woman hiding all but her eyes

Dishing on the L-Word

Karin Kallmaker Craft of Writing

Can I tell the truth? I didn’t get past the second hour of the pilot and the whole reason was an utterly flawed presentation of character in order to churn the plot. There’s so few lesbians anywhere on TV but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy with just anything.

Let’s see. Two women who have been compulsively arranging their life around The Baby, to the point of going to therapy to discuss the impact of The Baby on their relationship AND one of them leaving her lucrative career to prepare mind and body for conception of TheBaby…who have the money, means and knowledge to get tested, safe sperm anonymously and undergo just about any fertility treatment out there and avoid a raft of legal issues they clearly have the savvy to have researched……but then have unprotected anonymous sex with a guy who says he doesn’t have a disease and they tell the guy he’s basically a donor so he can know to come back in season 3 and claim rights for the drama value…

click

Because I do not know a single lesbian who planned ahead of time to get pregnant who would make that choice and risk getting an STD their baby will be born with. She quit her job to cleanse mind and body and then used untested sperm? It made no sense. And then opened The Baby to parental claim from the donor? It made no sense. Most of the lesbians I know make sense. Surely there are other things I can do with my time besides watch lesbians portrayed as … stupid.

If they wanted a reason for a couple trying to get pregnant to come under relationship stress to explore some issues, put one on Clomid and make 15 trips to the fertility clinic without success. That, I promise you, is real dyke drama.

And so…I haven’t been back. I’d rather spend an hour with a good book where the lesbians do things that make sense.

Many people have told me the writing improved dramatically and maybe at some point I’ll pick up the DVDs and have a marathon, if only to watch Pam Grier.