--By B&TF

I don’t know about you but I keep wondering about the affect that “The L Word” had on the television. “The L Word” was indeed a groundbreaking show and it brought much needed attention to the LGBT issues. I’m not here to argue how well or how realistic those issues were represented; I’m here to talk about the LGBT representation on TV after “The L Word” ended its sixth and final season.

In a few of her recent appearances and speeches, Ilene Chaiken expressed her concern about the lack of representation of the lesbian characters on TV. When she was getting the Davidson/Valentini Award at the San Francisco GLAAD ceremony last year, Ilene was talking about her hope that when “The L Word” goes off the air in 2009, the LGBT community will be represented in a big way and not just by recurring secondary characters.

She pretty much repeated the same thing during her appearance at Brava in San Francisco in March 2009 that she always thought that they will have “The L Word” on the air for five-six years and by the time it will end there will be many shows, waiting to be made and taking off where TLW left off. And then Ilene added that she doesn’t know what happened because we find ourselves once again not represented on the television.

Apart from “The L Word”, which aired on Showtime, there were hardly any lesbian characters on the mainstream networks, and none as lead characters.

According to the GLAAD 2008-2009 report, “At the launch of the 2008-2009 television season, GLAAD estimates that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) scripted characters represent 2.6% of all scripted series regular characters on the five broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and The CW. This is nearly double last year, with 16 series regular characters identified as LGBT. In contrast, the number of LGBT series regular characters found on scripted programming on mainstream cable networks has decreased from last year’s analysis, from 40 to 32.”

GLAAD also mentioned two LGBT-focused cable networks, here! and Logo, which program specifically for LGBT viewers. These two networks alone will provide 39 additional series regular LGBT characters, more than all of the other cable networks combined. However, not all cable providers offer here! and Logo, so those shows don’t reach as many viewers as the mainstream television networks.

No offence to gay and transgendered characters, but I’d like to concentrate on the lesbian characters, so let’s see where they are on TV.

- After Brooke Smith’s Erica Hahn left Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez) on “Grey’s Anatomy” in the middle of season five, many viewers were devastated and confused. Smith’s dismissal from the show gathered a lot of controversy. Brooke Smith stated that she was really shocked because it happened so sudden, and she basically suggested that the main reason was network executives’ discomfort with lesbian relationship on the show. Or, as E! Online put it, “as an attempt to de-gay Grey’s Anatomy” by ABC Network. Series creator Shonda Rhimes denied that Brooke Smith was fired because she played a lesbian character. She stated that there was no chemistry between those two characters to keep Erica Hahn on the show for a long run. Who knows what really happened but season five gave us Dr. Arizona Robbins (Jessica Capshaw), attending pediatric surgeon, who began a new relationship with Callie.

- “Mental” is a television series, produced by Fox's subsidiary Fox Telecolombia, which debuted in 2009 on FOX international channels for Latin America, Europe and Asia, starring Chris Vance and Annabella Sciorra. Fox aired the pilot episode on May 26, 2009 for the American market and Fox TV Studios ordered 13 episodes. Dr. Chloë Artis (Marisa Ramirez) is a lesbian psychiatrist who rejects junior resident Arturo Suarez’s attempted sexual advances towards her.

- The TNT drama, “The Closer”, premiered on June 13, 2005. Each season revolves around a central theme, which has a criminal plot that often parallels or mirrors events in personal life of Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick). Brenda arrives in Los Angeles to lead the Priority Murder Squad, a team that deals only with high profile murder cases. At the end of season four, the squad began to handle a wide range of crimes and was renamed the Major Crimes Division. In season five we were introduced to a new detective Mikki Mendoza (Paola Turbay). Turbay said in TVGuide interview, “She appears … as the director of the SIS, a part of the LAPD that supports Brenda’s squad when it’s time to catch the bad guys. She does car-crashing, door-kicking, punching … all the tough stuff. And what has caught many people’s interest is the fact that she is a lesbian.” Turbay appeared in two episodes so far and will come back for another two or three.

- “Bones” is a drama TV series that premiered on the Fox Network on September 13, 2005. The show’s central theme is forensics and each episode focuses on an FBI case file solving the mystery behind human remains, investigated by FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth and the forensic anthropology team of Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan. It was revealed in season four that one of the characters, forensic artist Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin) is a bisexual and about eight years prior she was in a long-term relationship with a woman named Roxie. The two met again in episode 408 and resumed their relationship for awhile. Okay, Angela’s bisexual, not lesbian but I thought I’d mention her here because she’s really cute.

- “Saving Grace” is a crime drama series on TNT, which premiered on July 23, 2007 and stars Academy Award-winner Holly Hunter as Grace Hanadarko, a smoking, heavy drinking, and promiscuous Oklahoma City detective. The third season of “Saving Grace” began airing June 16, 2009 and here’s a little spoiler tidbit that came from AfterEllen.com. A casting call was leaked that asked for three lesbian Oklahoma police officers that will be featured in one of the August episodes, entitled “Looks like a lesbian attack to me”.

- “All My Children” is a soap opera and drama television series that has been broadcast on the ABC TV network since January 5, 1970. As ratings began to fall in the late 1990s, its creator Agnes Nixon made a brief return and decided to write a story that would breathe new life into the show and be socially relevant at the same time. This resulted in the revelation that Erica Kane’s daughter Bianca (last played by Eden Riegel) was a lesbian. She admitted the truth to her mother in December 2000. Bianca’s character was cited by newspapers as “the first lead character on a major daytime drama to be a lesbian”. Since coming out, Bianca had a few relationships and when she falls in love with Lena Kundera (Olga Sosnovska), they share a first lesbian kiss in American soap opera history (in 2003). There’s a lot more stuff that happened to Bianca but I won’t even try to attempt to describe it here. Check Wikipedia if you are interested. All I’m going to say is that now Bianca is in Paris with her fiancé Reese (Tamara Braun), and they have two children.

- “Guiding Light” is another soap opera that has Olivia and Natalia, better known as Otalia, portrayed by Crystal Chappell and Jessica Leccia. Olivia and Natalia’s relationship started to develop following Olivia’s heart transplant in April 2008. Since then, the couple’s relationship has changed from being enemies to close friends who rely on each other to becoming more than friends. Olivia and Natalia are currently the most praised and rooted for same-sex couple in American daytime drama. They have finally solidified their love and relationship but Otalia’s long-term prospects are uncertain because “Guiding Light”, the longest soap opera on American TV, will end its 72 year-old run on September 18, 2009 due to low ratings.

- According to Associated Press, a spokeswoman for the CW network, Kristen Hall, says Rumer Willis will appear on “90210”. The 20-year-old daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore will guest-star in one episode as ‘a punky, cute lesbian who isn't afraid to speak her mind’. Willis’ character, named Gia (made me think of Angelina Jolie’s character right away), will work at the school paper. Her episode will air September 15, a week after the second-season premiere.

And that’s pretty much it. I might have missed some characters and of course, I only did my research on American TV shows but just as Ilene predicted, there a few lesbian characters and they appear as secondary. And it makes me miss “The L Word” even more, in spite of all its flaws and imperfections.

Note: Web Series are becoming popular alternatives to traditional television. Check out Anyone But Me and We Have to Stop Now. Both are very professionally written, directed, acted, and shot and deserve lesbian attention. We need to support and inspire lesbian "shows" in all their forms.

Also, there are two new lesbian movies hitting the film circuit: Hannah Free and And Then Came Lola.

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