Though Beals has nearly 90 TV and movie credits to her name, she cemented herself as a lesbian icon back in 2004, when she strutted onto Showtime’s The L Word and, over the course of six seasons, engaged in a dramatic psychosexual tango with her longtime partner Tina (Laurel Holloman), supported and aggressively judged her group of lesbian friends in equal measure, slept with multiple women who worked for her, grinded up against a jail-cell wall out of sexual frustration, had a baby, bought a gallery, and hosted a pool party that ended in suspected murder. If you’re queer, however, you’ll instantly picture Bette Porter, the self-sabotaging, power-suit-sporting, gallery-owning top who once brought Alice Piazecki to orgasm at the opera. If you’re incredibly straight or haven’t watched TV in 15 years, the name “Jennifer Beals” probably makes you think of Flashdance, her star-making role as a steel-mill-dwelling dancer with a perennially ripped sweatshirt. Levine: One of our primary directives in the reboot was to honor and deepen the character of Shane, and Marja-Lewis Ryan, The L Word: Generation Q showrunner, worshipped the original but still has so many new things to say about the character.Bette Porter in her power suit and cuff links. Hailey: In The L Word: Generation Q, Shane has a lot more responsibility on her shoulders, but at her core, she is still the same person and is forced to rise to the occasion. In the new show, Shane plays sort of a reluctant older sister to my character, which is a dynamic that happens with Shane a lot because she has such a big heart. There was this split between, “Oh my God, I want to be her,” and, “Oh my God, I’m in love with her.” Jacqueline Toboni (actor, Sarah Finley, The L Word: Generation Q): Shane was the only non-femme main character, and seeing her have internal struggles that weren’t just about being gay was so important to queer kids. Kate Moennig and Rosanna Arquette in the season three episode “Lifeline.” Photo: Courtesy of Everett/Showtime It’s a little painful to think about now, because I wouldn’t really come out to myself for another seven years, but Shane planted a very slow-growing seed for me. I know now that a straight woman doesn’t do that much research on lesbians. I did some panicky research online, and saw all these things about Shane being a sort of universal plug for sexuality, and I decided she was just one of those people, and I was still at least 95% straight. I was obsessed, and so attracted not just to Shane, but every character’s woman-centered life. Katie Heaney (author of the coming-out memoir Would You Rather): Shane caused a huge identity crisis for me. 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.
SHOWTIME THE REAL L WORD SEASON 1 SERIES
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.