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For
some lesbians, watching the first season of The
L Word felt a little like Jane Goodall observing chimpanzees
in the wild: we saw similarities between us and the characters
on the show, sure, but we definitely weren’t the same
species. Not all of us are as thin, as idle, as lipstick as
these characters; these women don’t accurately reflect
the spectrum of lesbianism. Where are the true butches, for
example? Where are the bois? Smart critiques have been made
calling for the show to be more visually inclusive, more literally
representative of lesbians. And this is understandable—The
L Word is, after all, one of the few all-female ensemble
casts and the first lesbian series on television. There’s
a lot at stake.
Yet,
while The L Word visually represents only a single
slice of the lesbian population, it doesn’t damage lesbian
visibility in the way those who criticize the show imply. The
characters on the show aren’t meant to be literal embodiments
of all lesbians, but caricatures of lesbian stereotypes, playful
exaggerations of lesbian extremes: Bette (Jennifer Beals) is
the type-A breadwinner; Tina (Laurel Holloman), the fertile
housewife; Shane (Katherine Moennig), the sensitive stud; Dana
(Erin Daniels), the dyke tennis player; Alice (Leisha Hailey),
the quirky bisexual; Ivan (Kelly Lynch), the gentlemanly gender-bender.
These
essentializing exaggerations—these distillations of each
woman down to one overriding, campy trait—make it nearly
impossible to read these characters literally. Instead of a
direct representation of lesbians, The L Word loosens
up the ideas of what is “lesbian,” and plays with
dyke stereotypes to create a positive niche in primetime television
that’s more inclusive than not. In fact, by using camp—the
idea of highly stylized representations, of over-the-top humor,
of fabulousness—The L Word creates an effective
representation of “lesbian” for queer and non-queer
viewers alike. Camp is used on The L Word throughout
the season in various situations, but also in three major tropes,
which I identify as the Lesbian Look, Dyke Drama, and the Connie
Conspiracy. Because of the campiness of the show, The L
Word can be seen as a positive move toward lesbian visibility.
Daily
Camp
Camp
is everywhere in the first season of The L Word. Consider
the most literal examples of camp in the karaoke performance
of Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” in Kit’s
video shoot with Snoop Dogg’s character “Slim Daddy,”
in the drag king show at the Planet. These scenes are key in
considering the series as a playful interpretation of real life.
Likewise, the writers use common lesbian tropes to reflect and
speak to real lesbians.
Take
Dana’s relationship with her cat, Mr. Piddles: the stereotype
is that lesbians are exceedingly bonded with their pets (of
which they often have many). When Mr. Piddles dies, the
L Word writers play this up by having Dana organize a funeral
and bury him in a mahogany kitty-coffin. Not only is this a
clever way to further Dana’s character, but a twisted
representation of a classic lesbian stereotype.
Or
consider the way The L Word plays with the straight
male fantasy of having sex with lesbians: Jenny (Mia Kirshner)
describes seeing Shane and another girl have sex during foreplay;
Slim Daddy (Snoop Dogg) wonders out loud how hot Candace (Ion
Overman) and Bette would be together; Bette and Tina bring a
stranger home, trying to impregnate Tina. The show uses these
tropes and others—prison sex (Bette and Candace), lesbian
rape (Bette and Tina and, more complexly, Alice and Lisa)—to
carve out a viable visibility for a lesbian audiences.
In
addition to camping up these classic tropes, L Word
writers use campy terms familiar to lesbian audiences like “gay-dar,”
“stud,” “stone,” “Lesbian Bed
Death,” and others. Harrison (Landy Cannon), Dana’s
beard for tennis-related events, puts a new twist on the stale
joke. He says, “It used to be, ‘What do lesbians
bring on a second date?’ A moving van. Now it’s
‘What do lesbians bring on a second date?’ A turkey
baster.”
And
Bette, in uncharacteristic silliness, delivers a classic, equally
familiar line during a conversation with Peggy Peabody (Holland
Taylor):
