READ Edge Dallas The Real L Word :: End of chapter one
The Real L Word :: End of chapter one
Via EDGE DALLAS
With Season One of The Real L Word coming to a close on Sunday, August 15, 2010, there’s yet to be a decision by Showtime to renew the series for another season. What will likely tilt the network towards renewal are the show’s strong fan base and the high ratings it has received since premiering in late June. Since that time audiences have enjoyed watching its Los Angeles lesbians go through drama, romance and maybe a bitch slap or two. And judging from the fans responses on the series Facebook page, the second season can’t come any sooner.
At the recent Television Critics Association bi-annual press tour, the cast (Rose Garcia, Jill Goldstein, Mikey Koffman, Whitney Mixter, Tracy Ryerson, Nikki Weiss) along with creator Ilene Chaiken and Executive Producer Jane Lipsitz gathered in Beverly Hills to take questions from journalists and EDGE’s Jim Halterman was there.
Parental conflicts?
Question: We see with Rose this rich contrast between her father being so accepting and the mother seemingly not wanting to talk to her or something. I was wondering, Rose, if you could talk about that a little bit, and then some of the other people talk about do you find similar situations where you find some parents that are just very warm and accepting and some parents that just become very distant?
Rose Garcia: Well, in my case, my entire family is accepting. I have a Puerto Rican-Catholic background. So it’s very unheard of for, you know, for a Puerto Rican-Catholic family to accept a gay family member. My mother not speaking to me had something to do with more of a sisterly kind of little fight we had, but she is accepting of my sexuality and my lifestyle as well as my entire family.
Question: And for anyone else, do you find interesting contrast between reactions of some of your parents and some of the other parents?
Tracy Ryerson: My mother is also from Puerto Rico. It’s been a process for her, and you’ll see that transpire… but I thought it was important for people to see the mother’s point of view and the daughter’s. So both sides of it can have a conversation, but it was definitely a lot easier talking to my father about it. He’s a Brooklyn Jew. He has a different background, but my mom is definitely having a little bit of a problem – a little bit of trouble with it. I think mostly it’s from what other people are telling her and how, you know, she’s going to react to it. She’s worried about others.
Nikki Weiss: I think for myself, I had a mother who probably knew I was gay before I did. So when I told her, she wasn’t very shocked. I don’t have much of a relationship with my father. I had done an appearance on “Oprah” in 2006 about women who figured out that they were gay a little bit later, and the first phone call that I [received] from him in many years was “I was watching the ’Oprah’ show by chance yesterday, and I saw this very attractive woman on her show, and I thought ’What a waste of a woman,’ and then I realized it was you.” So I have not spoken to him or seen him in about 10 years.
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Watch this behind-the-scene feature about The Real L Word:
A second season?
Question: For Ilene Chaiken, Showtime has been known to renew series after just one episode has aired. So we’re getting down to the nub here. Are you fairly confident you’ll be back for a second season? Are you in hard-core negotiations right now?
Ilene Chaiken: I’m never confident. Nothing is done until it’s done, but I’m very hopeful. I mean, honestly, we don’t know. We don’t know, and there are some changes going on at Showtime, and I think that we’re all going to have to talk and see what everyone is thinking.
Nikki Weiss: But if it doesn’t get picked up, we’re all moving in a house together. So bring your Flip cameras.
Question: What are your thoughts about “The L Word,” the original series as it existed? What were your thoughts on watching it? How did you feel portrayed?
Whitney Mixter: I was a big fan of the original “L Word.” It was the first time I could look at women and truly relate and see myself back. It’s hard. There’s not a lot of lesbian representation out there on TV and I could finally see successful women who also happen to be lesbians, and it was very refreshing for me. I think that the original “L Word” got some criticism for do these women really exist. And I myself, and I’m sure these women can agree, were proud to be part of something that can actually support that and say, yes, actually women like this do exist.
Question: Did that put added pressure on you when you started this, though you are the real deal, as it were?
Whitney Mixter: I think it was a good thing because we had a fan base starting out. I think a natural inclination is to try to associate us with original “L Word” cast members. “You’re this person, and you’re this person.” But honestly, of course, there’s going to be some similarities in characteristics, but we’re all very much individual in ourselves and our own characters or people.
Question: Ilene, what kinds of women did you want to get [for the show]? Did you have some iconic thoughts from the [original] series that you wanted to replicate at all?
Ilene Chaiken: We had some notion about representation, about a particular swath of women from a very diverse community. We’re clearly not purporting to represent every lesbian on the face of the earth or the entire lesbian community, and “The L Word” has a particular meaning. We wanted to cast women who in some ways spoke about the same thing that the “The L Word” spoke about. Beyond that, there’s a whole casting process that I learned in working with Jane and her colleagues and learned about how important it is to be open to let people come in and tell their stories to you. And you learn things and you meet people you never anticipated, and then we made choices based on who we thought would have something really to say.
Question: The ending [of the original series] was a disappointment to some people. I want to have you address some of that. I think maybe part of it was that there was going to be another story after it. Can you talk a little bit about the end of that series?
Ilene Chaiken: There was a purported spinoff. The ending, the finale, of the “The L Word” never had anything to do with that spinoff, and, in fact, we chose that story before we ever decided to do the prison show, and it just was truly coincidental that that story was able to lead into the prison show, and it gave us a way to spin the Alice character into it. And we just told the best story we could, and we told a story we thought said what we wanted to say about the end of that particular phase of the “The L Word” journey, if you will.
Question: Did you get a mixed reaction from people about it?
Question: Whitney, is there something about your nature where you just are attracted to many people that ends up with so many complications? And also can you tell us how that’s going to play out?
Whitney Mixter: I think I was the only single one on the show, and I put myself out there and I obviously am very flirtatious and I think that sometimes girls like the unavailable. At that current moment, during taping especially, I was very unavailable. So maybe it made me a hotter commodity. I mean, I’m open. I’m fun with the girls, and I think that that caused me to get in some sticky situations and that is what you will see for the next three episodes. Things really work up to a peak and kind of stay there. (Laughter.) But, you know, I did try to maintain as much honesty as I could with all of the women because, obviously, I respect them. I care for all of them, and that’s when I get myself in the most trouble.
Nikki Weiss: See, the problem is that she’s the Fonz. So she goes like this, and all the girls come.
The Real L Word airs Sunday nights on Showtime with the first season finale airing Sunday, August 15th.