The L Word Serves Misogyny to Start the Third Season with a Bang

In my months away from the L Word, I did enjoy a feminist armistice among my homo-lady-brethren. As long as we don't talk about the show in the off-months, I find we can all agree on a few things. First and foremost, I think we can all safely say that rape and sexual assault are bad. I mean, it's not like it's the first thing people want to talk about- even when something in particular seems to give reason for dialogue. And it's easy to lose conversation interest when you bring up second-wave hit words to many lesbian crowds. If I weren't such a demagogue, I'd try to stay further away from 'patriarchy' and stop mentioning Dworkin, Lovelace, MacKinnon, and Solanas as if they were dear friends. But I've never been good at playing nice with the "community." And fortunately, the new season of 'The L Word' has given more than ample reason to vent man-hating anger to my homo in-group once more.


Maybe you, like I, find it genuinely hard to evaluate which subplot of our show is the most offensive. Who can really pick when there are so many colorful options! Is it the way the show addresses poverty, drug-use, homelessness, and sex work? Not this week. What about the way it valorizes the traditional family and affluence? Nah. Although the scenes with Bette and Tina, Kit and Willy, and Carmen's family were all egregiously problematic and painfully simple. Most viewers watch it like they do the rest of contemporary television, with the expectation that it will represent upper-middle class characters. Of course, I could get all riled up about the ongoing class, race, and gender politics of the show. (We are assuming here that even the vague IDEA of Ivan must be ignored/forgotten in order to spare the life of your personal television.)

It's hard to acknowledge the fact that despite the horrific acting, Jenny's character is the most realistic one. Maybe I should be more critical of her simplified trauma-survivor Schtick. No, after all of that, this week's episode was comparatively MOST offensive when it came to exploitation and degradation.

As if it wasn't bad enough that the end of season two had Jenny on speaking terms with her voyeuristic male roommate! Shane leaves off all buddy-buddy with the fuckhead; she even takes him to a dyke event where he picks up a girl. (Something Shane, kiddishly teases him about later.) Season three leaves the problem unaddressed.

How can the writers, producers, and creators perpetuate such an evil, misogynistic thread? Okay, okay. So it's not exactly a precedent. After all, the end of the first season featured an UNdiscussed rape. The most the show does is imply that Tim's rape exacerbates Jenny's pre-existing trauma. I'm so glad that 'The L Word' finds it prudent to reiterate the old "she-was-asking-for-it" routine. That some dark, Darwinistic biologism bullshit, batman. Most women accept the rape in the first season as at least mundane or terribly ordinary, not uncommon. This worries me. If an apparently savvy lesbian audience doesn't perceive acquaintance rape as RAPE, what can we hope for from mainstream audiences. Certainly, I don't think we should be prepared to chalk up the apparent indifference to the fact that we're watching gay t.v. After all, rape is a 'gay issue' more worthy of a three minute round table discussion than what Alice calls her cunt.

So why is it that Jenny and Shane (and Carmen) are able to "forgive" the man? It seems like it should be on affluent lesbian television that this man can be judged without seeming villainized. And their excuse for accepting his behavior? He's really sorry? (No REALLY!) He's just a human? He wants it to be better? Or worst of all, this is his nature and he is trying to grow as a person? Jenny did have one brief lucid moment in which she told the fucker that she didn't exist to make him a better person. Following scenes now make it seem as though they were trying to play her as crazy. Isn't this the wrong forum for another vision of a "frigid" woman, denying a man what he's owed by her (her sex)?



And I'm not even going to touch the entirely uncritical and idiotic Freud tear in the first scene of the first episode of season three. It doesn't really warrant investigation, as much as it does contribute to knee-jerk faux feminism and pop-psychology of every day life.

I'm also not going to spend too much time (yet) worrying about that forced feminization scene with Shane wearing that white dress. It's fucked up in one way or another but I guess it depends on where they're going with it.

Until next week, I'm done here.