[Editor’s Note: I’ve been totally stalled on recapping this thing, because Dinah Shore only lasts for five days for a reason. Girl drama gets boring real fast, unless a writer writes it better than it is in real life — much like straight drama. At some point I could no longer take it. Yell at me, tell me I can’t spell, it’s okay, I want more than this MORE THAN THIS I want us all to have fun, I want life to be full of fun, and heart, and peace, and things that matter, and good education & free health insurance & a better economy and The Nicest Thing the Movie Dot Com and equal rights, and that’s what I want. I want love, a farm, and mountains. xoxo]
Anyhow, let’s begin! Have you ever felt any of the following feelings in the company of other females?
1. Electricity
2. Heat
3. Lightning through your body
4. Chemistry
5. A “rush”
6. A”click,” or a “click right away”
7. A visceral reaction
8. A lightbulb going off in your head
Then you may have a disease — it’s called Real Lesbians. Luckily, there’s a show for that, filled with other ladies who have those feelings, too! And LOVE talking about it! It’s called The Real L Word, and it premiered Sunday night at 10 P.M. on Showtime.
Back in the old days when I recapped The L Word for my blog and The L Word Online, I aimed to have my L Word recaps up immediately after the show’s end, otherwise known as “10 P.M.”
Unfortunately, this show has no premise, no rising action and no conflict and therefore… I really you know, have had a hard time. It’s a bunch of girls who like girls, mostly wearing the same color tank tops.
Also it gave me a lot of feelings about The Power of the Clam:
Basically this is the premise: Ilene Chaiken made a show, The L Word:
People complained “lesbian life isn’t really like that.” Now Ilene’s made a reality show to prove that yeah, it really is like that.
Unfortunately, a lot of the interesting people who were offered spots on The Real L Word said hell-to-the-NO. The girls on it seem like nice people, but it’s been edited into oblivion, and for me personally or anyone who’s spent any time in the “scene” depicted on this show, Karman Kregloe at AfterEllen had it dead on when she explained:
I suspect it’s all about perspective. As a Los Angeles resident who regularly spots neighbors/co-workers/acquaintances on reality shows (and wonders why they do it), I find the women and the “scene” to be familiar, even predictable.
Watching the show with friends, the most dramatic moments for them didn’t involve Whitney’s revolving bedroom door or Rose’s loutish treatment of her girlfriend. They were just worried that they might have inadvertently ended up in a background shot of a bar scene. (So far, two episodes in, they seemed to have eluded the cameras.) But if you don’t live in Los Angeles, and the “characters” aren’t a part of your everyday scenery, you might just find the show fascinating. Maybe not terribly “real,” but interesting nonetheless.
Ultimately the show lacks heart or a soul heavy/significant enough to move your own. I never watch this genre of TV so I’ve just been briefed on Laguna Beach: apparently the show’s driving force was that there were two girls who liked the same guy and viewers picked a side. We don’t even have THAT, yannow?
Can someone send these girls to an island, make them produce dishes with one key ingredient or design clothes out of haystacks, or have them compete for the heart of the Bachelor or fight for the gauntlet or something? No? Just film their lives or whatever because they are lesbians? Okay.
LET’S ROLL!
So you should know the cast members are:
Rose — girlfriend Natalie
Mikey — girlfriend Raquel
Whitney — hoes in different area codes
Tracy — girlfriend Stamie (has three kids)
Jill & Nikki — girlfriends engaged.
I’m going to be share the opinions of our random friends who watched the show, and who you may or may not know or care about. It doesn’t really matter, they’re all SO FUNNY!
Executive Editor Laneia, Senior Writer Jess, DJ Carlytron, AS Photographer Robin, Miss April Sarah C., Miss February Julia, me (Riese) our stylist Sara M and Suzanna (who’s from the internet). Design Director Alex was there, too, but she got bored and started working on golden retrievers dot com, I kid you not. Also Crystal was there for part of it but I think was just as bored as when I made her watch it the first time, and we both died a bit inside.
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UPDATE: Showtime has uploaded the episode to YouTube,
so you can all play along at home!
The episode opens with some oddly edited, shoe-fetish-focused interviews about everybody’s first time with a lady. Carly says the interviews are out of focus, and Laneia thinks Mikey looks like Rod Stewart.
Part One: Meeting the Ladies
Once upon a time, there were six pretty ladies who’d never had sex with another lady. Then one day they had sex with another lady.
Rose can’t remember the girl’s name, but we do get some interesting family background here when she explains that during her first time she’d “never had a girl’s breast in her mouth or her face before,” which means clearly she was not breastfed. Regardless, now Rose would like to spend the rest of her life with other girl’s tits in her face and by golly SHE HAS. She is kicking Shane’s ASS on Our Chart. (RIP)
Jill said her first time was “almost a similar feeling to when she lost her virginity” (beat) “to a man.” Except without the bleeding and the sperm in her bellybutton, etc., I imagine. Nikki tackled someone like a tiger, which is the best mating strategy around.
Tracy did four shots at a lesbian bar with a girl she’d just met. That’s our kind of lady.
Yabba Dabba Doo You
And then we get to Whitney, who is the star of this episode. Whitney was 9, her lady-love was 11. Coincidentally, that’s also the number you call to report inappropriate sexual activity between minors ANYHOO, these precocious pre-teens decided to use whipped cream to be “romantic.” I can’t even make fun of this, because whipped cream was the primary tool used by me and my gay best friend when we decided to lose our virginities to each other just for funsies. I thought he might like girls better if they were covered in food, and I was more or less right.
However Whitney wasn’t so lucky. She had to resort to sour cream & fruity pebbles. Which is gross. Why not just gas your playdate with Lysol or something.
It’s Hammer Time
Oh hey the minute you walked in the door, BUM BUM, I could tell you were a real big douchebag, a real big Mikey duh duh duh duh here’s Mikey duh dum dum take your tie off hayyyyy:
Mikey: “All I know is I woke up one morning, and I was super fucking horny, and we started making out and before I knew it, I was giving her a fucking orgasm.”
And before I knew it, I was squirting a bucket of mayonnaise in your eyesocket, you self-obsessed weirdo. How did you end up on my teevee? Where’s Blue’s Clues?
Carly: “No one cares about coming out or first time stories. Why do they keep talking about this? Consensus: this is boring.”
The opening theme song is terrible, but not aggressively so. On a scale of one to ten, I’d give it a “slightly better than BETTY.” That being said, I miss Jenny’s boobs.
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Part Two: Whitney the Womaneater
I Just Can Hop a Plane and Come and Visit You Again
This episode mainly focuses on Whitney and how she makes out with a lot of chicks.
Whitney: “I am currently single, there are a lot of girls who I take home, or that I am dating or seeing, and I feel like I just have too many things going on at once.”
For example, she’s presently heading to the airport to pick up another one of her “things” named Sara, along with their mutual friend Taylor. Whitney had a fling with Sara “in the past and potentially in present.” If you try to diagram Whitney’s sentences, you’ll end up with pencils in your eyesockets, so just roll with it.
This is Sara. She’ll look like everyone else in about twenty minutes, but it might not actually matter, because of this power – this all-powerful power. This power of the clam (more on this later):
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Like Duck Duck Goose But With More Vadge
At Alcove, Whitney & her San Francisco friends and LA Transplants discuss pressing topics, such as: the difference between girls in San Francisco & Los Angeles. The word “futch” is used here without irony or any props given to the fine founder of this bizarre linguistic mishap, our friend Dani Campbell.
Think life in the City of Angels is all vagina and fruity pebbles/sour cream? You’re wrong. There’s a serious epidemic happening. It’s like anthrax kinda:
“Femmes who think they’re butch because they’re girls with short haircuts.”
Posers. Wanting to be a part of a kickass but totally misunderstood segment of the lesbian mini-minority. God, next thing you know they’re going to be appropriating Native American culture!
Sorry Your Earrings Called But You Didn’t Hear Them Because of your Earrings
Sara and Whitney go to have a cigarette, and music starts playing like she’s about to say something interesting, like “When I met Sara, I had just moved to LA to be a writer while living with my swim coach boyfriend Tim, then I met this ambiguously foreign and literate woman at a lesbian hangout called The Planet, and then then Bette & Tina had a party to find a sperm donor?…and then I was going to the bathroom, and she came in there with me, and I felt so scared” etc etc.
But instead it’s all about abstract “chemistry” and something with ex-girlfriends. Also Whitney is “amazing,” their connection is “different,” it “feels good to see each other.” Also: they’re ‘similar creatures.’ Outside, they share cigs & hugs and Whitney confides:
Whitney: “I can’t tell if I want to shake her, make out with her, or just fuck her.”
Shake her! Shake her! That would be funny right? Like Shaken Baby Syndrome? Oh, dead babies. Hahahaha.
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We Got That B-Roll
Riese: Can we talk about the b-roll.
Carly: Oh Yes! The EDGY LA B-ROLL. South of Nowhere called, they want their b-roll back
Riese: Beverly Hills 90210 is on the other line
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Part Three: Meet Jill & Nikki
Matchy-Matchy
Nikki & Jill have been together for over a year, and they love each other so much that they sometimes accidentally wear the same shade of lavender.
Nikki: “I’m really the straightest gay person you’ll ever meet.”
I don’t know what that means, but I think I hate it.
Over invisible food, the dynamic duo discusses rubbing each other’s feet, making the bed, and touching each other how they like to be touched. I assume the server must have dropped by and asked, “Anyone want some wine? What sort of generic, cotton-commercial-style match.com-esque activities do the two of you do at home alone? I’ll be right back to take your order.”
With a wedding coming up soon, they’ve only got like nine months left to sit on the couch with their laptops and look at photographs of themselves.
Seriously Pedicuring is a Good Skill in a Lady
Nikki gives Jill a pedicure while chanting, “this little piggy went to Gucci, and this little piggy went to H&M because you gotta keep it real.” H&M = keepsin’ it real.
Laneia: “In my world, it’s like, “This little piggy goes to target.”
Riese: “And this little piggy also went to Target.”
Laneia: “And this little piggy stayed home and cried because it didn’t have any money.”
Nikki & Jill knew each other from summer camp (when Nikki dated Jill’s brother) ages ago, and now they are back together, through the power of the internet and specifically their camp website.
Laneia: They reconnected like THIS (does scissoring gesture).
Riese: Scissoring, it’s always scissoring.
Laneia: UGH Why are they wearing belts on the couch?
Riese: She’s probably gonna ask her if dhr’d ever been toed.
Julia: They’re gonna fuck with their feet!
Riese: I love asking people if they’ve ever been toed.
Julia: Riese asks me this all the time, SERIOUSLY.
Planing their not-wedding is gonna stress them out! Nikki says, “I know people that are gay in Los Angeles, but as far as the scene, it’s not who I am.” I agree, Nikki. Fist bump. Speaking of who I am Not, let’s go meet Mikey!
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Part Four: Meet Mikey
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Maybe ‘Cause You Act Like A DICK ALL THE TIME
“I am gay man trapped in a lesbian’s body,” Mikey begins, before sharing her job (producer of events like LA Fashion Week) and introducing her girlfriend (Raquel, who Mikey calls “plus-sized,” to which one of Mikey’s gays responds that “gay fat is the straight skinny.”)
Insight:
Mikey: “Most of us think I’m this tough butch girl b/c I have these tattoos but mostly I’m just a softie on the inside… but I’ll still fuck you up if you cross me.”
Everyone on this show has tattoos, silly rabbit, that doesn’t make you a tough butch. We get some history: Raquel & Mikey have been together for seven months, though oddly their peers are just now asking for the story of how they met — omg guess what? Mikey thought Raquel was a TRANNY! Hahaha! And then Mikey choked her or something. Now their relationship has grown, as they’ve moved past these stereotypes and onto new ones.
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Part Five: Meet Tracy
Tracy is Wearing a Bathing Suit Recommended by our Swimsuit Post
Oh, Tracy. Tracy Tracy Tracy. Tracy’s a development executive at a production company for films & teevee, and also, semi-by-default, we have decided that Tracy can do no wrong. In fact (as we’re about to learn), her girlfriend’s family is the most interesting part of this episode.
Tracy: “I am 29, and I think I’m a late bloomer in a lot of ways. I first realized that I might like women 5 years ago when I went to Magic Mountain with a friend who worked with me. We were being sort of pulled through the lines, and she grabbed my arm, and it was like electricity that just sort of ran through my body, like this lightbulb that went off in my head and I was like, OMG, I don’t want her to be my best friend, I really am attracted to her.”
Haha, Magic Mountain!?
Tracy’s friend Kathleen has offered to sit next to Tracy on the boardwalk and smile and nod while Tracy provides her expository backstory for the camera.
Call it Off, Break Your Own Contract
Her friend is modeling through it as Tracy discusses how much she misses surfing.
Then we cut to Tracy’s home to learn about her family life.
The Good News is that Tracy Often Walks Around In her Underwear
Tracy’s mom & dad just got divorced and live in Jersey. You probs missed that part ’cause Tracy was walking around in her underwear when she told you that.
Tracy’s Mom isn’t a “fan”of Tracy’s sexuality, but Tracy feels ready to have an “adult conversation” about the issue. Perhaps that will be when heart & soul make their guest appearance on the show.
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Part Six: Rose & Whitney Go Out, Have Drama
The Rose of my Heart’s Desire is Not Rose
Rose opens with, “This is how you roll, bitches!” followed up with an interview where she claims that “for every girl that says no, there are ten that are gonna say yes.” It’s a little rapey, and also quite loud.
Rose repeats Whitney’s assertion that L.A. has the prettiest girls:
Rose: “There’s a top 1% in the lesbian world. People who dress good, who look good, who can show you a good time. If you have that then you’re on top of your game. It’s done.”
Riese: “I would think the top 1% would be like, the mayor of houston, Rachel Maddow, Sarah Waters, Tegan & Sara, um, the girl in charge of GetEqual…”
Rose came out at 19 or 20 (she can’t remember, just like she can’t remember the name of the body housing her mouth’s first breast), and then this “monster” (her personality) sprung right out! Now they’ve let the monster loose on Truck Stop, which you may recognize from your actual life or Gimme Sugar or lesbian folklore.
OMG IT’S A REAL LIVE POWERCLAM
Actually for real, we always thought the girls who stood at the front of the bar at Truck Stop, screaming and putting dollar bills in the dancers’ underpants, were tourists. You learn something new every day. Today we learned that we are snobs and those girls are Rose.
Carly: “This show is just ‘let’s go someplace and wear tank tops!”
Whitney and her friends, who are apparently also in Rose’s top 1%, plan to show their San Fran pals a good time that doesn’t involve veganism or political activism: The Betty!
It’s Like Coyote Ugly, Except Embarrassing
Whitney is impressed when Sara takes off her shoes and starts dancing barefoot on the bar, getting all kinds of athlete’s foot. Whitney says Sara looks “real good up there.” Our reaction was more, “someone get Sara off the bar and into a cab pronto” but then HARK! A lesbian at a lesbian bar spots another lesbian she once made out with! THIS SPELLS TROUBLE. This NEVER happens! The lesbian world is SO GIGANTIC that you can pretty much guarantee: make out ONCE and then NEVER SEE HER AGAIN.
Lesbian Squabble #1: I Like You But I Like a Lot of People
In the Ring: Romy vs. Whitney
How it Goes Down: Whitney leaves Sara to “go take care of this” super-important situation with Romy. Most of this is recapped by Whit herself, as it likely didn’t happen so dramatically in real life. Romy keeps saying, “it’s fine,” but Whitney keeps pushing it and saying, “no it’s not fine,” because obviously she’s 1) a manipulative asshole or 2) they’re trying to create drama.
Who Wins? Unfortunately I gotta give it to Whitney. Romy is crying outside of a bar, and the girl crying outside of the bar always loses.
However, damn, I feel like Romi is READING MY MIND:
Scarlett, also, a woman after my own heart:
After this, I take a mini-nap and wake up to hear Rose screaming some nonsense about a diaper. Or rather not Rose, but a friend of Rose’s, who we’re pretty sure is Justin Beiber.
Lesbian Squabble #2: Lezbros Before Hos
In the Ring: Rose vs. Justin Bieber
How it Goes Down: Rose has to go home because she can’t stay out all night, munching vadge, when she’s got a vadge at home that’s neatly packaged in cute pink shorts. Justin, who’s only 15 and therefore knows nothing of the adult life of going out, thinks she should stay out all night. Justin asks if Natalie will be doing Rose’s diaper. That’s private, Justin. Good grief.
Who Wins? Natalie?
These Earrings Used to be Bracelets But I’m Secretly Really Crafty
Hay, Natalie’s earrings get screen time! Rose and Natalie have been together for about seven months. Natalie loves Rose. I want to fist Natalie’s earrings so bad, I can hardly stand it. I haven’t felt this way since the last time I saw Papi.
Rose comes home to her lady-love and their depressed dog.
This Dog Misses Girls Girls Girls
Rose’s voiceover announces that, since meeting Natalie and buying matching hats, she’s been behaving and avoiding the firecrackers that burn in her loins for other women, thank G-d.
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Part Seven: Whitney’s Got 99 Problems and a Bitch is Pretty Much All of Them
Give Up, And Admit You’re An Asshole
Back in Whitney’s Casa of Ill Repute, Scarlett & Whitney review “bad” text messages they’ve each received from Romy. Howevs, Whitney’s been texting Romy all night to apologize for the awkward situation, which seems like “mixed signals” to me. Ignore her, Whit-whit, then she’ll know you’re an asshole and move on.
Then Whitney calls Romy so that Romy can read her Lacey’s lines to Shane from the first episode of The L Word. In return, Whitney gets inexplicably emotional, saying that “she hates this” and then offering:
Whitney: “You deserve to be treated amazing, and you’re an amazing person, and I know that we’re gonna be great friends or whatever.”
Whitney explains her player style to the camera:
Whitney: “I don’t want anyone to get hurt, I really don’t. And I just wanna keep communication as open as possible.”
So girls, if Whitney has hurt you, feel free to communicate with her about it.
Alligator Tears Cried Over You
Whitney wants to know why Romy “walked away from her like that.” I think it was the cameras?