Newsflash, lesbians across the interwebs annoyed at #TheRealLWord. Here’s the recap:
Newsflash, lesbians across the interwebs annoyed at #TheRealLWord. Here’s the recap:
1) The ladies of autostraddle penned a “you f*cked us over” to Showtime/Ilene last week, when their web credit was unceremoniously wiped out of the Seasons’ premiere.
According to their blog; despite promises of a plug for allowing the Real L Word crew to shoot their “Calendar Girls” photo shoot of cast member Francine (who had been scheduled to be a CG prior to her TRLW gig) there was no plug, no credit, no mention of nada. Nothing like a warm bowl of suck ass.
Question: Why piss off the youngest tier of your market?
2) Earlier that week there was an interview with L Word/Real L Word creator-producer-writer-director-Ilene-Chaiken, on afterellen, in which Chaiken had a few curious things to say, one of them being:
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.
Newsflash flash: The community that exisits outside of WeHo.
3) On the subject of AfterEllen, AE’s managing editor, Trish Bendix, posted a little op-ed on the Frisky, saying:
“The Real L Word” is equal parts horrific and boring and that’s because it’s a show with no real premise.
…premium cable channel Showtime decided that the “realness” it should be showing on “The Real L Word” had to do with the amount of lesbian bodies and sex acts it could show.
A large part of being a lesbian is sex. A large part of being a human is sex. But why does lesbian sex have to be the focus of the only reality show that’s on television claiming to be telling lesbian stories?”
Good question. I also wonder why Bendix printed this on the Frisky and not AE?
4) Perhaps feeling the heat, Chaiken and Magic Elf, Jane Lipsitz, fielded a few questions from The Hollywood Reporter on how “non-porny” TRLW is:
THR: Season 2 is much more sexual. Were you given any specific marching orders from Showtime’s new chief David Nevins to sex up the series?
Lipsitz: No, not necessarily to sex up the series. The marching orders were really to make a docusoap, make a series that can’t appear anywhere else that’s unique to Showtime… they can swear, they can have sex. There’s a story line about drugs and alcohol.
Chaiken: To me it’s not because they’re lesbians that we’re watching them have sex; it’s because it’s part of the story. In pursing this as a premise you’re always walking a line but I love telling stories about sex. I don’t think sex is dirty, I think it’s intriguing and illuminating.
THR: The Playboy Channel seems to be stepping away from the porn space since the web pushes the limits so far. Is The Real L Word Showtime’s way of pushing into that space?
Chaiken: Showtime didn’t push us for it… If you make the wrong editorial choices then it starts to veer to something that people are going to call porn. We don’t think that what we are doing is remotely porn and we would never want it to be nor does Showtime want it to be.
Lipsitz: I think viewers are not coming to watch The Real L Word for the sexual content. We think they are coming to watch the show because of stories and characters.
THR: Do either of you worry about alienating the audience?
Chaiken: I don’t want to alienate the audience. I’d never set out to do that and I’d never say that I don’t give a damn about the audience … I believe part of the excitement and reward of making television is taking people places that they haven’t been before. I’m willing to take the risk.
Lipsitz: … Our intent is not to exploit the sexual art and sexual opportunity. That is has not been our intention nor will it ever be.
Looks are deceiving.
