When costume designer Cynthia Summers was first approached about working on Showtime’s “The L Word,” she wasn’t interested. “I wasn’t sure how fun it would be to dress a bunch of butch girls,” she says.
What she didn’t know was that she’d be costuming an “L” world of Gucci stilettos, Marc Jacobs miniskirts and white patent leather vintage Courreges jackets.
In the show, about a lesbian couple and their clique in Los Angeles, Jennifer Beals and her co-stars chat about clothes almost as much as Sarah Jessica Parker and hers do on “Sex and the City” (or did–the final “Sex” episode is Sunday night).
Clearly, Showtime hopes designer duds and stylish story lines will attract viewers, but with nary a Birkenstock or buzz cut in sight, “The L Word’s” feminized image of lesbians has left some wondering: Where are the rest of them?
On the network’s online message board, one posting offered a list of things a “real lesbian show” would have, including “bi-level hairdos, hiking boots, baseball hats, polo shirts and at least one character who doesn’t shave her legs and armpits. These girls dress way too cute!”
The show’s fantasy lesbians are not the prevailing stereotype for heterosexuals either, according to Ann Ciasullo, who teaches gender studies and pop culture at the University of Oregon. Many people envision lesbians as the type in sleeveless flannel shirts–so how to represent lesbians on TV in a politically correct way becomes a quandary.
“Think about images of African-Americans, and someone like Sidney Poitier, who was seen as changing the image of black men in film but by some critics was seen as an Uncle Tom figure,” Ciasullo said. “The same thing goes for lesbians. The stereotype is the butch lesbian, and to get away from that, you have the feminine lesbian. But as images get feminized, lesbianism gets subsumed.”
Issues of style are pertinent, because historically dress has been part of lesbian identity and used as an identifier, according to Frances Stevens, publisher of Curve magazine in San Francisco. Today lesbians wear anything and everything, though they still rely on “gaydar” to parse the visual clues that might answer the question: Is she or isn’t she? Judging from the first few episodes of “The L Word,” in which the virtues of tapered jeans with heels, painted nails and a sundress on the first date are all discussed, the signs aren’t always clear.
This is set in L.A., after all
Some in the lesbian community worry that “The L Word” and the publicity surrounding it will promulgate a new wave of lesbian chic that will only marginalize many of them. And instead of promoting acceptance, the show could be another case of lesbians being used as a marketing tool, this time to create a successor to “Sex and the City.”
“I think the show is more about L.A. than it is about lesbians,” says Heather Findlay, editor in chief of Girlfriends, one of the country’s largest lesbian magazines, based in San Francisco, with a monthly circulation of 30,000. Findlay notes that there are regional differences in style, and lesbians in L.A., generally speaking, are more femme, which means lipstick and heels, not Frye boots and flannel shirts.
“These women live in L.A.,” the show’s creator, Ilene Chaiken, said. “They approach the day in a looks-conscious way.”
Summers envisions Shane (Katherine Moennig) as a cross between Mick Jagger and Warren Beatty in “Shampoo,” in tank tops and custom-made leather pants so long that they drag on the ground. Bette (Jennifer Beals) wears Gucci pinstripe suits with Prada, Pringle and Paul Smith men’s dress shirts tailored to fit her. “All the girls were kind of trying to find their inner lesbians,” Summers said.
Leisha Hailey, who plays Alice, a magazine editor–and is the one actress on the show who is a lesbian in real life–didn’t react kindly to all of the wardrobe suggestions. “I marched in and said, ‘Lesbians don’t wear purses!’ But now I’ve come to realize that’s not true, and I’ve come to wear one myself.”
Judging from online postings, “L Word” viewers don’t find the characters inaccurate, just incomplete. “Lots of lesbians are clothes hounds,” said Sara Warn, editor of the Web site AfterEllen.com, devoted to lesbians and bisexuals on TV. “Why wouldn’t they be? You are surrounded by women all the time and you are marketing yourself to women.”
For Summers, the costume designer, that’s encouraging. “I think eventually we do want to make this a fashion show that people tune in to see what Shane is wearing,” she said.
So far, she has been getting mixed reactions from design houses, even though the finale of “Sex and the City” will leave viewers starved for fashion and though lesbians have roughly $200 billion in buying clout, according to Women’s Wear Daily. Dolce & Gabbana hasn’t been that receptive, she said, but others have. “We called a local skateboarding label to ask for some jeans and explained that we were from a show about lesbians in L.A.,” Summers said. “They were totally into it. They said, ‘Cool!’ “
