The L Word and feminism...

So. I've been watching the L Word the past couple of weeks. I have it playing in the background while I'm doing the things I'm doing at home...kind of like a soundtrack of women declaring undying love, lust, anger, frustration...you name it, they express it. Women. Damn, I love them...and since putting myself in emotional mothballs last year (nearly to the day), I had lost touch with the fact that there IS a community of lesbians in the world...that there ARE groups of friends that are all gay and spend time and life together. I'm getting back to myself with The L Word, and I'm damn lucky that this show even existed.

Now then...on to the feminism tie-in.

There is apparently an L Word book...so I did a search for reviews on it, trying to decide if I wanted to own this particular piece of memorabilia (go figure, they don't have it at the public library in way-more-conservative-than-anyone-would-care-to-admit San Diego)...and I came across a review from Off OurBacks. HYSTERICAL!

I gave up after about 4 paragraphs and started to just skim...apparently, well-dressed, well-toned, educated, and close-knit groups of lesbians don't REALLY exist. The major complaint was that the show wasn't representative of the lesbian world as a whole. Well of COURSE not! Everyone knows that MOST lesbians are overweight alcoholics who stay at home with their girlfriends and their cats and rarely venture outside the confines of their well-manicured gardens. As if.

I lived in Los Angeles...I went to clubs like The Abbey, and Milk, and Velvet (when it was still around)...and let me tell you all. The lesbians in L.A. ARE hot...well-dressed, well-toned, educated...and...ok, shallow as all hell for the most part. BUT! That is what an L.A. lesbian is...and this show is ABOUT L.A. lesbians. If they made a show about midwestern lesbians, I think the ratings would be subterranean in a matter of 2 episodes. Which brings up the next gripe...pandering to men. The claim was that all the sex was done for male gratification. It's interesting...lesbians are by definition with other WOMEN. This show is about lesbians...and the TOKEN men in it are USED by the women in it...in much the way the opposite has been the norm for the drop in the bucket of time that the last 2 centuries has been. And when one of the lesbians strays off the ranch, she leaves him to return to her true love...a WOMAN.

I think The L Word did an excellent job of detailing all sorts of issues and how they might be dealt with in the context of a group of female friends. I know, because I've been in these groups of friends...and things that happen on the show DO happen within lesbian circles. In this case, I feel like the feminist reviewer is doing nothing but LOOKING for a reason to hate the show...because these women don't LOOK like her...and they don't spend all day hanging out with their cat in the environmentally sustainable shack built on an organic farm, where they grow all their own food and pray to the Goddess thanking her for their bountiful harvest before consuming. Blech...I'll take Tiny, Bette, Shane, Alice, and Dana over that any day...

Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-changes....

...turn and face the strange.

How strange are things that change when all you feel is a sense of relief in place of the panic that you EXPECTED to feel?

I'm more angry than anything else. Angry with myself for letting it go on as long as it did. Angry with her for being that person for that long. Why have I attracted liars and people who adore drama to the extent that they create it where there once was peace? The only thing I can do is point my finger directly at myself and sigh with consternation, because I'm the one that's responsible for my decisions at the end of the day. As much as another is to blame for their own actions, at some point it becomes my fault for accepting situations and treatments that make me fucking miserable. Hello, Ms. Drake, will you please stand up and take a bow?

Yeah, me.

So now, I'm sitting here, looking around at my place, my darling little mutt, my backyard with it's charming but crumbling fire pit...the sun streaming through the sheer curtains as they dance gently from the breeze...and I'm feeling...full.

Interesting...a touch sad...but more...interesting.