REAL L WORD: Are you and your friends proof the The L Word exists in real life? Do you want to be part of groundbreaking television? [Too late! That show already happened, didn’t you love/hate it? We did too. Anyhow, she wants another chance, and our besties over at Boxed Lunch LA Lesbians (best URL ever) has the deets. So … Do you want to submit your life, a là Jenny Schecter, to Ilene’s cleavers of dyketastic destruction? Here’s your chance!]
The L Word was a runaway iconic hit, affecting millions of lives – imagine what the real life version will do!
From Showtime, Golden Globe winner Ilene Chaiken (The L Word) and Magical Elves (Peabody Award-winning Project Runway & Emmy-nominated Top Chef) comes a documentary series about the real lives of lesbians.
THE REAL L WORD: Los Angeles will follow a group of real-life, high-profile, left coast lesbians as they go about their daily lives, at work and play. The producing team plans to show viewers that the cast can be every bit as glamorous, fashionable, fabulous and even as cutthroat as their celebrated-but-fictional counterparts.
They are currently seeking ladies from all walks of life to be the pioneering voices in this important series. Must be based in Los Angeles or moving soon to the area. They want all types, from the power of Bette to the mojo of Shane.
Are you and your partner about to adopt? Do all the bouncers in WeHo know your name? Do you consider your friends family? Are you coming out of the closet and want to help others by sharing your journey? Are you or someone you know moving out to the more Sapphic-ly welcoming culture of L.A.? Are you a card-carrying ‘power lesbian’?
Whatever your story, whatever your situation – they want to hear from you! Email [email protected]; tell them about yourself, and include a recent photo.
ETA: We heard this same breakdown — wanting a “coming out” story, an adopting parents story — from a friend of a friend at Magical Elves (yes, that’s a few steps removed from “confirmed truth,” but bear with us –) before we saw this casting call. This casting call reflected exactly what we’d already heard through the rumor mill, so we think it’s probs true.
Sidenote: Autostraddle is in West Hollywood right now. Here’s a quote, compiled from numerous quotes accumulated from multiple lesbians: “Everyone in this town really dislikes that woman and no one is even talking about that show out here.” Except us, obvs, as we are TOTAL DORKS.
Here’s how we feel about that:
TWO AND A HALF MEN: Two and a Half Men! RIESE TRIED TO RECAP IT. Read that shit now. (@autostraddle)
WITCHES: Eastwick has some powerful witches. And also will have Haviland Stillwell in it like super soon. (@bitchblogs)
IM’ING WITH NICOL PAONE: We love this chick.
(@afterellen)
MICHAEL MOORE & ME: Sometimes I wonder if my aggressive manic indoctrination to The Bible has enabled me to almost understand how this happened, b/c sometimes you read something in the bible reluctantly that seems like total bullshit, and then makes total sense in a contemporary context: What Moore has done with his current cinematic manifesto is to tell the Book of Revelation through an account of the recent financial crisis. (@nymag)
First comment on this post:
“Sometimes you read things that make you blink…you wonder if you actually read what you think you did. This was one of those times. What?”
BTW that picture of a vagina/pine tree [to the right, to the right] is by Laurel Holloman!
LITTLE GIRL LOST: Drew Barrymore is “not completely sober” and is finding a balance but “I don’t know if I’m completely comfortable ever. Sometimes I can totally let go with complete abandon – sing and dance and run around and not care what people think about me.” (@somewhereweird)
BOOKS: Happy Banned Books Week! (@jezebel)
As much as I would like to think that no one will participate in Ilene’s masturbatory opus, I know there will be some attention-loving lesbos ready to sell their soul to Imp Chaiken.
I am so excited to see how bad this will be
Haviland is gonna be on that show with Constable Benton Fraser? Tremendous. That’s tremendous.
Who is the “woman” that nobody in LA likes? IFC? That makes me happy but here’s my question: there are lots of funny, smart, underworked writers out there, and probably a lot of lesbians among them. WHY is nobody but IFC pitching lesbian shows? Somebody could’ve been on this like 2 seconds after the L word came out. But noooooo, let’s wait for Ilene to come and squat over top of a totally decent idea and take a big stanky shit.
LOLZ!
Um, they want to. There are heaps of good lesbian writers writing things, pitching things, etc., writing good things … the real question is, why is Ilene Chaiken the only woman anyone is willing to put money behind? And why is she the only lady to get a meeting, it would seem?
There are plenty of women trying. Actually, when Carly & I wrote our show, we thought we were just doing what no-one else was doing, and that as soon as we did it, people would wake up and make it. But nah, it turns out that plenty of lesbians have written decent tv shows, they just can’t get the script in front of the right person at the right time. Ilene Chaiken has balls. She was persistent and she got in there and now she has what no-one else has, which is a direct line to whomever has the power.
Perhaps Autostraddle’s first web-series will answer these questions and more … that is, if we can convince advertisers that the market is ready to spend on more than just IFC …
But what I want to know is, where are the power lesbians (other than waiting in line at the casting call for the real L word obvs), or the power people in general, who know good writing? Everybody (but EVERYBODY) agrees that the L word took a huge nosedive in its later seasons, so why aren’t the people at the top going “okay, we’ve got this great idea for a reality spinoff of the L word, but we’re gonna get some fresh creative talent behind it this time who won’t alienate the whole audience.” Ilene Chaiken’s name is the opposite of what you want associated with your lesbian project at this point. She needs to just produce. She needs to use her power and credibility to boost obscure, potential-filled projects that fit her vision but haven’t been scrawled on napkins with crayons as I imagine her scripts are.
That’s a good question as to why Ilene’s name is on this. Srsly, we’ve had many discussions on it … she’s an egomaniac with blinders on. To ppl outside of the gay community, her name means money, period … it’s not like she’s really any worse than the male execs heading up most retarded projects. We’re just frustrated ’cause so many of us want OUR stories heard, and think we can do it better. She worked for Aaron Spelling for years and years as an executive producer. It’s working, I mean, the press is outrageous already.
That being said … it wasn’t her project. Magical Elves — which is an awesome production company — was working on the project. I guess IFC came in and said she could take it to Showtime if they put her name on it. In this economy … I’m guessing they took the money and the guaranteed deal and ran with it.
But also most power lesbians at the top wouldn’t want anything to do with a reality show, let alone one like this. It’ll be like Real Housewives — where it’s not really about the “real” power lesbians, just the attention-hungry lesbians who are willing to be trailed by a boom everywhere they go.
Basically there’s a small handful of people who decide what shows go to air. Maybe at this point with media consolidation, really there’s like 5 or 6 people at the top.
It’s really hard to prove that there’s a lesbian market. THERE IS ONE — but someone needs to prove it, and she’s the only one who’s even tried to prove it. I mean, these are issues we discuss every day. What we want to do here is prove that when something is GOOD, it wins — we actually had a huge convo on this on Friday night about this web-series we want to do. And I hope we’re right.
Maybe there’s no answer … I just talk a lot.
I hope you’re right. Lesbians are a smart, discerning audience, but we’ve gotten so used to just accepting the scraps we’re thrown (0.1% screen time on Queer as Folk for example) that it’s hard to make a case for teasing that audience out from the general “queer” audience that’s already not that huge. It’s easier to pitch “gay” – gay women will watch shows about gay men or gay women, just as long as there’s gay in it; gay men not so much. How many gay men do you think were big L word watchers, versus the number of women who watched Queer as Folk (granted we haven’t had a lot of examples of queer shows so far and QaF was one of the very first, so everybody watched it). I don’t really know what I’m trying to say anymore, I just want to watch a TV show (or web series!) about lesbians that does not suck. And also maybe see the earth at night.
When I will I stop laughing everytime I see “Magical Elves” in reference to this show?! I’m guessing never.
When I look at that drawing by Tina Kennard I totally see a red-haired girl wearing a snuggie sitting by a campfire facing due south while needlepointing a scene of a starlit sheep field.
After seeing Whip It, I’m certain Drew Barrymore is not completely sober. I think she was high (on love for Ellen) that entire movie.
Wednesday TV is too much to handle! I want to watch Glee and Top Chef and Eastwick and Modern Family, which is so impossible. Thank god for the internet.
Hmm, maybe now’s a good time to finally make the move to LA that I’ve been pondering for a few months? Cuz if none of the current LA lezzies want to do it, hell, I’LL DO IT.
After seeing Ilene Chaiken ruin all the lives of her characters I definitely wouldn’t want her editing MY life for TV…
I have visions of finding myself strapped to a gurney getting unnecessary chemo while someone from Betty mouths “Party on Ali” at me. Also, my friends would just randomly disappear once people got bored of writing them. Or they might just peace out of my life once they realized I was on an Ilene Chaiken show…
I spent like 5/10 minutes trying to decide if that was a vagina or a pine tree before I read what you wrote.
Part of my wants to buy it but it’s going for $640 (and in contrast the other stuff are at about $0.99 or $50). The lesbians have definitely been fighting over that one.
and now it’s up at over $3,000.
NOW we know what lesbians are willing to spend money on. not luxury travel, not pampering spa services. L WORD CAST CHARITY PARAPHERNALIA.
wow…
okay this as nothing to do with ^^^all that..i justhave one queston….
how do i uploadd a pofile pic? o can i even do that?
If you go to http://www.wordpress.com and log in/create an account with the same log in/email you have for AS you can upload a gravatar in Edit Profile under the My Account drop down menu. Hope that helps! That’s what I did. =D
thanx a bunch =]
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