Ilene Chaiken broke new ground when she created The L Word, but since that show's six-season run, most of TV's gay representation has come from the reality TV genre. It's only fitting, then, that Chaiken's latest project is The Real L Word, a reality spin on her original series that's currently winding down its first season on Showtime. Chaiken talked to Movieline about how surprised she was that Showtime wanted the show, how they shoot those sex scenes, and how LA lesbians might need a breather soon.
So tell me a little bit about what happened in between The L Word and The Real L Word. I know you had intended to get The Farm up and running with Leisha Hailey as sort of a spinoff, but Showtime passed. Clearly, though, you still have a good relationship with the network. How did that go down?
Yeah, I have a really good relationship with them. The so-called spinoff we did was only nominally a spinoff of The L Word, but it was very much a show I wanted to do. We did migrate one of our L Word characters, but it wasn't The L Word in any sense -- it was a completely different and stylishly independent show. This show is much more a recapitulation of the L Word franchise. The brand and the themes still have value, there still is an appetite for these stories, and I said to Showtime, "Let's do something with this. Let's not set it on the shelf and retire it."
I proposed to them that a reality show would really work, and I was actually proposing that they license the brand to me and let me sell it to another network that does this kind of programming. And [Showtime head] Bob Greenblatt sat and listened to me and he shook his head and said, "This is a really good idea, give me a day or two to think about it." The next day, my agent called me and said, "Well, Bob isn't going to license the show to you." And then he waited that critical minute and said, "He wants to do it on Showtime."
Were you surprised by it?
I was delighted by it. I was a little surprised by it, but nothing really surprises me. [Laughs] I didn't think it was necessarily in Showtime's purview to do a reality show.
What about your own purview? After coming from the narrative world, where you have such control over where the plot goes, you were at the mercy of these women when it came to their own storylines. Did that scare you at all?
You're always at the mercy of something. It doesn't scare me, but it was disconcerting, definitely. Exactly as you suggested, I'm used to being able to say, "OK, now here's what happens." In our story meeting, I partnered with the [production company] Magical Elves on this show, and I would sit there and say, "God, if I were writing this, I would make her do this and her do this." In the end, you have to surrender a little bit, but you do it with the confidence that what they might possible end up doing is more interesting than anything you might have made up.
Do you think they're themselves on camera, or at this point as a society, are we just so used to how reality TV works, did they try to play to the cameras any?
I can't speak for them, but my observation is that some took to it more easily than others. It's easy to guess the moments where somebody knows there's a camera around, and no matter how much someone thought she might be game for this, there are moments when she might want her privacy -- although we tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. Also, there are moments where she realizes this moment is not going to be something she's proud of and she's not sure she wants it captured, and it's like, "Oh my God, did I really sign up for this?"
Then how do you capture something like a steamy sex scene in the shower? How do you shoot a love scene in reality TV?
I'm sure there's a whole big psychological and sociological analysis that could go into it, because there's something that definitely is altered by the presence of the camera -- particularly sex, I would say. When there's a camera present, that becomes an element of the sexual encounter. My approach to it was simply never to ask for it or push for it. It wasn't contractual, it wasn't contractual between me and Showtime -- instead, we just allowed it to happen and let everyone set her own boundaries. I cast people and I was pretty sure some would never want to go there, and that other members of our cast would be comfortable with it. To me, that's part of our storytelling.
I don't know. [Laughs] I don't really think of it in that way. I do what I do, and I'm a television writer and producer. I tell stories, some people really like what I do, and some like it less. I don't feel like my life is determined by how I'm treated within the lesbian community for having done The L Word. I have my friends and family, and for the most part, they like what I do.
We both know that since there are so few representations of gays and lesbians on TV, the LGBT community really seizes on what it gets, and they can have some very vocal opinions about what you produce. Is that limiting to you, or do you try not to engage with it?
I do engage with it, and I think it's important to engage with it. Firstly, it's important to be aware of it, and at this moment of time in the culture and media, it's important to be responsive to it. That's a delicate balance, but it's not just for me as a gay person telling gay stories -- I happened to be at a conference this weekend and the producers of Lost were talking about their digital interactions with their fanbase, and a lot of the issues were the same. Tons and tons of people write in and tell you what they think about the stories you're telling, and how they wish you would tell this story or that story. You can't please everyone, and on the one hand, they want to be completely swept up in the stories you tell, and on the other hand, they want you to listen to every little directive they give you. I think part of our job is knowing how to incorporate that.
I can see how you'd incorporate that into a fictional narrative show, but how do you incorporate those suggestions into reality TV?
At this point, it's just the conversation -- we're responding to the the response, and not just me, but the women who took part in the show are all now having that experience of listening to what's said. I get to talk to people like you about the choices I made, but it becomes more meaningful if we continue doing the show and make more iterations of it in different cities. Then I get to make good on inclusiveness and everything else.
And of course, there's another very hot property out right now about LA lesbians, The Kids Are All Right. LA lesbians are definitely having their moment.
So we need to portray the lives of lesbians elsewhere. LA lesbians have now been more overrepresented than anyone else on the face of the earth, so we need to go to Atlanta now. [Laughs] Or at least New York.
You've been at Showtime for a long time, and the channel has evolved a lot. How different does it feel?
It feels evolutionary, not different, but evolved. I've always loved working at Showtime, and some of the same folks that were there when I first started doing The L Word are still there. There are some new people; as you probably know, Bob Greenblatt defined the network for the last seven years and made it a very big, hip network, and he's now moving on and being replaced by David Nevins. There will be a subtle change to the culture there, but it always has been a place run by smart people who have a lot of respect for the collaborative process. That's why I love working at Showtime.
Still, Showtime started as a place where there were tons of gay characters, and now, aside from your show, there are very few. A friend of mine said it's a little like gays gentrifying a neighborhood and making it hip for straights to come in. Do you think that's fair at all?
I think that there's something of truth to that, but to me, it goes to this premise I put forward a lot: Gays have always created culture and we're largely culture leaders, especially in popular culture and style and entertainment. Then, the mainstream straight audience co-opts and carries on with what we create. The change that I'm looking for is for us to simply continue be present and visible in that culture that we create.