'But Dana was my favorite character!' my girlfriend lamented when Showtime's The L Word killed off one its most popular characters. 'She was awkward and could make fun of herself—like you!' I could be offended at that seemingly backhanded compliment except ( 1 ) Dana is hhhhotttt and ( 2 ) Kathy's absolutely right: I am awkward and am better at making fun of myself than anyone. And Kathy's not alone in her sentiments—not so much about Dana and I being, like, twins separated at birth ( see my photo here ) , because somehow no one else has noticed that, but rather is pissed at their getting rid of Dana.
For instance, a woman Kathy was recently talking with about the episode said she'd missed the self-congratulatory commentary by the writers and producers following the episode because she'd been so upset by the death scene she'd had to leave the room. Just remembering it made her misty, Kathy noticed. And why did they kill her off? Showtime's executives, according to a recent New York Times article, suggested that, in their third season, The L Word should 'deal with things that happen to people in life ... including death.'
That's all swell and good, but wasn't The L Word originally a kind of light-hearted and soapy guilty pleasure? The sharp turn toward 'reality' this season reminds me of when sitcoms start taking themselves too seriously, which is when you end up with things like 'a very special episode of Blossom,' in which Blossom learns a hard lesson about drunk driving or lying to her father or wearing white after Labor Day. What started out as junk TV suddenly starts to have aspirations to high art—but only makes it as high as a preachy after-school special or an awkwardly inserted public service announcement. Witness the perfectly natural dialogue between Dana, Alice and cancer researcher Dr. Susan Love: 'What—can—I—do, Dr. Love? I—want—to—help.'
Come on, get serious! Er, I mean, don't get serious: Where did they get the idea we are tuning in to The L Word to watch 'real people' and to watch them do real things, like die? We're tuning in to see clever banter, outrageous flirting, intrigue and betrayal—and sweaty lesbian sex. We get enough of real life on the Sundance Channel or the five o'clock news and, well, in real life. Can't they simply follow the teachings of Cyndi Lauper? Maybe we don't want only to have fun, us girls, but can't they let us have some fun?
If they're going to insist, however, on going all Six Feet Under on us ( a show that took death far less solemnly ) , why couldn't they get rid of Tina, for God's sake—she's not even a freakin' lesbian anymore and she's turned into a total jerk. Or Carmen, who, though hot in those little hooker shorts, has gone slightly loony, being angry at Shane for days over a dream she had, and who has just generally been an ass. But not Dana! Don't get rid of our Dana! Dana, from the start of the series, has been the character with whom many of us could most identify, despite her tennis star status. Genuine, sweet, funny, she's both who we hope we are and who we'd like to date—if, of course, we weren't already in a long-term committed relationship, an attitude that isn't very L Word, I guess.
And if they're so interested in keeping it real, one might wonder, as I have, why they would want their message to be: if you find a lump, don't even bother getting treatment for it because you'll die anyway. Wouldn't the responsible thing have been to show a more typical representation of reality, in which, according to an American Society of Clinical Oncologists website, 98 percent of women with localized breast cancer diagnosed at an early stage will survive at least five years? To have mentioned that only 1–3 percent of women have a faster-growing type of cancer? And to have acknowledged that newer treatments have made it possible for even those women to live longer?
What's done is done, I guess. But if they want to return to their prime-time soap-opera roots, shouldn't Dana have a twin somewhere that suddenly shows up on the scene? I could make myself available.
©2006 by Yvonne Zipter. One-time North American rights granted only. Yvonne Zipter can be reached via e-mail at her Web site, www.yvonnezipter.com .
