the real l word season 1 episode 1 part 1

Straight women talked about Shane, fell in love with her, saw her as a “gateway lesbian.” club that screened new L Word episodes on Sundays and as the show became a phenomenon, everybody there had the Shane haircut, the fedora, the sleeveless vest. Photo: Courtesy of Hilary Gale / ShowtimeĬhaiken: There was an L.A. There’s a club scene in season one where Shane is all dressed up, with makeup on, and Rose Troche said to me, “She goes through boy to do girl.” We didn’t really use words like “nonbinary” in 2004, but it was always clear that Shane was not what we might think of today as nonbinary-she’s just androgynous. We really played with gender fluidity, and at times Shane could pass as a boy. People didn’t really know what “androgynous” was.Ĭhaiken: I always had an idea of Shane as a savant: self-schooled on the street, coming from a difficult childhood. Shane was so much fun to play because she had such self-possession, and hopefully she gave people the privilege of being accepting of themselves as well-back in 2004, an androgynous female lead was harder to find. I was in my own world dealing with real life, and I had a delayed reaction. Moennig: My father died a month after the show aired, so I wasn’t really in a place to pay attention. “Whenever Shane walks into a room, somebody runs out crying,” her friend Bette (played by Jennifer Beals) observes. When we first meet her in The L Word’s pilot episode, Shane is rumpled, cranky, and caffeine deprived, clad in a sleeveless vest and aviators, but her appeal is instantly obvious. While the nominal protagonist of The L Word was, at first, newly out writer Jenny Schechter (Mia Kirshner), the spiritual hero of the show was none other than aspiring hairstylist Shane McCutcheon (Kate Moennig), the only hardscrabble, non-lipstick lesbian on a show populated primarily by white, affluent femmes. This time, the heartthrob looked a little different.

In 2004, Showtime debuted a series about a group of lesbians living (and, per the show’s theme song, laughing, and loving, and fucking) in Los Angeles called The L Word. had angsty Ryan Atwood (and, for a more indie-inclined viewer, nebbish Seth Cohen). In the noughties, Grey’s Anatomy had McDreamy, and later, McSteamy The O.C. Every TV show worth its salt has its heartthrob.

The real l word season 1 episode 1 part 1