“I never write with an audience in mind. I write hoping an audience will come to the show, but I don’t write to please a particular audience or to try and capture a particular audience. I write to tell my stories as best I can.”
–Ilene Chaiken, in a 2005 interview with Screentalk
Dear Ilene,
I’ve resisted writing this letter for over two years and, to be completely honest, I’m not entirely comfortable writing it now. As a writer, I can appreciate how difficult your job is. I know you’ll never please everyone, and I don’t want to appear hypercritical, but there’s a voice in my head urging me to talk to you about where you’ve taken The L Word, and that voice sounds an awful lot like Max’s – you know, irritating – so I can’t ignore it any longer.
I’m not angry; I’m concerned, and like many who watch your show, I’m disappointed in the last two seasons. Did you fall and hurt your head?
I apologize for being so direct, but I ask only because I care. You’ve made some bad choices, Ilene – Jenny’s confusing carnival past and clichéd writer’s angst; Kit and Angus’s ridiculous love affair; Helena’s sudden split personality; Tina’s manhunt; Max’s, well, everything; and, of course, Dana’s death, to name a few – and I’d like to help you correct those mistakes. Together I think we can clean up the mess you’ve made and get back to portraying lesbian relationships and experiences that are unique and universally valid at the same time.
I’ve got it all figured out, Ilene. The first thing we have to do is put Jenny on a very large Ferris wheel with rusty bolts.
I know, I know. Jenny is loosely based on you, and it’ll probably be hard for you to take my advice on this one, but hear me out. It’s not about you, Ilene; it’s about the viewers and about the art.
I enjoy a well-crafted drama, I really do, but drama for me – and, I’m guessing, for most other people – needs to be clearly distinguished from confusion and tedium. You’ve got to stop putting the script in a blender. Also, it’s time to realize that, as Mia Kirshner proves in every episode, it takes more than just a great actress to make a character believable.
Not only are you wasting Kirshner’s talent on Jenny, but you’re also mocking it by every scene she shares with Daniela Sea. Repeat after me, Ilene: Daniela. Sea. Can’t. Act. And no amount of roving facial hair will change that.
Look, I don’t want much, but what I want, I think most other viewers want, too.
I want to laugh more and groan a lot less this season. I want the dialogue to fit the stories, and I want the stories to be convincing. I want to see straight male characters that aren’t complete idiots or voyeurs, gay male characters who weren’t pulled from a timeworn queer mold, and African-American characters who are interested in something other than music. I want Betty to go away – forever. I want more and better sex scenes. I want someone to fall in love and stay in love. And – yes, I know this is asking a lot – I want the actual episodes of The L Word to be just as clever and entertaining as Scribe Grrrl’s recaps.
But what I want most of all is a return to what made The L Word great in the first place.
I’d never suggest going backwards in real life or even in real love, but, as you well know, Ilene, in fiction anything is possible. Taking The L Word from lesbi-loony back to lesbi-licious will be easy if we transition by playing off the cockamamie story lines you’ve already invented. Sure, I’m aware that you’ve already cast the new season and have a few episodes in the can, but a little last minute rewriting, reshooting, and one or two instances of “you’re fired!” will get you right back where you started!
So think about this: As Jenny writhes in agony on the Ferris wheel, recalling the mysterious horrors of her past, she forces the corroded bolts of her bucket seat to rip from the frame, and she falls, screaming, to the ground.
Tragic? Not really, because – get this – she lands on Max, who is at the carnival helping another, less annoying transgender character fix his laptop.
It’s genius in its simplicity, and the dialogue would be a cinch, too! All Jenny would have to say is, “I hate my book, I hate my life, I hate the fucking carnival, I hate … AAAAAAHHH!”
And Max could drone, “My quantum photon chip is gonna make your computer as good as ne-” just before he’s crushed.
But the best part, Ilene, is that Jenny survives. Thanks to Max and the mainframe he has strapped to his strap-on, she suffers only from amnesia. With no recollection of her tormented past, she begins life anew as a better writer – one with confidence and a sense of humor. From there, the episode practically writes itself!
The new transgender character, who escapes death by inches, drives to The Planet to tell everyone what happened, but in his haste accidentally runs over Angus, who is singing his “Hello” song to a beautiful, deaf lesbian holding a picket sign that reads, “Even I hate the theme song!” at the entrance to the parking lot.
Angus sings, “Hello to the deaf lesbian; so glad to see you! Hello to the speeding car; so gla?” Then, he’s gone. Just like that!
Shane sees the whole thing from the bathroom of the new Hometown Buffet next door, where she is once again having steamy sex with Carmen, who came back to introduce Shane to the concept of nourishment. “Angus is dead,” Shane says in her deadpan way.
Carmen sighs. “No, no, no. We’ve been over this. Angus is beef ? protein, honey. You should try some.”
With bloody Angus blocking part of the road in front of The Planet, a traffic jam forms and buried deep within it is Bette, who is on her cell phone yelling at Tina. “I’ve given Angelica to the Black Panthers. They’ll teach her to be a strong woman of color, not a weak, uncultivated, manipulative, draining, ungrateful bore like you!” she screams.
Tina seethes but knows just how to get back at Bette. “I didn’t pick up your dry cleaning!” she taunts.
Bette gasps and then says, “You don’t deserve me, Tina!”
“Oh, yes I do!” Tina assures her. “I’m a mess, and the only way I can preserve my self-respect and resist your domination is by asserting myself indirectly or ambiguously. We’re perfect together! Si?”
Bette growls and hangs up. Tina whimpers and falls onto her bed into the arms of a naked woman ? a new Latina neighbor who is teaching her to speak Spanish so that she can be passive aggressive in another language. “How’d I do?” Tina asks through her tears.
Meanwhile, Helena, who will live out her remaining days clinging to a picture of Dylan and an empty bottle of Cristal on a urine-stained refrigerator carton on Hollywood Boulevard, is awoken from a deep sleep by her mother, who just comes by to kick her now and then and say, “Darling, you put the pee in Peabody!”
Back at The Planet, Alice, distraught over Dana’s death, is popping Dana’s pills and discussing suicide with a shiny new cardboard cutout of her best friend and lover when Kit, who has just learned of Angus’ demise, goes into premature labor at cardboard Dana’s feet. “Help me, Alice!” she cries.
Alice tries to comfort her by saying, “Hello-o-o? Get a grip, Liza. You’re the only woman in L.A. who didn’t think Angus was gay. ” But Kit can’t hear Alice over her own screams.
Suddenly, Betty, who just happens to be onstage, bursts into a song aptly titled “We Suck.” Then, not to be outdone, God-des and She, who also just happen to be at The Planet, jump onstage and start singing their song “We Suck More!” And, just for the hell of it, add “P*ssy!”
Meanwhile at the carnival, a new, lighter Jenny emerges when questioned by a cute, butch EMT. “How many fingers do I have up?” the EMT asks. “Two lesbians and a monkey walk into a bar …” Jenny replies.
When Bette finally reaches the entrance to The Planet, she realizes that the only reason she’s been sitting in traffic for so long is that Angus is dead in her lane. “Great. Just f*cking great!” she shouts as she slams the steering wheel with both fists. “Why me?”
Back inside, Kit writhes in pain as Shane and Carmen enter for post-coital carbs and lattes. Alice tries to get Shane to help comfort Kit, but Shane insists that they first update Alice’s Chart, because back at the buffet she ran into the entire Arquette family and proceeded to misunderstand the meaning of all-you-can-eat. Carmen, meanwhile, falls asleep and has a dream that Shane takes a summer job shearing sheep on a mountain where she has sex with a British nun.
“High on a hill was a lonely goatherd,” Carmen mutters melodiously in her sleep. “Lay-ee-yodel ay-ee-yodel ay-ee-oo …”
In the parking lot, while trying to convince the deaf lesbian to park her car, Bette gets a call from Paris. “Will you come to France and be the Grand Pooh-Bah Mighty Highness of the Louvre, you fabulous creature?” a voice asks. But before she can answer, Bette is attacked from behind by Marina and dragged inside The Planet.
“Nobody move ? I’ve got a bomb!” Marina says in the sultry way that only she can. Then she rips open her blouse to reveal two gorgeous breasts hugging a few sticks of dynamite.
The crowd gasps.
“Do what she says,” Bette orders, eyeing the detonator in Marina’s hand. “Pretend she’s me!” She turns to Marina. “What the hell do you want?”
“I want Kit to give me The Planet. She’s destroyed what I once worked so hard to create,” Marina explains as she points to the stage. “No one should be forced to listen to this crap!”
“Don’t f*ck with me, girl!” screams Kit. “I’m pregnant, menopausal, a widow, a has-been and an alcoholic!”
“I don’t care how unbelievably overwritten your character is,” Marina tells her. “I want my old life back. I want to laugh with my friends again. I want to make out with Jenny.”
“The old Jenny is gone,” says the new transgender character. “But I’ll make out with you. Wanna see my life-like penis?”
“I do!” says Tina, smirking at Bette as she walks through the front door.
Bette glares at Tina. “You! Why aren’t you home thinking of ways to worship me?”
“It’s a free country, Bette,” Tina answers. “You no the boss-o of me-o. Comprende?”
“Hold on,” says Shane. “If anyone is going to make out with Marina , it’s going to be me.”
That’s when Carmen wakes up. “I wish I knew how to quit you,” she says, scowling at Shane.
“Shut up, all of you,” Marina screams, “or I’ll blow us all to bits!” And she raises the detonator high above her head.
“Wait!” Alice yells. “Are you all so selfish that you don’t realize that Angus has been killed, Max has been crushed, Kit might lose her baby, Shane is miraculously disease-free, and that I am one doll away from the valley of the shadow of Neely O’Hara?
“She’s right,” Carmen says. “We should all have coffee and talk about this. I’ll start. Marina has nipple confidence, don’t you think?”
“That’s it,” Marina shrieks. “Say goodbye, you bourgeois lesbians!”
Suddenly, a bright yellow tennis ball comes flying through the door and smacks into the back of Marina’s head. THWAK!
Alice gasps. “Dana?”
Marina teeters … totters … wobbles …
“She’s going to fall on the detonator!” Bette screams. “Run for my life!”
Chaos ensues as everyone races toward the exits. People ? especially musicians ? are trampled, fires break out, bagels are looted …
Marina sways left, then right, then … KABLOOEY! … The Planet explodes.
Six months later (I know you like that part, Ilene) …Bette, Tina, Alice, Shane, Carmen, Jenny and Kit are sitting in the newly remodeled Planet. “Isn’t it great that we’re all here talking about life and love … and me, just like we used to?” Bette asks with glee.
“Si. Un pequito, I guess,” Tina answers. “But it’s probably your fault that all those innocent people who were in The Planet that fateful day are dead, Bette. It’s certainly not mine.”
“Who?” Jenny wonders aloud. “Where?”
“Never mind,” Alice says. “Say, Jenny, how’s your new, light-hearted book of humorous essays that have nothing to do with cutting, carnivals or sexual molestation coming along?”
“Great!” Jenny answers. “I love writing, I love myself, I love my life, I love …”
“OK, we get it,” Carmen tells her. “Shane, wanna go have sex somewhere for a very, very, very long time?”
“Of course,” says Shane. “But I have to cut Dana’s hair first.”
“Where is Dana, anyway?” Alice asks.
“I’m right here,” Dana says as she walks through the front door with a big smile. “What’s up, Al? Did you have another stupid dream that I got breast cancer and died?” She laughs.
“It’s not funny, Dana. It was very real,” Alice insists.
Dana kisses Alice passionately. “What’s real is that we’re together, Al.” She smiles at the group. “We’re all together again.”
Cue new theme song. Fade to black …
So, what do you say, Ilene? The ending is a bit Dallas-y, but work with me here. Writing with an audience in mind isn’t such a bad thing after all, is it? Give me a shout when you get a second; I’d love to know what you think.
In the meantime, keep telling our stories, sister. I am ? we all are ? counting on you.
All the best,
Kim Ficera
Kim Ficera is the author of Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: An Unconventional Life Uncensored. Her bi-weekly column at AfterEllen.com, Don’t Quote Me, is dedicated to all the folks in and out of Hollywood who talk without thinking or who don’t know when to stop talking. Email her at kim at kimficera dot com.
