatable to a straight audience as well.
This can be also seen in other narrative aspects of the show, for example in the fact that many stereotypical practices of queer culture that are thematised by the characters are explained or contextualised for the benefit of the unknowledgeable straight viewer (123). For instance, as Alice and Dana are sitting at the bar of their usual nightclub, Alice complains: “it's the same faces night after night, week after week” (The L-word: Let’s Do It), in which the knowledgeable (queer) viewer immediately recognises the reference to stereotypically small and socially very intertwined LGBT+ communities. In the ensuing shots, Alice comments dismissively “she’s been with two of my exes” on Dana’s interest for a woman across the bar and thus makes the reference explicit for a broader audience. According to Moore, this “encourages heteroflexibility in its straight viewers” (123) and subsequently contributes to the acceptance and integration of queer culture into televisual media and society.
In conclusion, one can say that The L-Word’s viewer ratings and its recent renewal as The L-word: Generation Q (2019) and multiple Reality TV spin-offs have proven its popularity and success in representing queer identities. This analysis has shown how it still plays to a heterosexual audience through the representation of relationship dynamics as well as cinematographic means, although the plot revolves around a predominantly lesbian community. By investigating the aesthetic and narrative correlation between The L-Word and Sex and the City, the series’ somewhat problematic, double-sided message: “gay is great, it's just like straight” was uncovered. In light of this, one could further reflect if such a convoluted and stereotyped representation of lesbian relationships has implications on the perception of the position of queer culture in society as a whole.
Works Cited
Dove-Viebahn, Aviva. “Fashionably Femme: Lesbian Visibility, Style and Politics in The L-Word” Queer Popular Culture: Literature, Media, Film, and Television, by Thomas Peele, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 71- 84.
Glock, Alison. “She Likes to Watch.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Feb. 2005, www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/arts/television/she-likes-to-watch.html.
Mills, Brett. “Gerne”, The Sitcom, Edinburgh University Press,2009. pp. 24-49
Moore, Candace. “Getting Wet: The heteroflexibility of Showtime’s The L-Word”, Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts it in a Box, by Merri Lisa Johnson, I.B. Tauris & Co.Ltd, 2007. pp. 119-146.
Nelson, Robin. “Analysing TV Fiction: How to Study Television Drama.” Tele-Visions: an Introduction to Studying Television, by Glen Creeber, BFI, 2006, pp. 74–86.
“The L Word: Pilot.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 18 Jan. 2004, www.imdb.com/title/tt0623889/?ref_=ttep_ep1.
“The L Word: Let's Do It.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 25 Jan. 2004, www.imdb.com/title/tt0623867/?ref_=ttep_ep2.
