Class on "The L Word"

Bette, formerly the wealthiest character on the show, has lost her job and is breaking down at the idea of being supported by her partner, Tina, whom she used to support financially. And newcomer Moira, a working-class computer technician from Skokie, Illinois, has carted with her the baggage of a different class, different culture and different gender expression—a bundle that does not meld well with the posh girls in Los Angeles.

Bette’s class anxiety can best be seen in her struggle with being unemployed after being accustomed to being her family’s primary breadwinner. Though she is no longer a high-powered museum director, she finds it difficult, in Season 3, to accept the idea that it is necessary to work in order to gain enough income to support a growing family.

When her partner, Tina, offers to take a job with former lover Helena Peabody’s new movie studio, Bette accuses Tina of suffering from a “petit bourgeois” ideology.

The term “petit bourgeois” refers to the lower middle class of tradespersons and small business owners who must work for a living. In Marxist analysis, the petit bourgeois are distinct from the “haute bourgeoisie” or capitalist class, who own the means of production and do not need to sell their labor. Bette’s distinctly classist statement reveals that she wishes to separate herself from the notion of having to work for a living; something that is not surprising given her background and upbringing.

It also reveals, however, that Bette is something of a hypocrite, given her supposed support of feminist art and activism.

While Bette struggles with her own class issues (which are, of course, inextricably tied to race—as her relationship with her sister Kit shows), the rest of the characters in Season 3 are being forced to struggle with class through the character of Moira. Introduced at the beginning of the season as a computer technician who dresses in stereotypically “butch” clothing (flannel shirts and men’s jeans, for example), Moira’s class background is framed in stark contrast to the L Word ladies’ upper-class aspirations in episode 3.3, when she joins them at a high-end restaurant for a dinner to welcome Jenny back home.

The other characters are clearly uncomfortable with Moira’s appearance, both the fact that she does not look like a feminine woman and that her clothing does not match the tenor of the restaurant at which they are eating. This discomfort reflects the characters’ sudden awakening to class differences as well as their second-wave feminist rejection of butch/femme identities.

In the character of Bette, class and race are intertwined; in the character of Moira, class and gender are intertwined.

The fact that The L Word is tackling issues of class is certainly praiseworthy simply because most television shows evade these issues, despite the fact that they play a pivotal role in everyday life. But The L Word’s engagement with class has so far been clumsy, particularly in its engagement with gender as it relates to class.

Butch/femme identities have historically been more significant in working-class communities than among aristocratic or upper-class lesbians, who have tended to prefer to blend in to the broader, upper-class community. But because the character of Moira is about to become situated as someone who questions her gender, the show runs the risk of conflating butch identity with transgender identity, and pushing the complicated intersection of gender and class under the rug as Moira begins to transition from female to male.

But although the third season of The L Word may not be handling these problematic storylines with as much grace as it could, what it has shown us is quite significant. Despite the earlier idealism of the show, with its classless friendships and apparent multicultural harmony, The L Word is finally admitting that sharing common identities as lesbians does not necessarily make for a rainbow world.

And simply acknowledging that class and race and gender exist is a huge step forward in portraying the lesbian community--or indeed, any American community--with some degree of reality.