Disclaimer: having access only to terrestrial channels, I haven't actually seen this - merely read about it, and stood in awe of the massive posters on the Underground (which, with Jennifer 'Dancing Welder' Beals's pouting loveliness, are almost enough to make me go 'hur-hur-hur, can I watch?') It seems to be being touted as a lesbian version of Sex in the City, that city being Los Angeles.
The thing that'd been irritating me slightly was the breathless, gushy 'this'll overturn all your lesbian stereotypes' hyperbole. From what I've seen so far, this is only likely if your stereotypes are based solely on Huffty from The Word. If your concept of lesbianism derives more from straight male girl-on-girl fantasy - all glossy lips, big hair and lingerie - you're unlikely to reel too crazily with the shock of it all.
In this week's Guardian Guide, Stephanie Theobald points this out:
... I'm throwing an L Word party, although it isn't like the TV version. Everything is glamorous in The L Word, where the gal pals congregate in a bar similar to Central Perk in Friends, and everyone is cute and shiny and drinks skinny lattes and has plenty of money and is not a psychopath, and I want to know where this place is. I tell her that most lesbian gatherings involve women in advanced stages of alcohol poisoning with loo-brush hairdos and flat shoes slipping around on soggy cigarette butts in bars where they think you're trying to be posh if you ask for ice in your drink.
"Well ..." Beals hesitates. "I guess it does take place in LA ..."
Theobald does, however, make a convincing case for this being a necessary evil:
Pushing lesbianism to the mainstream is all about Trojan horses, ie strategy. Dress up lesbianism in Victorian boots and corsets (see Tipping The Velvet) and you get primetime space on the BBC. Make the chicks in The L Word shave their legs and have some sensitive men hanging around and you can get yourself a second series. Once your horse has slipped through the paddock doors of "the men upstairs", ie the TV bods who decide what constitutes contemporary culture, then you can ask why non-airbrushed chicks are unacceptable - and, naturally, that's not only a lesbian issue.
What do y'all think? Anyone seen it? |
