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An interview with Ilene Chaiken

Like her shows or not, Ilene Chaiken has done a lot for lesbian visibility on television. Regardless of whether you loved or lambasted The L Word and its reality series offspring The Real L Word, Chaiken continues to bring our stories to mainstream audiences in ways few others have. When Season 2 was renewed, Chaiken — who serves as an executive producer on the reality series — “fought” for that as well.

With an almost entirely new cast for Season 2, The Real L Word returns Sunday with Whitney at the center and a slew of lessons learned. AfterEllen.com caught up with Chaiken to discuss what didn’t work (the cast), what makes this season different (more sex) and what she hopes the community walks away with (representation).

AfterEllen.com: How is Season 2 of The Real L Word different than the first?

Ilene Chaiken: It’s better. I’m at a loss as how to put this out here because it was new to me: a new genre, new kind of casting. And though I felt it was interesting and some of what we did was very cool, it didn’t ultimately say what I wanted to say. Season 2 absolutely felt it. It felt it in a way that I’m excited about and I feel proud of it.

My greatest hope is that we can get people to come to the show and look at it fresh. It feels real and authentic. The women who participated and generously shared their lives with us did it with a lot of openness. They weren’t trying to do anything, not trying to control the story or put something out there that conveyed an imagery of who they were, but simply letting us into their lives and living their lives in front of the cameras.

AE: Do you think the cast from Season 1 wasn’t real wasn’t open?

IC: I think that the cast from Season 1 – it’s not criticism of the people, I actually adore all of them and I’m grateful to them for participating – but they were a different group of people. In some ways it’s just the luck of the draw. In some ways it’s things that we learned from experience. They were people who, in their lives and careers, are used to trying to tell a particular story. I think that they went into it with an idea of what they wanted to say. We worked with people this year who were simply more open. We made a decision to choose cast members who were more beginning their journeys.

AE: It sounds like you’re a lot more involved this year than last year.

IC: I was pretty involved last year. I’m not looking to shirk responsibility. I’m more involved in that I know more now and I understood more about what this particular process is as opposed to the process of making a scripted show. I feel like I know what to look for.

AE: We’ve seen the first two episodes and there’s more nudity and sex, especially Romi. Were you looking for cast members who were more forthcoming in that area?

IC: They are all more forthcoming, not just Romi. I love Romi in the way that she sets the tone and I love her for her openness. There’s nothing censored about her.

AE: There definitely is more sex.

IC: I hope there is because I like sex. I think that one of the reasons for doing this kind of show on premium cable is so that we can put everything out there, including sex. I came away from the whole season knowing that the whole thing feels more honest and open in a way that I’ve always tried to say; sex is just a part of the story and I want to be just as vivacious about things I felt that make it emotionally as sexually and physically. I feel like the show does that.

AE: Who would you say is the ideal audience for this show? A lot of the LGBT community didn’t really feel like it was a show for them.

IC: I don’t know about the community. I don’t know who the community is who we’re talking about. There are a lot of people who react online. There are people who come to your site and they’re probably a whole different group of people who go to other sites. Women are engaged and they have objections. Yes, the community you’re talking about will probably find the show, this year, to be a more representative show, at least more to their taste. That’s my hope. I don’t make television for any particular audience. I just go out and try and tell stories that, hopefully, will engage people.

AE: You mentioned Season 2 would be more representative. The cast seems to be much more diverse this year. Was that one of your goals in looking at casting?

IC: I always want to make a show that’s diverse and representative. Obviously it depends on what story we’re covering. But it’s much more exciting to me to find people who have something to say about different aspects of our community and represent it. We wanted an ethnically and sociologically diverse cast. At the end of the day we had to look for people who have good stories to tell us who feel that they’re going to share with us something of interest. It was exciting to me that some of those people turned out to be African-American, or Asian, or younger, or from a different socio-economic category.

AE: Considering your disappointment with Season 1, were you surprised the show was renewed?

IC: I wasn’t surprised. I wanted very much to have a chance to do it again. I was thrilled when [new Showtime Entertainment president] David Nevins was open to doing it. We sat down together and, obviously, at the moment when the show was ending there was also a regime change at Showtime [after Robert Greenblatt departed for NBC]. I was talking to a new group of people and we sat down and talked about what the opportunities were here and what I felt we hadn’t quite accomplished but was still available to us.

AE: When Season 2 was announced, some people were surprised it would be returning to L.A. instead of New York, as you’d mentioned an interest in doing a show set there. Why return to L.A.?

IC: I wanted to continue a little bit of what we started so we decided to keep Whitney and build around her to an extent. I’d still love to do versions of this show [elsewhere]. You know there are cities, I still feel, that also say what we all want to say, which is we’re everywhere.

AE: Looking back, how do you think The L Word impacted lesbian representation on TV?

IC: If you want to just talk about representation on TV, that’s a long conversation and I feel it’s a different conversation to talk about the culture at large. There isn’t as much lesbian representation on TV as I had hoped there would be post L Word. I feel like in some small way the story line on Grey’s Anatomy was partially born out of The L Word and [casting] Jessica Capshaw.

AE: If you could go back and do The L Word again, would you do anything differently?

IC: I can’t even begin to answer that question. I can’t go back and do it all again. I’d like to just go on and keep doing it in different ways. We did the best show we could and I had a wonderful time and I love the people I worked with.

AE: In terms of the spinoff, is The Farm totally dead?

IC: I moved on.

AE: When Season 2 of The Real L Word ends, what do you hope viewers walk away with?

IC: I hope that some viewers walk away feeling represented and feeling as if we’ve told stories about their lives or that, in some way, reflect their lives in ways they don’t see them reflected richly and with complexity interchanged, but also seen. And, I hope that another part of the audience comes away enlightened by an experience of an encounter that they wouldn’t have gotten to have any place else.

AE: Any other projects that you’re working on?

IC: I’m working on other things that I love and am excited about. I do all kinds of things as a writer and as a producer. And they’re not all LGBT projects. I am working on a couple of new LGBT-themed projects I’m really excited about.

Season 2 of The Real L Word premieres Sunday on Showtime.

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