Instead, we learn to perceive her as a depressed lesbian with working-class roots through her interactions with food. Which makes it so disappointing that Carrie, the first recurring fat butch character in the series’ history, is not written to be liked. With ‘Generation Q,’ ‘The L Word’ leaves West Hollywood for Silver Lake - tracing the changing center of gravity in gay L.A. (Although there are multiple trans actors this season, including Jamie Clayton, Isis King, Sophie Giannamore and Leo Sheng, there are currently no genderqueer or nonbinary characters - a major shortcoming when looking at contemporary lesbian and queer communities.) In an interview with Autostraddle, Sea addressed being falsely represented as a cisgender actor to mark a legible narrative of progress for “Generation Q,” and the painful journey of attempting to bring humanity and intervention to their deeply flawed character.
Played by trans and nonbinary actor Daniela Sea, Max is initially presented as a working-class butch, the antithesis of the corporate femme-centric world of “The L Word.” After transitioning he is framed as a violent cautionary tale, and a caricature of everything to hate about masculinity. Similarly, “The L Word” has a legacy of hostility toward butch, gender non-conforming, and transgender characters, most notably Max. And though the series is clearly tackling the original’s biphobia by giving Alice a cisgender, heterosexual male love interest, framing a Black man as bumbling, smelly breathed and willing to put up with Alice’s shame and indifference toward him is hardly progress. Eddie and her club appear in only one episode, serving as a snappy vignette for writers to include the word “reparations” without a substantial nod to why this conversation is timely and relevant. After Shane is ejected from Eddie’s poker club, she appropriates the idea. Shane’s brief visit to a Black lesbian poker club run by a stud named Eddie (played by Lena Waithe) may remind viewers of Alice’s awkward and problematic stint chasing Papi through bars and clubs in a pre-gentrified East L.A. Indeed, many of the pitfalls of the old series persist, and are simply tweaked for a new generation.
0 kommentar(er)
