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Mincing No Words: Straight Talk with Ilene Chaiken, Creator of "The L Word"
By Brenner Thomas, Provincetown Magazine Vol. 27, Issue #20, August 19-25, 2004The title of "The L Word," the hit Showtime series about a group of lesbians in Los Angeles, was the fortuitous brain-child of its executive producer and creator Ilene Chaiken, but it wasn't the show's first. Chaiken had originally called it "Earthlings," which emphasized what she considered an important theme of the show: that more than anything we all are just people on the planet. But the Showtime brass didn't like it. Too sci-fi.
So Chaiken and crew went back to the drawing board, and in the writers meetings hear the story of a bit in K.D. Lang's show in which the chanteuse teases the audience with her all-but-public sexuality. She stutters, "I'm a le...I'm a le..." but then doesn't say what everyone expects her to. Chaiken remembers responding to the story, "Oh, so she can't say the L-word."
Sometimes eurekas happen in a writer's life. And coming up with the title for "The L Word" was one such moment for Chaiken. It was a great fit for the groundbreaking ensemble drama; it suggested love, lust--both important elements to the show's relationship-oriented storylines--but it also stood as a symbol for why the show was being made at all. As Part of a minority that is already underrepresented in the media, lesbians are even further obscured. The Gay TV boom of recent years has primarily benefited men. On "Queer as Folk, "Will and Grace," and "Queer Eye," lesbians play supporting roles if anything. Save for Ellen DeGeneres' short-lived, de-sexed sitcom, there has never been a frank portrayal of lesbians on television. "The L Word" suggested all that was taboo, abbreviated and unspoken about the topic Chaiken had long hoped to broadcast over the airwaves. Oh, and the suits at Showtime thought the title sounded ok too.
It is in honor of Chaiken's efforts, her dedication to telling these stories and portraying the heretofore untelevised lives, that she is being honored with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's National Service Award. Chaiken will be traveling for the first time to Provincetown the weekend of August 21st to accept the award at the NGLTF's Annual Deck Party. Past recipients have included such LGBT notables as Martina Navratilova and Playwright Tony Kushner. Speaking of the honor during a recent conference interview, Chaiken reported that she felt "honored and somewhat daunted." "I'm really pleased and moved that [the show] moves people," she went on to say, "and that it seems to be having some cultural significance."
More than some. "The L Word," like Showtime's other gay drama, "Queer as Folk," is a hit. The first season struck a chord with audiences across lines of gender, age, and sexuality, and the network cable company has contracted another season. It's slated to air February 2005. "I'm really pleased with the breadth and scope of the show's appeal," reports Chaiken whose previous credits include producing "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" and writing the screenplay for the 1996 doomsday action flick "Barb Wire," starring Pamela Anderson. "I was initially thrilled that men were watching the show in pretty large numbers and not just for the salacious elements. Gay men also enjoy the show. Executives had said, "You have nothing for gay men in your show." But the intersecting lives of these young LA women has found a home in the mainstream."
As little as four years ago, "The L Word" would have never seemed possible. Having just finished a movie for Showtime called Dirty Pictures (which went on to win a Golden Globe in 2000), Chaiken had an idea for a lesbian ensemble drama. In the months before, she had penned her first and only piece of journalism for Los Angeles Magazine about the gay and lesbian baby boom. "I wrote our stories and I knew that I hadn't done that before as a writer." So she sketched out some characters and storylines and pitched the idea--she says "halfheartedly"--to Showtime. This is before "Queer as Folk" was in the pipeline, before Carson had made straight America look metrosexual, before Jack was "Just Jack." The network cable company had never considered something so radical as a drama featuring gay characters, let alone their sex lives. Really intriguing," she remembers them saying, "but the suits will never go for it." But they never passed on it completely.
Fast forward a year into the night before Chaiken's success at the Globes. "Queer as Folk" was on the air and stood as Showtime's biggest hit to date. The show's success changed the heretofore reluctant suits' minds about the potential of gay characters on the little screen. There was a more formal presentation in which Chaiken pitched "Earthlings" to a senior executive. Afterwards, he came up to Chaiken and whispered in her ear, "I think we're going to do that little lesbian show."
And they did. They came up with an ensemble cast, including Flashdances' Jennifer Beals and Pam Grier, and went into production. The first episode aired in January of this year.
The show, however, has not gone without criticism. As the only authentic reflection of lesbian culture on American TV, "The L Word" has the unfortunate burden of trying to accommodate, reflect every lesbian's life. Viewers have complained that the cast is too pretty, too femmy, too lipstick, too young. Where are the butch dykes? Though Chaiken encourages viewers to look to the next season for a greater variety of characters, she believes concurrently that no television show should or can try to represent everyone.
"I completely understand the [criticism] and even welcome it," she admits. "We've been so marginalized and underrepresented that the incredible hunger to be represented is understandable. But no television show about people, however they are defined, represents everybody."
And after all this is television. In her most recent show, lesbian comic Suzanne Westenhoefer took on those who demand more of "The L Word." "You want some fat women on that show?" she quipped. "It's not like Friends is running around with a lot of heavy people on it. They are all skinny and pretty. Why would we expect more of shows about us?"
Chaiken modestly agrees. "It's television," she explains. "The cast is a little prettier than people I encounter in everyday life."
Quibbles aside, "The L Word" has further opened the door for the LGBT community, who after earning landmark rights and privileges this year, can now turn on the television and see themselves. Its cultural impact can in no way be measured accurately, but Chaiken reports that she hears pieces of it, stories about how the series gave someone the courage to come out, speak up, or accept. It's putting gays and lesbians unedited in the living rooms of mainstream America and, according to Chaiken, that simple gesture can be transformative: "People have always noted that the more they get to know us, the more they simply understand that the things we share in common are much more than the things that separate us. That's the most gratifying thing for me, that we can declare ourselves to exist and insist that we're as acceptable, moving, intriguing and entertaining as everyone else.
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