Note:
a review of how the first five episodes, including how sex is
portrayed on the series,
is now available here.
Although
we're still several months away from the premiere of
Showtime's new lesbian series, at least one question
seems to be answered: unlike almost all other lesbian characters
on television, these women are actually going to have sex on screen--a
lot of it, in fact, if Showtime's new promo is any indication.
Beginning
in April, 2003, Showtime started running a short promo
before episodes of Queer as Folk for their upcoming lesbian
drama series formerly known as Earthlings and now tentatively
titled The L Word, which
revolves around the lives and loves of a group of lesbian and
bisexual women in L.A.
The
promo shows a series of scenes of the characters flirting, hanging
out, and hooking up--from Shane (Katherine
Moennig) having sex with an unknown woman in her pool, to
long-time partners Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman)
having oral sex and a threesome, to Marina (Karina
Lombard) seducing previously-straight Jenny (Mia
Kirshner).
Strangely,
the indication from the The L Word writers at
a recent POWER UP
workshop was that the series was going to be rather tame initially,
until the show had established an audience. Based on this information,
I was expecting the characters on The L Word to have
lots of conversation and kissing onscreen but not much else--certainly
not the scenes of oral sex, threesomes, and sex in the pool that
were in the promo.
Perhaps
when compared with the volume and explicitness of the sex scenes
on Queer as Folk, the sex on The L Word is muted--but
it's still more lesbian sex than we've ever seen anywhere else
on television. That we're even going to get this much lesbian
sex on The L Word is partly due to Queer as Folk--by
pushing the envelope as far as it has, Queer as Folk has
made it much easier for shows like The L Word to show
some explicit lesbian sex scenes and still look moderate
in comparison.
In
a March interview with The Advocate, Laurel Holloman attributes
the realism of the sex scenes to director Rose Troche (who is
a lesbian), saying “the sex scenes are very powerful because
Rose always made us feel really safe.”
Of
course, there's always the danger that The L Word will
fall into the same trap as Queer as Folk
and overemphasize the sexual aspects of the characters lives
to the point of caricature--but it seems unlikely. There are too
many lesbians involved with the series behind the scenes to let
that happen, especially since the lesbian community has never
revolved as obsessively around sex as much as the gay male community
has.
although
there was one post-sex scene between Willow and Tara on Buffy
that was fairly explicit for network TV, Melanie
and Lindsay on Queer as Folk are the only other lesbians
on television that you actually see having sex
on a regular basis--but they still get minimal screen time compared
to the male characters.
If
anything, the danger is that The L Word will
go to the other extreme and unrealistically de-emphasize
sex, since anytime you have a bunch of women together on television,
the storylines tend to devolve into soap-opera-style relationship-analysis
from hell.
This
is reflected in Mia Kirshner statement in an November 2002 interview
with Curve Magazine that a lot of the sex on the show is going
to be "extremely emotional" because "it's about
power and vulnerability and loss, and a lot of it is very sad
sex." While this may be the way sex is portrayed on the series,
it is certainly not the message you get from the promo, where
the sex appears to be anything but sad.
Perhaps
this means the writers have in fact achieved a fairly good balance
between sex and emotion, friendship and love.
From
a marketing standpoint, it's not surprising that the
promo emphasized the sex scenes. Showtime knows if they want to
attract enough viewers to keep this series afloat, lesbian and
bisexual viewers are not enough; they have to tap into the straight
male audience. And there's nothing more likely to do that than
lots of lesbian sex.
So
far, the promo has only run before and after episodes of Queer
as Folk, which is an interesting choice. Although clearly
Queer as Folk's audience is a gay-friendly one, it also
consists mostly of gay men and straight women, neither of which
is The L Word's most likely target audience. A lot of
lesbians do watch Queer as Folk, even if it's a small
percentage of the series' overall viewers, so that is probably
the audience Showtime is trying to reach with the prom, but it
will be interesting to see if Showtime starts running it before
more straight-male-oriented shows like Jeremiah or Street
Time in the coming months.
But
the fact that lesbian sex in The L Word has
a dual purpose--attracting straight men AND lesbian and bisexual
women--doesn't dilute its significance or its power. The ability
to see fully-realized lesbian and bisexual characters with sex
lives onscreen is something we've never had before on this kind
of scale and with this kind of attention and thoughtfulness behind
it. In short, it's nothing short of revolutionary, even if it's
also a shrewd marketing ploy.
Which
just makes January, 2004, that much harder to wait for--exactly
the effect Showtime intended.
