Tag Archives: The L Word

Lost Girl Season 5 Will Be Its Last, Cast and Crew Announces

As it stands, the figures for LGBTQ characters in our media are improving. Across shows like Pretty Little Liars and The Fosters, we can see queer, female characters of various races whilst shows like Elementary and Orange is the New Black both feature trans women of colour in minor and recurring roles (respectively). This a long way away from The L Word’s insistence on mostly white faces and occasional transphobia while even Glee has gotten it wrong with its gay, male creator managing to offend queer ladies rather than understand queer female identities.

It’s also a 180 degree turn from ‘sweeps bisexuals’ in which characters (usually female) got same gender lovers for one episode before the love interests were sacrilegiously thrown aside and never mentioned again, all for the sake of slightly boosted ratings. Lost Girl never did that though, its protagonist Bo being a bold, bisexual beacon for us all to turn to. But now, as we gear up to its fifth season Lost Girl’s upcoming run of episodes will be its last.

While the announcement of Lost Girl’s end has come as a shock for its many fans, for those who have been watching the Canada-made series since its introduction in 2010, it’s not a completely bad thing either.

In the past four series Lost Girl has prided itself on unbridled sexuality, queer identity and sheer ass-kicking power from both the guys and the girls. Sexualities in the show aren’t labelled – Bo is seen as bisexual as she feeds off of sexual energy to heal herself and she takes both male and female lovers, most notably the human doctor, Dr. Lauren Lewis and shape-shifting wolf, Dyson, but neither the character nor the show ever says ‘gay’ or ‘bisexual’ to describe themselves or anyone else.

It’s that in part that’s made it such a hit but admittedly, even with the popular Bo/Dyson/Lauren love triangle at its core and each episode weaving a tale of supernatural intrigue, the love for Lost Girl has waned a little.

Season 1 was a popular introduction to the somewhat Buffy-esque show and it aired in 13 episodes, but in Season 2 there were 22 episodes and by Season 3 of Lost Girl came around, the show had lost a showrunner (series creator Michelle Lovretta) and the long season seen previously had seen Lost Girl lose a bit of its sheen. Emily Andras was showrunner for Season 3 and 4 but for many fans the plot seemed to grate or bore depending on their attention span. So it’s good that Season 5 will be the end then and it too has another new showrunner, with Andras leaving recently. When it airs the first of its final episodes this December we’ll be able to give a good send off to an iconic piece of queer media.

Watch New L Word Trailer – L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin

This Friday night, L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin premieres on Showtime, and here is a first look at what to expect from the 90 minute documentary from Ilene Chaiken and Magical Elves, who also produced The Real L Word.

This new documentary journeys deep into Bible Belt towns like Laurel, Gulfport and Hattiesburg to tell the stories of a dozen women, including a newly out-and-proud former pastor banished from her church, but who later regains her self-esteem by launching a program to support her local LGBTQ community. A white mother willing to accept her daughter’s black lover, if only she were a man. A couple grapples with both infertility and female-to-male gender transitioning. And a former life-long lesbian struggles to “pray the gay away,” and hopes to do the same for her openly gay son.

Showtime’s new ‘L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin’ out August 8

Earlier this year we learned that L Word creator Ilene Chaiken was working on a new 90-minute documentary that follows the lives of lesbians in Mississippi – L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin

The new documentary, will look at what it is life like for lesbians living outside more progressive metropolitan areas in America. Where they often endure hardships, bigotry, bullying, sexism and racism while trying.

The show journeys deep into Bible Belt towns like Laurel, Gulfport and Hattiesburg to tell the stories of a dozen such women, including a newly out-and-proud former pastor banished from her church, but who later regains her self-esteem by launching a program to support her local LGBTQ community. A white mother would accept her daughter’s black lover, if only she were a man. A couple grapples with both infertility and female-to-male gender transitioning. And a former life-long lesbian struggles to “pray the gay away,” and hopes to do the same for her openly gay son.

The new documentary Sin is a continuation of Chaiken’s exploration of modern-day lesbian life. Her groundbreaking drama series ‘The L Word’ ran for 6 seasons on Showtime, which was then followed by 3 seasons of reality show ‘The Real L Word’ that followed a similar group of lesbians at work and at play in LA and NY.

The L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin premieres on August 8. Take a closer look at the kinds of things will happen.

Save the Date – New Mississippi L Word Documentry due August

The Showtime announced Wednesday that it will debut L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin, a documentary from series creator Ilene Chaiken, in August. The L Word Mississippi will be a 90-minute documentary that unites Chaiken with Real L Word executive producers Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz’s Magical Elves.

Directed by Emmy nominee Lauren Lazin, the new show will explore the daily struggles of a group of Southern lesbians. Chaiken and the Elves will visit Bible Belt towns like Laurel, Gulfport and Hattiesburg to tell the stories of a dozen women, including a newly out-and-proud former pastor banished from her church who later regains her self-esteem by launching a program to support her local LGBTQ community; a white mother who would accept her daughter’s black lover, if only she were a man; a couple who grapples with both infertility and female-to-male gender transitioning; and a former life-long lesbian who struggles to “pray the gay away” and hopes to do the same for her openly gay son.

After The Real L Word was canceled last year, Showtime said they weren’t completely done with the L Word brand and that, instead, they’d put together a documentary about identifying as lesbian in a small town community.

“I’ve been talking a lot with Dan, Jane and Ilene about exploring L Word culture – lesbian culture in places not New York, L.A. – where the subculture is not so defined and it’s not so easy. I think we’re likely to make a documentary that will feel like a Real L Word documentary,”

David Nevins, Showtime Entertainment President

L Word Mississippi will premiere Aug. 8 at 9 p.m. on Showtime. The news comes a day after Showtime announced it would air the entire series runs of Queer as Folk and The L Word to celebrate Gay Pride Month in June. Chaiken, meanwhile, will segue from showrunning ABC’s The Black Box to Fox’s hip-hop drama Empire.

From a press release:

What is life like for lesbians living outside more progressive metropolitan areas in America today where gay women endure hardships, bigotry, bullying, sexism and racism while trying to live among their predominantly straight neighbors? Chaiken and the Elves journey deep into Bible Belt towns like Laurel, Gulfport and Hattiesburg to tell the stories of a dozen such women, including a newly out-and-proud former pastor banished from her church, but who later regains her self-esteem by launching a program to support her local LGBTQ community. A white mother would accept her daughter’s black lover, if only she were a man. A couple grapples with both infertility and female-to-male gender transitioning. And a former life-long lesbian struggles to “pray the gay away,” and hopes to do the same for her openly gay son.

…Against the backdrop of the burgeoning gender and marriage equality debate, L WORD MISSISSIPPI: HATE THE SIN spotlights those loving, living, working, parenting and forcing change from within places where entrenched, conservative values have resisted the progress the LGBTQ community has worked hard to achieve elsewhere.

Megan Ellison – The Producder Behind Garbo / Dietrich TV Project

Megan Ellison, the openly bisexual producer of American Hustle and Her, has started making a TV serial focusing on the lives of two female icons of vintage Hollywood: Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.

The project explores the relationship between the frank and forthright Dietrich and the quieter, more reflective Garbo. Some have speculated that the two women may have had a love affair in real life, but it isn’t clear whether this new biopic will touch on that. However, it will examine the passionate dalliances both startlets had with various men and women during the Golden Age of American cinema.

LGBT film lovers are excited by the prospect of Angela Robinson (The L Word, D.E.B.S., True Blood) and Alex Kondracke (The Hug, The L Word) collaborating to write the serial. They are expected to bring their trademark sensitivity and style to this highly-anticipated project.

This week Megan Ellison was named by OUT as one of the most powerful LGBT people in the United States. It is rumoured that when she turned 25 her super-rich father Larry gifted her $2 billion. But rather than spend it selfishly she decided to invest it in a string of critically-acclaimed and Oscar-nominated hits. Ellison was the first woman to be nominated for two Best Picture Oscars in one year.

But rather than continue to produce mainstream commercial movies, Ellison has decided to take a risk and greenlight a project with overt LGBT themes and concerns. She has previously said that LGBT women like her have a duty to support the kinds of films that simply wouldn’t get made in Hollywood, and now she is making good on that pledge.

The question that’s now on everybody’s lips is which actresses will be cast in the roles of the legendary Garbo and Dietrich?

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Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo TV Series to Focus on the Golden Age of Hollywood

By now we’re no stranger to rumours of who does and doesn’t have one foot in the closet. However, few of us will be able to think back to the so-called ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’ between the 1920s and the 1960s, in which films were still in slightly foggy black and white; only just able to be shown with both picture and sound. Yet, out queer actors and movie professionals were basically unheard of.

It didn’t stop people from gossiping behind closed doors (very much in secret for fear that it would be classed as slander). Despite this, two ladies who set tongues wagging were Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo; two actresses who were incredibly popular and incredibly fond of embracing masculinity by regularly looking dapper in suits.

Their popularity has transcends the 20th Century, and so have the rumours about their sexuality. There have been years of gossip regarding the former stars of Hollywood and this just one reason why their lives have just been announced as the centre of a scripted TV drama.

Set to be developed by Annapurna Pictures, the film and finance company behind Hollywood hits such as Zero Dark Thirty and American Hustle, the Dietrich and Garbo based production is being headed up by Angela Robinson and Alex Kondracke. Robinson’s projects include True Blood, D.E.B.S and the iconic queer film But I’m a Cheerleader while Kondracke is known for her work as a writer and producer on The L Word, a show only rivalled in terms of queer content by Queer as Folk.

How this plays out on the screen (as in, if their involvement does actually result in the show including any queer characters) is yet to be seen as the show doesn’t yet have any names attached to the acting roles.

Feel free to sound off on actors you’d like to see cast and story lines you’d like to see covered in the comments below.
Via The Hollywood Reporter.

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How TV Culture and Lesbian Visibility Have Changed After The L Word

In short, The L Word wasn’t perfect. In retrospect, the Ilene Chaiken created show was an amalgamated mess of tropes (a bisexual suddenly ‘choosing a side’), problematic story lines (the entirety of Max’s transition story) and faces that were, for the most part, too femme, too white and too conventionally attractive to be a direct reflection of the viewers that were watching it.

When we look back on it now it’s easy to say that The L Word is flawed – it had its problems (with every episode of season 6 being a problem in itself) – but at the time it was the single television program focused around gay lives and gay issues, with other shows either choosing not to address them or sidelining them in favour of something which they deemed more ‘straight viewer friendly’. Always the subplot, never the focus. The L Word was also a stepping stone for the gay characters that we see today too and that is perhaps one of the biggest things that the seminal show has done for queer women.

For one, The L Word is a pillar and bastion of hope for the lives that many young queer women wish they could lead. Granted, not everyone wants to be cheated on by their partner when they’re some months pregnant, nor do they want to be shunned by their homophobic son, nor do they want to lose their male fiancée by having a secret affair with a female barista (or maybe they do, there’s no judgement from me) but in general, the myriad of relationships, the generally quite welcoming tone and the many out and proud women that made up Alice, Bette, Tina and Shane’s friendship circle is something that many ladies aspire to – minus the drama, of course. In fact, the show is for many people the thing that eases them into becoming accepting of themselves, allowing them to be more confident because of the wide, gay world that can be on offer to them if they come out and not just by discussing their female love interests over coffee in a tight night friendship group.

Showtime’s airing of the show was very much one of support. It was a brave decision, perhaps a raunchy one if you want to categorise the depiction of sex and relationships in the show but it wasn’t one that was taken as though The L Word was anything but their flagship program. The L Word was popular and successful and it’s one that saw 17 cast members and behind the scenes producers and writers (including Erin Daniels who played Dana, Rachel Shelley who played Helena and Sarah Shahi who played Carmen) to agree in the April edition of DIVA Magazine that they would love to be part of an L Word movie or maybe a seventh series of the show. The way in which Showtime pioneered The L Word was the best example of a network taking gay culture in its stride, showing that more diverse casts of characters are supported by a majority of straight and queer viewers alike and it’s thankfully something that many other television networks have taken on too.

Admittedly, despite The L Word’s efforts, TV representation of queer women is still stuck in one place – femme. Almost every instance of recent presentation of queer ladies falls into the category, just look at Pretty Little Liars’ Emily Fields and the love interests she’s had over the course of 4 seasons; Emily herself may be a lesbian with a penchant for biker boots and hoodies but at the end of the day her formal attire of choice is still a dress and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that! It’s even admirable that Paige McCullers (Emily’s current girlfriend) likes to wear tuxedos and tanks and probably wouldn’t be caught dead in anything sleeveless or above the knee (unless shorts or swimsuits count) but when almost all of TVs regular queer ladies, Brittany and Santana on Glee, Bo and Lauren on Lost Girl the ladies of the pirate-themed drama Black Sails just to name a few, all have hair that falls well below their shoulders and the only example of a queer, butch woman is Orange is the New Black’s Big Boo, questions have to be asked why the full spectrum of queer presentation isn’t at least a bit more supported because God knows the queer world would like to see a true reflection of itself on TV screens.

That being said, many of The L Word’s wrongs are being righted by the current generation of television shows, particularly in terms of queer women of colour. Papi and her magic circles were laughable, not for her hilarious quips but because her Hispanic background was treated in the most stereotypical of ways, so too was Carmen’s in the way in which the dynamics of her disapproving family worked. In one of the most egregious cases of how The L Word messed up, Alice feeling like the only white face amongst black soldier Tasha’s friend group was actually used as a plot point. However with Lost Girl, Glee, Orange is the New Black, Pretty Little Liars and so on, non-white queer identifying faces are faring better than they ever were before – even if the shows they’re on (I’m mostly talking about Glee here) don’t always get it right.

Not only this but together, the sea of non-straight, fictional faces is making a large splash in the grander scheme of things with actual science supporting the fact that by knowing a gay person you are twice as likely to support gay rights. Even better is the fact that ‘knowing a gay person’ sometimes just means ‘seeing a gay character on TV’.

The fact of the matter is that the more queer characters on TV, the more support for the rights of queer people there is because people will have seen the struggles of queer people first hand – even if they are dramatised for a television storyline. So while The L Word may not have been the sturdiest pillar to build queer visibility on, it was one of the first and most important building blocks and for that many of us are eternally grateful.