Is the "L Word" Feminist?

OK, so I admit it: The L Word is one of my guilty pleasures and I will be more than a little sad to see it go.

Showtime's breakout lesbian TV drama, set in Los Angeles and starring an ensemble cast of gorgeous, femme women, is about to roll out its sixth and final season, and fan forums are sparking with speculation. Will Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman), the "perfect" lesbian couple, stay together? Will Shane (Kate Moennig), the lesbian lothario, be converted to the joys of monogamy? Will the formerly bisexual Alice (Leisha Hailey), now a TV celebrity, and Tasha (Rose Rollins), the Iraq vet who was don't-ask-don't-tell'd from the military, split up now that Alice has eyes for another woman? And what of Max (Daniela Sea), the female-to-male transgender character who may or may not go through a full transition? Then there's Jenny (Mia Kirshner) -- will there be anything redeeming in this last season about Jenny, the character viewers have most loved to hate?

These are the kinds of questions that tap into how The L Word, and indeed all TV dramas, hook their audiences and, like it or not, reveal how voyeuristic we are. Turns out lots of us like to watch this sort of visual gossip. And, it turns out, lots of us -- no matter whom we sleep with -- like to watch lesbians. In fact, here in North America, we have a less-than-distinguished tradition of turning the act of watching lesbians into high ratings. As media critic Virginia Heffernan has noted in The New York Times, women kissing women has been a consistent "sweeps week" tactic since 1991.

But this is precisely what The L Word isn't doing. It's not exploiting women's sexuality for straight pleasure, which in some sense is what its straight big sister, Sex and the City, did. Showtime even tried to connect the two by advertising The L Word with the slogan "Same Sex, Different City," but the differences between the shows are far more notable than the similarities. The L Word broke new ground in its focus on women who love women, who live with women and orient their intimate and daily lives around women. Yes, there are men on The L Word, and there are heterosexual relationships, but they are never the center of the action or dialogue for very long. This women-centered focus makes it very different from not only Sex and the City but almost every other TV drama or sitcom, even those with predominantly female casts such as The Golden Girls.