Is the "L Word" Feminist?

By Sal Renshaw, Ms. Magazine. Posted March 11, 2009.

I think the show is actually remarkable in the way it touches on an array of issues that bear on lesbian existence: biracial relationships, lesbians who return to men, lesbian adoption and co-parenting, lesbian "divorces" from marriages that the state doesn't even recognize, gays in the military, etc. But the place where The L Word has most consistently focused its LGBT feminist energy is around the transgender issue. From the first season on, the show has invested in questions about trans-inclusion, initially through a drag-king character Kit falls for and then through Max, who's introduced in the series as a woman lover of Jenny's. If rumors are anything to go by, one of the primary story arcs of the final season will revolve around Max and his ongoing transition, so again we will see transgenderism as a core question at the heart of this lesbian community.

For the most part, though, The L Word doesn't wear its politics on its sleeve, and actually it can't. This is television after all, and being the first show of its kind The L Word has had a lot of people to please. Even the trans issue will qualify as feminism for some and not for others. But it's worth remembering that the very structure of dramatic television tends to reverse the feminist maxim that the personal is political. On dramatic TV, what matters most is always the personal -- the relationships, who lives and who dies, who sleeps with whom, who cheats on whom. If politics is your passion, you will have to find it by reading between the lines, and there won't be too many T-shirts to guide your way. In all fairness, however, The L Word, unlike a lot of television, has left us with a lot of lines to read between. Here's hoping that the final episode of season six doesn't close the book on the ongoing representation of complex lesbian lives on television, because along with it will go a remarkably consistent representation of feminist issues -- if not of a feminist politics that will please everyone.

The full text of this article appears in the Winter issue of Ms., available on newsstands or by joining the Ms. community.

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