On a path a Michelle Jones type situation

The L Word, week 4

Where to begin? Really, there is so much about this episode to bitch about that I don’t even know where to start. I guess the actual beginning is as good a place to start as any.
We begin with what you would think is a flashback but since it says it’s modern day Greenwich Village we’ll call it a flashcurrent instead. Like last week’s flashback there are two (and eventually three) characters that we don’t recognize at all. They aren’t part of the core cast and don’t even look vaguely familiar. I’m betting that one of the three women in the flashcurrent is the subject the photographer was shooting in last week’s flashback but I can’t say for certain. I’m also betting that the same woman will appear in L.A. in a few weeks and screw up someone’s relationship or job or something. It would be kind of funny though if they just never mentioned it again. Like if they just had the flashcurrent and never ever showed it again and never ever mentioned those characters again. That would be entertaining. But they won’t because we, as an audience, are supposed to recognize that they are “Building Up to Something Big” because lord knows it isn’t terribly obvious when you repeatedly show unknown, unnamed characters that you’re going to use them for something, er, dramatic.
In other news the ever hot Jennifer Beals is about to get fired because she went around her boss’s back, pissed off the board, etc, etc. The specifics aren’t really important, the point is just that she thinks the board of the museum she works for are boring conservative people with no art vision (cue playing of Bernie Mac and Lebron James’ Court Vision commercial). But special guest start Holland Taylor saves the day. Again, specifics are unimportant. All you need to know is “Holland Taylor good” and “Jennifer Beals hot.” Oh and yeah Jennifer Beals’ girlfriend finds out that she’s pregnant close to the beginning of the episode. And instead of just telling Jennifer that she’s pregnant, Blonde chick instead sets a place at the dinner table for baby to be and puts her home pregnancy test on the plate. Now, she peed on that test, so I think it’s just gross that she put it on a plate. I know dishwashers are super capable and all but I don’t think they are tested for what temperature and what cycle is best for getting urine off of plates so I’d be boiling that plate alone. Several times. Just, ewww.
This week Alice is boring and Tennis Player and her new girlfriend are sweet (except for a really stupid subpoint about sex that I’m not even going into) so nothing exciting to bitch about there. Oh wait one thing to bitch about there. Alice (the bisexual one in case I hadn’t mentioned that) has a crush on a man who calls himself a “Lesbian identified man.” Excuse me? What the fuck are you talking about? If I heard correctly he also calls himself Lisa. Lisa the lesbian identified man. Let’s just repeat that to ourselves for a moment… “Lisa the lesbian identified man.” Apparently I missed the update to the definition of lesbian from “of or relating to homosexuality between females” to including men. I swear when the character spoke the line about being a lesbian identified man I really just want to hurl. I mean we don’t get any solid words to describe our relationships and commitments (spouse, partner, girlfriend all have other meanings as well as in the lesbian context) and now the one word that actually has a solid definition for us is being used by/for a man? I’m really not a psycho militant lesbian but come on! What kind of lesbians are writing this show? What I’m really pissed about though is that Lisa the lesbian identified man was played by Brian Krakow. I love Brian Krakow but not even my affection for him is making his character (and what I anticipate to be a continuing storyline) less nauseating for me.
OK now to the good, and when I say good I mean good to bitch about but bad in general, stuff. AKA Straight Girl, Boyfriend and Predatory Lesbian (PL). I’m going to have to start calling Predatory Lesbian something else now because she’s not even the predator anymore. She’s not pursuing, she’s not calling, she’s not doing anything because she doesn’t have to. Straight Girl, no doubt fueled by her pussy addiction, is running to her all the time. In what has to be an all time low, Straight Girl leaves her boyfriend sitting at a sidewalk table at PL’s cafe so she can go into the bathroom and get it on with PL. Besides being unfaithful and tacky, Straight Girl also makes the ugliest sex faces in the world. Really unattractive. Please make it stop.
Later Straight Girl and Boyfriend go home. There she receives a phone call from an ex-professor of hers that she apparently had a sexual relationship with at some point. Ex-professor is in L.A. and wants to have dinner with her, blah, blah, blah. Although this makes the boyfriend nervous and jealous “the caveman deal isn’t his style.” So after having sex with her boyfriend (and imaging PL while it was happening) Straight Girl goes and has a bizarre dinner that includes a mention of her having once masturbated in church and confessing her sexual relationship with PL. After many hours Boyfriend’s jealousy becomes too much and he goes to find her with ex-professor. Only she isn’t there because, wait for it, she’s off bumping and grinding (literally no less) with PL. Classy. Previews for next weeks episode indicate that boyfriend is going to walk in on PL going down on Straight Girl. Mama said drama.
Again this week Pam Grier is an afterthought with very minimal screentime or character progression. Such a waste. I’m just hopeful that in an episode or two Pam Grier is going to look straight into the camera and say “Time for a revolution up in here so I’m taking over this episode. It’s going to be all about me” and then it is.
So to review:
- Blonde girl peed on a stick and placed said stick on a plate instead of just saying “Honey, I’m pregnant.”
- Brian Krakow used the words “lesbian identified man” and I wanted to jump through the screen and smack him.
- Straight Girl had sex with PL in a bathroom, had sex with her boyfriend on the living room floor, and went back to PL again for even more Woman Love (trademark still pending).
- Yet again Pam Grief is woefully underused.

“mama said drama”… hahaha.. LOL..
michelle, your L word reviews make monday a lot easier to handle.. thank you for being consistent..
why is it that straight girl is the one gettin’ all the action? triple dippin’ and shit..
hehe.

i think the flashcurrent thing is actually annoying. i think they think they’re being clever, but…i’m not impressed.
i loved the holland taylor scene! she is fabulous.
i admit, i may have wrapped up the peed-upon stick in a cute gift box with a ribbon or something, but yeah…i thought the same thing when it appeared on the plate. euuww.
i so loved “my so called life” (and brian krakow), and i loved the shirt “lisa” was wearing. but the whole “lesbian-identified man” thing was just stupid. if i ever, ever meet anyone identifying as such, i will have to run away just to avoid saying something mean. immediate eye-rolling, however, will be unavoidable.
i just want to slap straight girl silly. she is SO annoying me. lookin’ like one of those tacky “big-eyed girl” paintings from the ’60s and ’70s.
i’m hoping for a little more future storyline with pam, re: the letter from her son. what a total waste of talent and presence.

thanks for this review. i was flipping back and forth while being grammified. i thought i missed a lot, but after reading your review i really see i didn’t miss much. this show just isn’t doing it for me yet.

“Only she isn’t there because, wait for it, she’s off bumping and grinding (literally no less) with PL. Classy.”
Classy indeed. Hey, that’s my word!
This excerpt was what drove me to Google to find an opinion that agreed with my own… which is “what the FUCK?!?”
George W. may be a total asshole, but we’re never going to make any real progress with sensationalist bullshit like this stirring the ire of the public. I mean, COME ON, if this show is the first to formally introduce lesbians… why jump RIGHT INTO the dark side with predatory sexuality and capitalizing upon men’s Big Fear that every woman is really gay and will cheat on them, gleefully, given any opportunity and a spare bathroom. Or worse, that getting it on isn’t cheating as long as it’s with a person with identical naughty parts.
Uh huh. Leave it to television to sell that oh-so-enlightened message. I’d like to see the public reaction when Ken leaves Barbie during a manicure to get it on with Seth in the makeup room.
I don’t get Showtime, so I’ll have to rely upon you for more keen updates. I’ll stay tuned… and thanks. I like the entries I’ve seen thus far!

The L Word, week 5

For all you non-cable having folks, skits has reminded me that it’s really unfair of us cable having people to deprive you of cable show snark. So allow me to present much snark about Showtime’s new lesbian themed drama The…

After watching this episode, I finally found the time to look on the internet for the definition of a “lesbian-identified-man” – 1 word – HOW ?

I am having a serious problem with the lesbian-identified man. I really don’t want to be critical of the women writing for this show. I can imagine that they are having a hard time conveying everything that we would like to see in a show about us. This is, after all the first show of its kind…..but this Lisa guy bothers me.
He really bothers me. The thing I am most upset about is the fact that after the bi girl and he had sex, he ran away. It just reminds me of the many times that I have heard girls say that males get what they want and run. That really makes me uneasy….

Great site! I, like the other writer, searched the web to find a kindred soul who is confused and disturbed by this show. I’m a dyke with Tivo, thank god, so I can fast forward through the muck to the rare scenes worth watching. If gay girls are writing this thing – how come the love scenes usually look so WRONG — like the gals are playing Twister? It’s so odd. Wait till you see the upcoming episode where Tennis Ball gets it on with the whiney writer chick. I felt so sorry for the actors that had to perform this horribly written and directed scene. Stay tuned…

ok; so brian krakow aka lisa is a little over the top i agree. but lets take a step back for a moment…. what happened to respect for the transgendered? isn’t the whole point that gender is just a construction? if lesbian identified man is too stupid too say, then what is a more appropriate term?

It may be their point that gender is just a contrsuc but it’s definitely not mine. I don’t buy into that theory myself. Neither my gender nor my sexuality is “fluid” (how I hate that term) and I really get irritated with the insistence that it is.

Let’s try replacing “lesbian identified man” in these posts with other terms related to sexual identity and race and see if they sound familiar:

• [Alice] has a crush on a man who calls himself a transexual. Excuse me? What the fuck are you talking about? If I heard correctly he also calls himself Lisa. Lisa the transexual. Let’s just repeat that to ourselves for a moment… Transexual. Apparently I missed the update to the definition of woman from “of or relating to females” to including men. I swear when the character spoke the line about being a transexual I really just want to hurl.
• What I’m really pissed about though is that Lisa the lesbian was played by Brianna Krakow. I love Brianna Krakow but not even my affection for her is making her character (and what I anticipate to be a continuing storyline) less nauseating for me.
• Brian Krakow used the term drag queen and I wanted to jump through the screen and smack him.
• I am having a serious problem with the whole butch thing. [snip] this Lisa chick bothers me. She really bothers me.
• [From February 23 post] The Black Man was back this episode and made me want to hurl. He and Alice (the black-loving character) look to be on track for at least a bit of dating which means I’m going to have to watch this crap a lot. So not amusing.
• …the whole queer thing was just stupid. if i ever, ever meet anyone identifying as such, i will have to run away just to avoid saying something mean. immediate eye-rolling, however, will be unavoidable.
• After watching this episode, I finally found the time to look on the internet for the definition of a gay man – 1 word – HOW ?
• If Native American is too stupid too say, then what is a more appropriate term?

Does this sexual orientation threaten the “sanctity of lesbianism”? Do we need a constitutional amendment to ban the existence of lesbian identified men?

Let there be tolerance on earth … but let it begin with straight, white men? We’d have quite an accomplishment on our hands if we could just have some tolerant lesbian women. I’ll personally be taking all the advice I might have for homophobic straight men and giving it to myself. (e.g. “Just because they’re attracted to people of your sex doesn’t mean you have to have sex with them.”)

I know he’s a just fictional character, but so are Will and Grace and plenty of homophobes manage to get as nauseated by Jack and Will as you seem to be by Lisa.

InJoy,

G

“Love is never wrong.”
“All you need to know is Ms. Ellen is a lesbian and that means she only likes other lesbians.” — Chef, South Park

But the character didn’t call himself a transexual (or gay or any of the other terms you try to equate here). He called himself a male identified lesbian. That will never ever work for me. Never. Lesbian refers to a woman. I’m ok with that. I don’t think a man gets to decide he’s a lesbian. Obviously you think that’s an ok thing as is your right. I respectfully disagree.
This analogy is horribly wrong but I’m going to use it anyway because I want to use the same context you do. Since you try to equat male identified lesbian with Black or Native American I’ll just point out that should I decide to refer to myself as a Black identified white person I’m sure my beloeved African-American friends would take serious issue with it, as they should.

Loved the recap.
I think I may love you, too.