Same Sex, Similar Plotlines, I bring you The L and the City
Is The L Word the thinking girl’s Sex and the City?
Like many twenty-something city-dwelling females, I come with something of a license to be excited and comforted by Sex and the City re-runs, boxsets and of course last year’s movie. Yet I may be contented to while away 45 minutes with Fiver on in the background, but my enjoyment of the show is hampered, and not just by my significant other’s admission that a particularly annoying ex-girlfriend of his forced him to sit through the entire six seasons in one emasculating marathon, no. It is because for the most part, I prefer The L Word.
- Diversity levels have soared as The L Word has progressed, yet gorgeousness has maintained its status quo
The L Word first aired in January 2004, accompanied by titillating promotional material including the cheeky tagline “Same Sex, Different City”. It seems as if the show immediately knew that its default demographic was those women who “like to watch”. And not just gay women. Members of the cast, whether lesbian or straight (and for some it is deliciously ambiguous) speak forthrightly about their pride in representing a minority. And forgetting for a moment Samuel Chambers’ protests of “heteronormativity”, I myself have met many gay women who claim to be “guilty” fans of The L Word, perhaps the same guilt I felt in my ticket queue-joining conformity to gawp at SJP’s shoes.
There are several similarities between the two shows. Firstly, they each follow a six season format, supplying the audience with enough time not just to befriend these people but also to experience them change and grow a little, perhaps even undergo major life alterations. Both shows present us with stock characters; recognisable personality types.
For example, SaTC has its resident bed-hopper with no strings attached, PR guru Samantha (something of a gay icon herself), while The L Word’s own lothario is the androgynous and mysterious hairdresser Shane. Samantha may exude life-affirming sexuality and healthy modern selfishness, yet Shane is a different beast – recoiling from affection, damaged, self-destructive and secretly miserable.
Quirky clothes horse and journalist Carrie is echoed in token bisexual Alice, also a journalist, also creative with fashion, also harbouring the same neuroses and romantic longings as her counterpart. While Carrie’s career broadens into hardback publication of her columns, Alice begins by writing for LA Magazine and furthers her career as a radio DJ, website developer (that began as a “napkin”) , podcaster and later a panelist on a womens’ talkshow. The two share many personality similarities – both are fiercely independent, live alone, have wide circles of friends and respond to relationship breakdowns particularly badly.
Workaholicism in the two shows is personified by the characters of Miranda Hobbes and Bette Porter. The two are highly successful and affluent careerwomen, Miranda as a lawyer and Bette as curator of the California Arts Center then the Art Dean of USC. There is however a distinct difference between these women. Bette opens the first series with the intention of starting a family with life-partner Tina, while Miranda has motherhood thrust upon her. Both processes bring out a softer and more nurturing side in such seemingly unmaternal post-feminist types, and the trials and tribulations of the emotional rollercoaster known as parenting make for particularly entertaining and harrowing plot developments in terms of such blatant juxtaposition.
As well as sharing some character types, the subject matter also repeats itself in certain areas. The issue of breast cancer, obviously a topical issue in any group of strong, empowered women, is raised . Both used an interesting shock tactic to introduce the disease – it claimed two particularly exuberant, life-affirming characters; fun-loving “life’s-too-short” Samantha and sculpted athletic pro tennis player Dana Fairbanks. Generally for me, The L Word wins out in terms of its gripping plotlines and more… stylistic sex scenes, but here SaTC had the edge. An extremely positive story with a message of hope was presented – early detection saves lives. Yes, Dana confirmed that her lump had “been there forever” but still, the harrowing tale of an energetic young woman on the cusp of stardom struck down in her prime by The C Word (and the all-too late rekindling of her friendship and possibly even romance with Alice) left a bad taste in viewers’ mouths.
And many viewers believe that from Season 3′s culmination, The L Word went downhill. While SaTC gave its fans exactly what they wanted and ended happily – Samatha’s cancer recovery and submission to monogamy, Charlotte finally becoming a mother and supercouples Carrie and Big/Miranda and Steve remaining solid – its lesbian counterpart began to bewilder and isolate watchers, challenging and confusing them more with every episode and seemingly consciously giving the audience the opposite of its desires.
Aside from tearing asunder terminal on-off couple Bette and Tina once more (except this time following Tina’s newly found heterosexual desires and causing even more irritation), the break-up of Shane and Carmen, the couple that launched a thousand YouTube tribute videos, was something fans found very hard to swallow. Carmen was Shane’s Smith, the only person she’d ever really wanted to change for, and a fun-loving alternative to her status-obsessed Richard equivalent (Cherie Jaffe).
Similarly, one could almost hear the groans of disbelief resonate in sitting rooms everywhere when self-indulgent malcontent Jennifer Schecter finally got her sought-after publishing deal after two seasons of immature scrawling. Character development aside, Jenny morphed from a fragile, emotionally wrought child into a beastly egomaniac. While her narcissism provided some comic relief, hearing a woman who only a year or so prior had been engaged to a vanilla swim coach criticise another character for crawling to the safety of white heterosexuality was more than nauseating.
But perhaps the most unforgiveable crime of all was the final season’s coupling of Jenny and Shane. Writers at both the Kissing Fingertips and After Ellen websites had previously praised the series for the longstanding platonic friendship of the show’s most mentally volatile subjects, both of whom seemed far calmer around one another than the rest of the cast, praying that it would “stay that way”. It did not. To drive along the Season 6 whodunnit premise, a sexual connection was forged between Shane and Jenny, creating a claustrophobic scenario where the former lothario feels like a prisoner of her best friend, hence giving her a motive for murder.
With the storylines feeling somewhat forced for the purposes of every cast member stating the words, “I hate Jenny!” or “I’m gonna kill Schecter!” there were moments where the ensemble simply didn’t feel like the characters Season One introduced us to. Alpha-female Bette was contemplating life as a stay-at-home Mum, Alice’s bisexuality had disappeared into oblivion with Dana, Dana’s cat, Carmen, Papi, Ivan, Jenny’s self-mutilation, Shane’s acceptance of monogamy, Tina’s Season One and Two charity job and countless other significant plot developments, and many other factors led to the programme looking like an entirely different one to that which graced Showtime back in 2004.
As a result, announcements that L Word creator Ilene Chaiken is contemplating a film version (evidently on the back of the success of the Sex and the City adaptation) have been met with skepticism. Diane Shipley of The Guardian stated that, “while Sex and the City fans flocked to cinemas out of loyalty to a programme they still had fond feelings for, the last episodes of The L Word were so awful that former fans are unlikely to go back for more.”
Perhaps the attitudes of L Word viewers are a dire warning for writers to listen to their audience. They complained about the increased use of the band Betty (particularly the theme tune) and the growing prominence of its member Elizabeth Ziff, they believed Cybill Shepherd to be the least convincing lesbian ever, Dana was one of their favourite characters and Jenny’s writing-based reveries were reviled. However, maybe The L Word, whether intentional or otherwise, is living proof that a show people love to hate can be as popular as a show people love.
