Written by acrowder

"I watched the GLAAD awards and was really happy to see the show [The L Word] got best drama...however, I hope the writers really listened to the little speech given by the president of GLAAD. He said something to the effect that it does not make one little bit of difference how we are portrayed to the public .....It makes ALL the difference." Comments by skywriter 2006-04-22 on "An Open Letter to Ilene Chaiken"

While art--as conceived by an artist-- can exist for its own sake without a social or political agenda, the viewer, meanwhile, is free to attribute whatever meaning he or she wants to it. When speaking of The L Word, I'm obviously using the word "art" in a very broad sense, but as the art of Ilene Chaiken et al., the show does have content and viewers do attribute meaning to it. For this reason, I wanted to share my appreciation of skywriter's recent comments (and similar sentiments expressed by other writers who commented on my editorial, "An Open Letter to Ilene Chaiken"). Season 3 of The L Word presented the lesbian community in a particularly unflattering light, no doubt for the sake of artistic DRAMA.

In a perfect world this wouldn't matter, but since this world of ours is anything but perfect, The L Word does have consequences, and it does shape public opinion. In the state of Virginia, for instance, there will be a referendum on the ballot in November to amend the state's constitution. The amendment calls not only for banning gay marriages but also goes one step further and bans all unions between same sex couples that are intended to approximate marriage, civil unions for example. In the state where Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wrote the two most important political documents that this country is founded on, the current citizens may very well vote to enshrine discrimination into the constitution come November. What a tragic irony! Unfortunately Season 3 of The L Word portrayed lesbians as just the sort of people that many Virginians (and no doubt citizens of other states) will likely want to stop from marrying or adopting children or sharing child custody arrangements, etc. While the show may be good entertainment "and I must admit I have often enjoyed it very much" we must recognize that such entertainment comes at a social and/or political cost. Skywriter (or the president of GLAAD) said it well: "...how we are portrayed to the public...makes ALL the difference."

Go Back to Fan Editorials Archive Pages