It's halfway through The L Word's sixth and final season and the show's devotees aren't merely wondering "Who killed Jenny Schecter?" They're faced with the reality of living in a post L Word television landscape. Before Bette, Tina, Shane, Alice and the rest of the West Hollywood stunners, channel-surfing gay girls were stuck with innocuous and primarily asexual lesbians as secondary plotlines and punch lines. And then came Ilene Chaiken, a dyed-in-the-wool Hollywood lesbian insider with a concept for a benchmark television show.
For a sense of Chaiken's and the show's impact on lesbian visibility one need look no further than a jaw-droppingly steamy billboard currently hovering over Sunset Blvd., which has likely caused more than a few near fender benders. Eight of the L Word's gorgeous cast members, clad in black lingerie and in various states of ecstasy are plastered against the L.A. skyline along with the provocative tagline "Going Down in History."
Since it's premiere in January of 2004 the L Word has been a touchstone for lesbians who began gathering together in droves on Sunday nights to watch gob-smacked as the West Hollywood gang loved, laughed, fought, cried, and engaged in frank, realistic, girl-on-girl sex. A lightning rod of debate since its inception, fans ogled, bashed, fell for and occasionally despised and repudiated the eye candy characters. But one aspect of the show unabashed fans and naysayers alike can't dispute is its watershed contribution to lesbian visibility on the small screen or anywhere in pop culture, for that matter.
As the L Word, in its current incarnation,winds down, there are plenty more questions on fans' minds aside from the Jenny Schecter mystery. The show's mastermind, Chaiken, chatted with SheWired about the Jenny question, the show's journey over the past six years, Leisha Hailey's spin-off and -- wait for it -- The L Word the movie!
TEG: Hi there. Thanks for chatting with us. I know you are a busy woman, so let's get down to business. So this is it.; your final pass?
IC: I refuse to frame it in that way.
TEG: (laughs) Okay. I understand. Well, are you happy with where the characters are at the end of Season 6?
IC: Um... (chuckle) Am I happy with where the characters are? Well, um, I'm happy with the stories we told, and I'm happy with where some of the characters are. And some of them have made messes of their lives!
TEG: Uhuh. As we do.
IC: Yes, As we do.
TEG: Well, I guess the really big question-- Other than, you know, "Who killed Jenny Schecter?"
IC: (Laughs)
TEG: ...Would be why?
IC: Um, Why did someone kill Jenny?
TEG: Why did we kill Jenny Schecter, in the bigger sense?
IC: Well I think the entire season is dedicated to answering that question. So I think that I would be doing the show a disservice if I were to answer it. I mean, really you're meant to want to know the answer to that through out the entire season.
TEG: Sure.
IC: I could give you a glib answer, like 'it was a good story...'
TEG: Of course.
IC: But I'd rather not be glib about it, because I actually do cherish these characters and would never make a decision like that lightly.
TEG: Yeah. Obviously you would have to give away some of the whole plot in order to answer that question. But from my point of view, I guess as the creator, and now correct me if I'm wrong -- But I believe I read ages ago, that in a lot of ways, Jenny was closest to your personality?
IC: Not to my personality. I would prefer...
TEG: I mean an alter-ego of sorts?
IC: I would say that details of her life were, um, more reflective of mine. You know there were a few things about Jenny that certainly could be said about me: we're both small, Jewish, and writers.
TEG: (laughs) Very funny.
IC: I really identified with Jenny quite a bit. But I think that our personalities are quite different. Um, And, you know, there's plenty of conversation to be had about the fact that Jenny seemed to be the character people loved to hate -- and did we kill her to please the audience?
TEG: I'm sure that's a question on more than a few fans' minds.
IC: And all of those factors cross our minds. And none of them is irrelevant. But ultimately, we tried to tell the story that had some ring of truth, and some dramatic truth to it. And that made sense in the context of this show that we've all been engaged with for six years from now.
TEG: Regarding Jenny, since she is kind of the catalyst for the story that you tell this season, when you created her, did you have any inkling that she would be the character that people loved to hate?
IC: No. No I didn't.
TEG: Was that hard for you?
IC: No. It was fascinating! And you know, I give a lot of credit to Mia Kirshner for being courageous in the choices that she makes. And I think that she has something to do with drawing the ire of any number of women who became fans of the show. I had envisioned Jenny initially as a less complex character. I think what Mia did with her was much more intriguing than anything that I could have imagined.
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TEG: Well, I have to say personally, that I've always been a fan of hers. Even when she's at what most would consider her worst, because I feel like she's really kind of a mirror to a lot of people in the lesbian community who are not necessarily always, you know...stable. I feel like I've been Jenny at times and I've dated Jenny at times, much more than I've encountered, say... a Bette type.
IC: I believe that to be true as well. I think that one of the reasons that people have reacted so strongly to Jenny is because she shows us a side of ourselves that we don't necessarily cherish.
TEG: Absolutely. This is really going back but I have to ask, since I am on the phone with you, it was so really brilliant to cast Jennifer Beals and Pam Grier, these icons from two separate decades, as sisters. Was that something that you really thought about or did it just kind of happen for the show?
IC: Well, I don't know if you know the evolution of that. They weren't initially cast as sisters. In the originial pilot we shot they weren't sisters. Kit was a different character entirely and she was not Bette's sister. And we looked at our pilot. Showtime picked up the show. They said, "we're going to do this. We're going to order the series. But there are a few things that aren't working in the pilot and one of them is this Kit character." And we all agreed that we loved Pam Grier and we loved her in the ensemble, but that she was miscast or that the character was poorly conceived. What do we do with Kit in this ensemble? And I looked at the pilot, and there was this one beautiful scene between Bette and Kit, and it evoked a relationship, and I watched the scene and I said, "Let's make them sisters! Lets make Kit Bette's older half sister and she will be the one non-lesbian in our ensemble." And that was how that came about.
TEG: I don't think I knew that. Thank you for that! Because the actors bring to the story and to their characters, a life, as you were talking about with Mia and 'Jenny.' Obviously, they go in a different trajectory sometimes than you perhaps imagine from the get-go. Are there any other, looking back, surprises in trajectory for a character that you hadn't anticipated?
IC: There are so many surprises. I just couldn't...
TEG: Can you just give me a couple?
IC: Initially, at the end of season 1, or maybe not season 1, sometime in season 2, I thought that Bette and Tina were history. I never thought that we would never get them back together.
TEG: Interesting.
IC: I thought that they would both move on into new relationships.What else? There are things that happen that determine stories that you tell, like Laurel Holloman's being pregnant.
TEG: Of course.
IC: We had to rack our brains around how to deal with that and what kind of story to tell.
TEG: One thing I've always really liked and it really came out last season, was this kind of post modern sensibility that the show has always had a real awareness of itself, and it couldn't get any deeper than with Lez Girls. Was that something that you've always had an awareness of? That kind of self-reflexivity?
IC: I was aware that the show was very "meta" already and that it would become more so if we told that particular story. But I was, we were telling a story about affluent women in Hollywood. And, already it was a little bit of a fiction that only one or two of them were in the movie business. I mean, you don't get a group of women in LA, in this socio-economic group in which you don't have more film industry people.
TEG: Sure.
IC: At and a certain point, we just went for it because we felt like we could at that point.
TEG: I have to ask you a little bit about Lesiha Hailey or "Alice" getting a spin-off. Is there anything you can say about where that's at?
IC: No (laughs) other than that I'm really excited about it. And I'm thrilled to be working with Leisha, and to be working with Alice, in a new show.
TEG: Okay. Can you even tell me if you shot the pilot yet? I thought it was shooting in December.
IC: Uh, yes. We shot the pilot but it's not finished and we're not ready to talk about it yet.
TEG: Okay, alright. So, regarding Jenny and who killed her, have you considered any marketing around that?
IC: I think that Showtime is already marketing--
TEG: Like a board game, I mean. The Who Killed Jenny Shecter game?
IC: I would be delighted if someone did a board game. A Who Killed Jenny Shecter board game!
TEG: Okay, well I'm sure that there will be some lesbians out there who will work on that immediately.
IC: It will have to have things like Lesbian Bed Death in it.
TEG: Naturally...
IC: And all kinds of other red herrings.
TEG: I love it! Well yeah, I'm actually going to get working on that when I hang up the phone. I don't want to keep you to long but other than Alice and her moving along, what else is happening for you, project wise?
IC: It's enough for me right now. I'm still working on the L Word. I haven't finished, I haven't delivered all my shows yet.
TEG: Oh right, right, right.
IC: I'm still editing the season final. And I'm working on the spin off, and I've got a couple of other things I'm mulling over, but, this is good for me right now.
TEG: Okay. So obviously, Alice has got this show, but is there sort of melancholy over this being the final season?
IC: I would call it bittersweet. And also, I just refuse to believe that the L Word is over. I think we'll revisit it somehow. I don't know, maybe we'll make an L Word movie...
TEG: Mmm, I would love that! All the girls on the big screen...
IC: So would I. And I think my collegues in the cast would also love to do it. And I'm thinking about it and when I have a moment to regroup, I'll figure out what I think it would be and see if we could make it happen. I feel like, you know, the L Word still has a life.
TEG: Absolutely. Alright, well, is there anything you would like to say about the show or season 6 that we haven't touched on?
IC: No, I hope that all the of people who've loved and supported the show all these years are reasonably satisfied and that everybody has a great time in the final season. And that there are more good parties!
TEG: (laughs) I'm sure there will be.
