Stop Staring at that Box, You'll Ruin Your Eyes

I guess I'll talk about it. I taped The Real L Word, thinking that it might be entertaining and that perhaps (because it's on Showtime) it would illuminate the lives of real people in a real, unscripted way. The premise of the show is this: Lesbians in Los Angeles live, work and love. The twist that drew me in was that several of the cast members were the actual people who the characters on The L Word were based upon. Not that I watched that show either, but I thought it might be an interesting meta study in modern mediums, you know, to watch where it all began.

The pilot delivered on several levels. The women on the show do appear to be real. I think they're more exhibitionists than they are fame whores, so participation in producer-setup scenarios is much less frequent than on many other "reality" shows. I also feel like there are several people on the show, most notably the two engaged lesbians and the former player in a fledgling romance with a single mother, whose motives are probably educationally based. By this I mean that I think that they want to show the viewing audience that being a gay woman is just like being any other woman. And these people do show that. They dote on their dogs and watch TV and even deal with squabbling during child-handover after a split-custody agreement.

It's the other ones I'm worried about. They're all partying, promiscuous and afraid of commitment. It's annoying to watch a bunch of people like this in general, but when the piece of pop culture in question is serving another purpose (and intentional or not, it is) character portrayal needs to be tread lightly upon. The sad fact that exists in America today is that ecery individual is representative of the communities to which they belong. And when those communities include being a stigmatized minority, those actions (however minute or pedestrian) either support or refute the myriad assumptions about that entire group. That sucks. God, if I were representative of every copy editor in the world, they would probably think that we all like Lost to a creepy degree and crave ice cream like some people crave crack. And however much it sucks that I'm not judged that way and they are, it's still true. People in middle America, if they tuned into the series premiere of The Real L Word, would most likely reaffirm their assumptions that all gay people are promiscuous and irresponsible--incapable of maintaining a stable romantic relationship--and don't even get me started on what that means to proponents of Prop 8.

So, although there were a few highlights (I would watch a wedding planning show with those two ladies getting ready to tie the knot) mostly I just felt kind of sad a disappointed with this reality show offering. Oh, well. Guess I'll just have to watch some Lost repeats.