L Word: Generation Q. Image: IMDB/Showtime.
I watched the original 2004 The L Word series as an 18-year-old sitting really close to the TV with the volume turned down to a bare whisper. The challenges of living at home with my parents. Watching anything outside of the approved pre-6pm ABC content was not condoned, and The L Word promoted a lifestyle that was deemed illicit within the Western Sydney-based South Asian bubble I lived in. Thankfully at 35 years of age, I’ve connected with queer friends and reached a place of self-acceptance about my own sexuality. Streaming the latest iteration Generation Q on the small screen with reckless abandon in my cosy Melbourne city apartment feels strangely liberating.
The L Word was a cult hit when it originally aired. For a whole generation of women (including myself), whose lives extended beyond heteronormativity, it was affirming. What set the show apart was that queer women weren’t side characters or fodder for experimentation; they lived their gay lives, for the most part, openly and freely. The series is set in Los Angeles, a city of dreamers, aspiring actors and artists. At the heart of this creative and iconic city is a thriving queer community with complex sub-cultures divided by race, class, gender and sexuality, and a seedy underbelly of wealthy Hollywood gays sexually exploiting vulnerable queer teens.
For a whole generation of women (including myself), whose lives extended beyond heteronormativity, The L Word was affirming.
The main characters were a motley crew. They included hairdresser Shane McCutcheon, journalist Alice Pieszecki, art director Bette Porter, writer Jenny Schecter, movie producer Tina Kennard, tennis star Dana Fairbanks, philanthropist Helena Peabody and computer programmer Max Sweeney. On paper, it seemed like they had diverging and disparate lives. In their differences, they embodied representations of what it means to be queer that I never saw amongst my immediate peer groups. When I was a teenager, I wanted to grow up to be like Bette (played by Flashdance’s Jennifer Beal) with her Capricorn career energy, endless art knowledge, sophisticated style and generally defiant nature. Alice (Leisha Hailey) had hilarious quips, a bubbly personality and a love of gossip that made her the perfect fun gal pal to hang out with. And Shane (Katherine Moennig) was my first lady crush. Even my straight girlfriends couldn’t deny her sex appeal (I mean, that Hugo Boss billboard). She was also one of the most progressive amongst the crew in her perspective on gender and sexuality, uttering the iconic line, ‘Sexuality is fluid. Whether you’re gay or you’re straight or you’re bisexual, you just go with the flow.’
They were a dysfunctional but extremely close surrogate family, and like most queer fam were forged through an interconnected web of sexual liaisons, parties and complex family circumstances. The L Word stayed true to its, well, word, by focusing on the lives of queer women and ‘the way that they live, and looooooove’ (as the original series theme song by New York City band Betty goes). As a result, the show centred the female gaze and pleasure, depicting women as they’re seen by other women, which is rare on screen. By focusing on a self-contained queer community, it also ensured that characters’ identities were a part of who they were, but weren’t always the centre of every story line, unlike other tokenistic queer representations.
Despite its success, the original L Word received a lot of criticism, particularly in regards to its portrayal of characters who don’t conform to traditional white cis lesbian identities. Bisexual characters Alice and Tina were unfairly the butt of the show’s jokes, often asked to ‘pick a side’. The trans masculinity of characters Max Sweeney and Ivan Aycock was criticised for being too tropey. In particular, Max was often iced out of the group’s dynamic, captured in his remark to Alice, ‘You can’t segregate trans people out of the lesbian community’. Besides Bette, who’s biracial, the show tended to centre the white queer woman’s experience. However, the writers did respond to these audience critiques with the introduction of Latinx and African American characters, such as Carmen de la Pica Morales, Tasha Williams and Eva ‘Papi’ Torres. The unfortunate thing about the ‘diverse’ casting was the choice to cast actors who didn’t match their characters’ ethnicities, which wouldn’t fly today without scrutiny. Sarah Shahi played the Mexican-American Carmen, though she has Iranian-Spanish heritage. Janina Gavankar, of Indian-Dutch background, played a Latinx character of unspecified origin. Despite this, their characters were great precursors to more substantive and authentic queer-centric Latinx representations like in Vida, which also happens to be set in LA.
The main characters were a motley crew. They embodied representations of what it means to be queer that I never saw amongst my immediate peer groups.
Despite some oversights, the intersectional representations of queerness in multicultural communities were really important to me as a Sri Lankan woman, and helped me to accept my own identity. The Latinx community is such an important part of LA life, and reminded me of my own place in an immigrant family. The moments between Carmen and her family as they speak Spanish and celebrate their culture brought a different dimension to the show. In my own extended family, we would often gather over food and cultural celebrations, where aunts and uncles would joke about setting me and my cousins up with a nice husband or wife, just as Carmen’s family did with her. In the original series, when Carmen’s family disowns her after she comes out, she states: ‘You all sit here and expect me to live out some lie, so you all can live comfortably.’ This is a common phenomenon in conservative cultural and religious families. In a recent conversation with a Muslim friend of mine, we were talking about her disapproval of the LGBTQIA+ community, to which I retorted: ‘You know I don’t identify as straight?’ She jokingly replied, ‘You’re married to a man, that’s straight enough for me’. As Stephanie Beatriz stated in her article in GQ: ‘I’m choosing to get married because this particular person brings out the best in me. This person happens to be a man. I’m still bi.’
The L Word: Generation Q takes the sentiment of the original and injects it with contemporary cosmopolitan LGBTQIA+ life, integrating more fully-formed narratives about gender, race and sexuality, addressing the criticisms of its predecessor. The new series, also produced by original The L Word co-creator Ilene Chaiken, brings back characters Bette, Alice and Shane, offering continuity for die-hard fans. Cherie Jaffe, who is one of Shane’s many former flames in The L Word, also makes a guest appearance in season two, providing a flicker of hope that Sarah Shahi will leave Sex/Life behind to recreate that palpable chemistry with Moennig once again.
The show centred the female gaze and pleasure, depicting women as they’re seen by other women, which is rare on screen.
What’s interesting about Bette, Alice and Shane is how far their lives have progressed in 10 years. Both Alice and Shane scale the heights of career success, social influence and financial means that Bette always seemed to possess (and I personally coveted). In Generation Q, Alice is the host of her own talk show, Shane sells a chain of international hair salons and uses the windfall to convert The Planet into a lesbian bar named Dana’s (after their deceased friend) and Bette launched (and lost) a mayoral campaign. From their good ol’ days of chilling out at The Planet at all hours of the day, the friends are all grown up (despite looking like they haven’t aged at all). While still retaining some of the hang-ups from their youthful years, they guide a whole new generation of queer millennials. The new characters—campaign manager Dani Núñez (Arienne Mandi), producer Sophie Suarez (Rosanny Zayas), personal assistant and occasional bartender Sarah Finley (this generation’s Shane, played by Jacqueline Toboni) and educator and social worker Micah Lee (Leo Sheng)—bring an even greater range of diverse representations that defy stereotypes and speak to the present moment.
In an era where our understanding of identity is more nuanced, it makes sense for The L Word to return and represent a more evolved community, both on-screen and in the writers’ room. Generation Q employs a new wave of diverse queer screenwriters, including Nancy C. Mejia (Vida), Thomas Page McBee (Tales of the City) and Regina Y. Hicks (Insecure). Leo Sheng, who is a Chinese American trans actor, brings a lot of depth to his portrayal of Micah. Trans actor Jamie Clayton is also part of the secondary cast, playing a trans lesbian bartender, Tess. The casting of culturally diverse characters is also more authentic, with Arienne Mandi and Rosanny Zayas both identifying as Latinx, enabling a richer viewing experience. Though there are still critiques of the lack of size diversity and butch representation, which new shows such as Vida excel at. Missed opportunities to represent darker-skinned Black women also seem like an oversight. However, like in the original series, Bette is confronted for her white-passing privilege in this pointed statement by her daughter Angie: ‘The two of us walk through this world differently, Mum.’
Generation Q takes the sentiment of the original and injects it with contemporary cosmopolitan LGBTQIA+ life.
What both series do well is their exploration of class, intergenerational queer relationships and characters with disabilities. New addition Dani, like Bette, is affluent and wealthy, whereas Finley and Shane are in more precarious financial positions. Deaf actor Maree Matlin and actor and wheelchair user Jilian Mercado are forthright and compelling in their respective roles as Jodi Lerner and Maribel Suarez. And the cast spans generations with Cybil Shephard and Rosanna Arquette bringing humour and clout to their portrayals of Phyllis Kroll and Cherie Jaffe. Combined with the return of core cast, the new series builds on the insights and inspirations achieved by the original.
While re-watching The L Word series on Stan and streaming Season 2 of Generation Q to write this piece, it felt like returning to the warm embrace of old friends I’d missed during the pandemic. It reminds me of how I self-actualised through formative, coming-of-age experiences, such as first loves and forging timeless friendships on club dancefloors. Once I reached my mid-30s, I gave fewer fucks about other people’s opinions, and live my life on my own terms. Though, like in the show, the confidence I’ve found in adulthood from being surrounded by people who accept me for who I am is undeniable. As Tina expresses aptly to Bette during her brief hiatus from lesbian life to date single dad Henry in The L Word Season 4: ‘I miss being surrounded by women, and feeling part of something so secret and special.’
