Find out who’s coming back and what we can look forward to
The one and only thing that's getting me through this long, cold winter is the thought of The L Word reboot. I'm constantly ravenous for updates so when I found a brand new L Word interview this morning, I was as happy as Dana at an imaginary Tegan and Sara concert.
The very excellent Nerdette podcast interviewed the woman behind the show that changed my (and I'm guessing your) life, Saint Ilene Chaiken. It's a brilliant episode bursting with juicy titbits. Queen Ilene starts off by confessing that The L Word was so earth-shatteringly epic, it basically ruined her for all other shows:
"The L Word ruined me in the sense that it was so meaningful to me and meaningful apparently to a lot of other people. I've gotten this extraordinary and galvanising feedback over the years from people, mostly women but not exclusively women, who've said it really meant so much. 'It facilitated the conversation with my family.' 'It helped me come out.' 'It really made a difference in my life.' It's very rare to do a project that affects people in that way. It's a privilege. It ruined me because it became the bar."
I know how she feels. The L Word ruined me for all other shows too. Now I can't think of a single TV programme that wouldn't be vastly improved by Kate Moennig turning up, "looking very Shane today" and topping Cherie Jaffe by the pool.
It was then that the interview got really interesting, because Ilene opened up about exactly what and who we can expect to see on The L Word 2.0…
"The reboot in some ways is mine and always will be, but as you know it's being written and created by a new, and somewhat younger, lesbian writer. And that was always my intention. She's taking obviously the spirit of The L Word, many of the characters, the world. It's the same world. It's not a recasting or reinvention but it's 10 years later. And she's going to be telling the stories of a number of new characters. But Bette, Alice and Shane are most definitely still in her story, so that's something that we're taking from the original. And I'm hoping that other characters will also reprise their roles."
Now that is an exciting revelation. Fingers crossed we'll be seeing some of our fave faces talking, laughing, loving, breathing, fighting, fucking, crying, drinking, riding, winning, losing, cheating, kissing, thinking and dreaming their way round the The Planet once again.
But back to the podcast. Ilene addressed the issue of representation within the series and admitted some of the more problematic aspects of the original version…
"The writer who is writing the new L Word, she's also the show runner, is Marja-Lewis Ryan. She's incredibly gifted. And what I know she's doing and what I know is important to her, which is also obvious and important to me, is frankly more inclusivity, more inclusion, more diversity, more voices, better representations in all of the ways that we're discussing. She's going to talk about the world as it's changed in these 10 years, the world as it is. My nascent representation of trans experience, my flawed and not-quite-enough representation of different cultures, all of that I think will be more well realised and fully realised in the new L Word."
I for one cannot wait to see the new fully realised, represenational L Word. Seriously guys, I'm counting down the days.
You can listen to the whole Nerdette episode at nerdettepodcast.com.
@Roxy_Vintage
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