Transcript | Ep. 69: How to Spell ‘The L Word’ with Ilene Chaiken

[Stinger]

Cristen: What was the elevator pitch for the L word.

Ilene: For the L word? I know that the thing that sold the show was my telling him about a conversation that most lesbians I knew had had, which is, when you start a new relationship, is it OK to just wash your old dildo, or do you have to buy a new one?

Caroline: It's a good question.

Cristen: I know. Like and?

Ilene: He just - he stood up in the room and said, “I love this, we're doing it.”

[Theme song]

Caroline: Hey y’all, and welcome to Unladylike, the show that finds out what happens when women break the rules. And reuse old dildos. I’m Caroline.

Cristen: I’m Cristen. Fifteen years ago, Ilene Chaiken did the seemingly impossible in early 2000s Hollywood. She co-created, sold and ran a TV show entirely about lesbians. And The L Word was pretty much an overnight pop-cultural phenomenon

[L Word theme song]

Caroline: Even before The L Word premiered in 2004, online fan communities were already emerging. Showtime renewed it for a second season after only two episodes. L Word watch parties were springing up

Cristen: And they might spring up again, since this December, Showtime’s rebooting The L Word as The L Word: Generation Q.

Caroline: And speaking of generations, Cristen

Cristen: Love that transition.

Caroline: Yup. Ilene Chaiken feels like a predecessor to our Unladylike guest a few weeks back, Desiree Akhavan.

Cristen: Yeah, I can see that! (And fyi, y’all, we’re talking about episode 65, How to Be "The Bisexual.")

Caroline: Yeah. Because Ilene and The L Word were indisputably groundbreaking. Up to that point, there’d never been a single show revolving entirely around queer women. I mean, I think it’s safe to say The L Word is in the LGBTQ canon

Cristen: Yeah. Agree. And a generation later, here’s Desiree Akhavan creating with her show, The Bisexual, which is hilarious and also about queer women, and they are millennials who have watched the L Word — like it comes up in the show.

Caroline: Totally. So these episodes are definitely in conversation with each other.

Cristen: Caroline, The L Word might be the crowning jewel in Ilene’s TV tiara, but we’re also talking to her about a bunch of other iconic, genre-breaking TV shows that she’s had a hand in making.

Caroline: Yeah, maybe you’ve heard of a little sing-along hit called Empire, Cristen?

Cristen: Yes I have.

Caroline: Ilene was its showrunner for almost four seasons.

Cristen: Okay, no big deal.

Caroline: Yeah, and everyone’s fave dystopian reality show, Handmaid’s Tale?

Cristen: Oh, that old laugh riot?

Caroline: She wrote the original pilot and executive produces it.

Cristen: Well, come on, Ilene!

[Music: “Come on, Eileen”]

[Stinger]

Caroline: Ilene Chaiken grew up in the 1960s, and even though there were barely any channels to choose from and live-tweeting didn’t exist, Ilene still had her own appointment TV

Cristen: Yeah, she says that in fifth grade “her shows” were I Dream of Jeannie and Gilligan’s Island. And she even kept a little record of them in her diary.

Caroline: What did you write in your diary about them?

Ilene: Really boring things. But I still have the diary, and it says things like, “I was allowed to stay up until nine o'clock tonight to watch I Dream of Jeannie.” That was a big event for me.

[Clip from I Dream of Jeannie]

Jeannie: Good morning, master

Master: Good morning, Jeannie

Jeannie: Oh my, you look handsome this morning

Master: Thank you. I’d like to ask a favor of you.

Jeannie: Oh thank you, master!

Master: Well you haven’t heard what it is yet.

Jeannie: Oh it does not matter. You never give me a chance to do anything for you.

Caroline: I - I loved I Dream of Jeannie. Oh man.

Cristen: Barbara Eden.

Caroline: Yeah. So who were your favorite - who were your favorite characters?

Ilene: Well I was going to say that on all of those shows in retrospect I realized that I had mad crushes on the sexy ladies that were you know either the stars of the shows, Barbara Eden in I Dream of Jeannie, Elizabeth Montgomery in Bewitched. I was madly in love with them, and - and on Gilligan's Island it was like a cross between Ginger and Marianne. And I think that it's kind of, you know, early lesbian kind of team choosing: Are you team Ginger or are you team Marianne?

Caroline: For those of us not in the Gilligan’s Island know, Marianne was the levelheaded brunette, while Ginger was like a redheaded Marilyn Monroe sexpot type.

Ginger: You are so talented. I get goosebumps all over just watching your masterful marksmanship.

Rodriguez: You like the way Rodriguez shoots?

Ginger: Oh, si si si si si

Cristen: So which team were you?

Ilene: I wanted to be Team Marianne, but I was Team Ginger.

Cristen: You know what, same. Because Ginger is - there was just something - Marianne was a little too … just a little too boring. Ginger is a little spicy.

Ilene: Yeah. And also I think probably I identified more with Marianne, which means that I wanted to sleep with Ginger. I did a thing that I think that most gay people did growing up when there was no representation whatsoever. I just transposed. I didn't say - say to myself I'm going gonna watch this movie and pretend this character is gay. I just kind of would inhabit the male character in my point of view to have a romance with the female character.

Caroline: Right after graduating college, Ilene moved to Hollywood in 1980. Her sights were set on filmmaking — not on a career in television.

Ilene: Writing television was not a thing anyone aspired to. It was the thing may be that you did if you couldn't make it as a movie writer. It was not anything that we boasted about or talked about in you know as - as a dream.

Cristen: Ilene's career in entertainment started at Creative Artists Agency, or CAA, in their trainee program — one of those very unglamourous Hollywood dues-paying institutions where you start in the mailroom and work your way up

Ilene: And once you get into that groove you get on a track, and ambition overtakes you. You just simply have to advance to the next level. And - and you do all the things that everybody else around you is doing to advance to the next level. And I never wanted to be an agent, but I definitely thought, well if I'm - if I'm doing this right I'm going to wind up an executive, and indeed I did. And it was never anything I set out to do, but I learned a hell of a lot in the course of doing it.

Caroline: Including how to juggle egos. After 10 years of climbing the TV ladder, Ilene landed a job as the head television executive at Spelling. As in 90s TV giant Aaron Spelling of 90210, Melrose Place and daughter Tori fame.

Cristen: But Spelling was in sort of a rough patch when Ilene worked for him. Out of five shows she developed there, four fell apart. But the fifth was the very not-90210 show, Twin Peaks.

[Twin Peaks Clip]

Dale Cooper: Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup collides with ham!

Caroline: In the late 80s, David Lynch had gotten a ton of buzz for his psycho/surrealist horror classic, Blue Velvet, and Ilene heard he was cooking up a new project for television...

Ilene: And I said I want this for Spelling. And everybody said, “David Lynch and Aaron Spelling? That's the most absurd thing I've never heard.” I just was relentless, and I finally got David Lynch and Aaron Spelling in a room together, and it was just an epic meeting.

Caroline: I bet.

Cristen: I know. How did you find like a room large enough for like...

Ilene: Well it was Aaron Spelling's office, which was the biggest room you've ever seen in your life. Aaron had a legendary office in West Hollywood that was just vast. I can't even - I mean you're picturing something big, make it 10 times bigger

Cristen: After five years with Spelling in that massive office, she went to work for Quincy Jones Entertainment, where she became a producer on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

[Fresh Prince theme]

Caroline: Quincy was close buddies with Benny Medina, who’s now a TV producer, but back then was a young music executive.

Ilene: The Fresh Prince was his idea based on his own life story. And Benny and his then-partner brought the project to Quincy with this young rapper nobody had ever heard of named Will Smith. And we took it into NBC, and we took Will in with us to the president of the network, and he was just so funny and winning and charming that we walked out of the office of the president of the network said, “We're doing this.” It was just like that.

Caroline: Fresh Prince premiered in 1990. And on paper, Ilene was killing it, y’all. She was in her early 30s and rocketing up the TV executive ladder.

Cristen: But this is where shit gets really relatable, Caroline, because at this point, Ilene was also burning out. Fast. Yes, she was a whiz at wrangling the business end of TV development, but that was also leaving her with major creative FOMO.

Ilene: One of the reasons that you stop being an executive when you're someone like me is because you really, you know, once the show gets bought and programmed, you have very little to do with it. And that's not fulfilling if what you want to be doing is really making things.

Caroline: And making those things in a very male-dominated entertainment industry.

Cristen: How would you describe Hollywood's relationship with women both onscreen and off when you first arrived in the 80s.

Ilene: Oh Lord. Everything you imagine and worse. I mean the tales are legendary, and they were all true. And certainly in the 80s, throughout the 80s, Hollywood's relationship to women both as we're portrayed on screen and as women were treated in all facets of the film and television business was just kind of a horror show. We were objectified and sexualized and expected to and hit on and - and dismissed and overlooked in every possible way.

Caroline: When you got to Hollywood were you working with many other women, or was it kind of an only-woman-in-the-room situation?

Ilene: I was often the only women in the room. I mean it was very male-dominated, and it was clearly a more difficult climate for women than - than it is even now, and it's still often a difficult place for - for women to be, or the world is.

Cristen: Well since you were at the center of all of these powerful men in Hollywood. And we were curious, how did you navigate those kinds of relationships, and navigate them successfully?

Ilene: You know, without going into detail, I will say that I didn't emerge unscathed. But I did, and do, for whatever reason, have an ability to work with those guys. And sometimes it's really fun and interesting, and sometimes it's gross and horrifying. I've learned, or maybe I always knew, I don't know, how to manage those larger-than-life personalities those - and they're almost exclusively male egos. The - the ranters, the screamers. I can just deal with them.

Cristen: Caroline, quick sidebar, I’m reading two Harvey Weinstein books right now — She Said by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey and Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow.

Caroline: Oh, just some light reading

Cristen: Oh yeah, definitely. But the way Weinstein uses rage to basically scare everyone around him into keeping silent or appeasing him just to make him stop already … like, it feels so reminiscent of the environment Ilene is describing here. I mean, just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that Ilene and Weinstein had anything to do with each other or that every powerful man in Hollywood is a carbon copy of him. But just in terms of that raging male toxicity you know?

Caroline: Yeah, the intimidation factor.

Cristen: This feels like a very. I'm gonna go ahead and say awkward question to ask but I'm going to ask it. Especially in these kinds of old-boys-clubby environments. I don't know if you were out to everyone at the time, but did being a lesbian affect those dynamics in any kind of way? Did it quote unquote help manage those relationships in any kind of way.

Ilene: That's. I love that question because I think that it's - it's so nuanced and not often discussed. The answer is manifold actually. Firstly I was always out, but it was just because I was so clueless I didn't know how not to be out. It's not because I was out and proud or because I was an activist. And so I was out at a time when it wasn't all that cool to be out, and there weren't very many people who were openly gay in my business, in my position, and that was a very junior position because it was - I came out when I was - when I worked at CAA, so my first job, I think I was 24. And once I came out to myself almost everybody I knew knew that I was gay. I've often said that I experienced much more discrimination for being a woman than for being a lesbian. And I believe that to be true. I think that the kind of the real push has to do more with gender than with sexual orientation. And I definitely got into some rooms or at least invited to some parties because I was gay because it was a novelty and it was so fascinating and - and kind of cool to certain people. It was you know it was allowing people to objectify my gayness in order to get through the door.

Cristen: By the end of the 90s, that gay novelty factor, or tokenization to put it more bluntly, was starting to appear more on screen, as well.

Caroline: Yeah, like in 1997, Ellen came out — and ABC canceled her show a year later because the network worried it had become too gay.

Cristen: Which is laughable considering that Will & Grace premiered in 1998 and quickly became one of the most popular sitcoms on primetime.

Caroline: Yeah, and offscreen, Ilene had started looking at all the changes happening within her own lesbian community and wondering whether the time had come to tell their stories on TV, too.

Cristen: More on that, after the break.

[Midroll ad 1]

Ilene: The germ of the idea came to me when my children - I have twin girls. They’re now 24 years old. They were 2 at the time, and I and their other mother were hanging out in West Hollywood on this particular street in Spalding Square that for whatever reason had more lesbians living on it than any place else I had ever been, and I don't know why. But we were just we were hanging out one one beautiful spring morning, and we were sitting with two friends who had just had a baby, and next door was a gay woman who just had a baby, and across the street was someone else, and then there was another kid who came riding around the corner on his bicycle followed by his two moms, and I just was struck by the fact that this was happening and it clearly was a phenomenon. I mean, it was remarkable.

Caroline: We’re back with Ilene Chaiken, creator of The L Word.

Cristen: Ilene is recounting what sounds like a lesbian utopia in West Hollywood in the late 1990s. In the time since she’d come out of the closet in 1981, the queer community around her had not only grown up, they’d also begun charting new cultural territory by having children together and on their own terms.

Ilene: I felt like people didn't know this was happening, and I wanted to write about it. But I knew that there was no way that I could write a movie about it, nobody would make a movie about a bunch of lesbians, it just wasn't remotely possible, and I didn't think it could happen on TV either. So I said to my then-agent, I you know I've never really written about being gay, and I kind of want to write for once about my life, and what can I do, and he said, “Well would you write it as a magazine article?” And he knew somebody at Los Angeles Magazine, and next thing I knew I was writing a 5,000-word essay on the lesbian baby boom in Hollywood.

Caroline: The article — “Babes in Arms: Are Two Moms Better Than One?” — was published in July 2000. Same-sex marriage was far from legal, and state laws typically prevented unmarried couples from adopting, so the whole kid factor was a giant legal obstacle.

Cristen: But in Ilene’s well-off corner of queer Hollywood, women were making it work anyway. Turkey baster self-insemination included.

Caroline: Also included were Ilene and her then-partner and co-parent. In the article, she described their adventures in collecting sperm donations — including one delivered by a friend in a martini glass for flare.

Cristen: That sounds like a very precarious delivery method, but with details like that, Caroline, I’m so not surprised that the piece was the cover story.

Ilene: It was kind of cool. But when I finished I felt like yeah. But it's not enough, I still want to write more about this. You know I'm a filmmaker. I want to make a movie, I want to write about it. I had been in business with Showtime on this other project. And so I went in for a meeting with a couple of mid-level executive two women that I had become close with. And I brought them the article and I said this this. What do you think? A television show. And they very kindly laughed me out of the room basically. And they said, “The guy that sits down the hall, that guy in a suit, straight white man. He is never going to make a television series about lesbians. We would love to, but he's never going to do this.” But the word got to him that I had pitched it, and on the night of the Golden Globes he actually whispered in my ear, “Let's do this little lesbian thing you want to do.”

Cristen: OK, so there were two big things that helped tip the scales for The L Word. That Golden Globes Ilene just mentioned? In 2000, a Showtime movie Ilene had made called Dirty Pictures won the network its very first Golden Globe for a made-for-TV film, which curried her favor with the execs

Caroline: Meanwhile, Queer as Folk and Sex & the City were also getting a ton of buzz. And the Venn diagram of a sexy drama about a group gay men and a sexy dramady about a group of straight women pretty much looks like The L Word.

Cristen: Yeah, and the network didn’t just greenlight a pilot. Even though Ilene hadn’t even worked in a writer’s room at that point, Showtime made her the showrunner, which meant she was basically the head bitch in charge of making the thing — hiring writers, casting characters, managing production and just overall steering the story and vision. Her creative drought was definitely over.

Caroline: And what she created was sort of a glossier, dramatized version of her Los Angeles lesbian paradise, centering around a group of mostly lesbian, femme, cisgender women.

Cristen: Its original tagline? “Same Sex. Different City.”

[Clip from The L Word]

Dana: I thought Jenny was straight

Alice: Dana, most girls are straight until they’re not, and then soemtimes they’re gay til they’re not.

Shane: True, then there are also the ones who never look back, right? And you can spot them coming a mile away

Dana: How can you tell?

Alice: Read the signals

Dana: That’s my problem

Shane: Dana, that’s not the problem, all right. No. Sexuality is fluid, whether you’re gay or you’re straight or you’re bisexual, you just go with the flow.

Dana: No, that is my problem. OK, I can’t feel the flow. That thing, whatever it is, I don’t got it.

Alice: You don’t have gaydar!

Caroline: Within a year of The L Word’s debut, Ilene was being hailed as a role model, and Out Magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful gay people

Cristen: The show was celebrated for busting stereotypes and bringing untold stories to the screen. A lot of fans and critics alike were into it.

Caroline: So at what point did you know that you had a hit TV show on your hands. I mean aside from like numbers or eyeballs like. At what point did you know like this. The L Word is is a big thing.

Ilene: I knew in the first season that it was getting a lot of attention, and that was exciting, and it was getting you know magazine covers you know, we were going on TV shows, some big fancy TV shows, so you know, that was an indication that - that it had kind of somehow penetrated the culture. But the first time that I really understood what was going on was when we did after the first season certain public events, we would go with the cast there were you know events that Showtime organized to promote the show, and we would go to these venues where we would screen the show, and there would be a large invited audience, but we would walk through the streets and there would be lines around the block of women waiting to see this cast. They weren't waiting for me. They were waiting for the cast. It was like being with the Beatles, and women screamed and pushed and shoved to get close to them and touch them, and it was pretty mind blowing. And it was unlike anything that I had ever imagined.

Cristen: But as any L Word diehard will also tell you, the show wasn’t perfect. In fact, plenty of queer folks hated it. The world of The L Word was affluent, thin and disproportionately white, and they cast cisgender actors to play two recurring trans characters.

Caroline: But what caught the most heat — especially from lesbian audiences at the time — was the show’s sex appeal. Critics accused Ilene of pandering to male network execs by casting conventionally hot leads to basically make sure all the lesbian vibes wouldn’t scare away men.

Ilene: I mean the straight men were certainly titillated by the sex, but they're also smart people, and they were interested in telling these stories because you know they were just beginning to kind of understand what cable was and could be. And they wanted to tell stories that hadn't been told. They wanted to break boundaries. And they recognized that this would be boundary-breaking in a lot of ways. I think that, you know, I mean they — Showtime also did Queer as Folk, but I was always aware that the idea of pretty lesbians who had sex made this more alluring to them. And I was always willing to accept that as the vehicle for getting to tell these stories that meant so much to me. Also I like telling stories about sex.

Cristen: So yeah, Ilene had to make sure the network was happy. And based on the media coverage we read from when the show was on the air, Ilene would often stress that The L Word was based on a very specific lesbian community, like, the West Hollywood she wrote about in that magazine article

Caroline: And it seems like initially at least, it was challenging for Ilene and the lead L Word cast to kind of reconcile this groundbreaking show that they made with the complaints that it wasn’t groundbreaking enough, you know?

Cristen: Yeah, the representation bar is gonna be high whenever you’re the first to tell a story about a community that’s never seen itself reflected back in pop culture. Plus, this was the first show Ilene had actually made, so she was kinda learning on the job

Caroline: So when you were staffing the writers’ room we read that you didn't hire any lesbians the first time around. So.

Ilene: Well that's not strictly true. I did hire some lesbians, but I know the story that you're referencing. I was told by the guys that ran the network, “Any good writer can write this show. Anybody that understands writing that understands character that understands television. You don't have to hire all lesbians you can hire some lesbians. I'm sure you'll want to, but, you know, hire just really great writers, some straight men, maybe you know a gay guy if you want, it just - it doesn't have to be written by lesbians.” And so I hired a kind of diverse writing staff. And you know diversity working kind of in the opposite ways to the way that we generally think of it. And I found over the course of the first season that the only ones that could really write the show were lesbians.

Cristen: That learning experience in the writers’ room was just one way that making The L Word taught Ilene about the nuances and responsibilities that come with representation.

Caroline: Those lessons also came in handy in 2014 when Lee Daniels and Danny Strong chose Ilene to showrun the first season of the hip-hop drama, Empire.

Ilene: I brought that to Empire from the very beginning. I knew immediately that although I was entrusted to be the showrunner, which meant that technically I was responsible for the stories that were getting told and that the network would look to me for that responsibility, that I had to staff the show with people whose - whose stories these were and that would be primarily almost exclusively African-American writers, and that my job was to shape these stories, to listen, and to let them lead me to know what the stories were and how to tell them and to make sure that the voices in which the stories were being told were authentic voices.

Cristen: So, Empire is loosely based off Lee Daniels’ upbringing, and Caroline, this feels like a little callback to back when she helped get Benny Medina’s life-inspired sitcom to air with Fresh Prince.

Caroline: Yeah just with a lot less Will Smith.

Cristen: But a lot MORE Taraji P. Henson. When we come back, Ilene reflects on how her perspective about politicized pop culture has evolved since The L Word. Plus, what got The L Word reboot rolling.

Caroline: Stick around!

[Midroll ad 2]

Caroline: How would you say that that idea of representation or the pop cultural landscape has changed, or has it, when it comes to The L Word and shows like The L Word?

Ilene: Well I think it's changed a great deal. I think that it's no longer, you know, an idea for which you get laughed out of the room. There's - there are very few kind of constituencies that I think would be dismissed in whole as you know the subject of a television show. So you know we - we're in a much more open and receptive environment, and there are so many new platforms, new ways and places to tell your stories.

Caroline: We’re back with L Word creator Ilene Chaiken. And Cristen, she’s right about the TV landscape changing

Cristen: Yeah, according to GLAAD, almost 9% of scripted primetime TV characters during 2018-2019 were LGBTQ — which is the highest proportion ever

Caroline: Yeah but the report did note though that “one area in which broadcast has yet to recover is in representation of lesbian characters.” And those numbers will get a boost in December

Cristen: The L word is coming back. You are not writing this show this time, but it was your idea to bring it back. And so as - as an audience member this time, are there any storylines that you are especially like interested to see onscreen.

Ilene: Yes. There are. I'm not allowed to talk about them yet though. It's really exciting and fun to watch the show be kind of reborn and imagined by new writers. And you know there's so much of me still in it, but it's been taken over, and - and I'm loving seeing where it's - where it's going. It's - it's like it's grown up. I mean I'm you know I'm particularly invested in the stories of Bette, Shane and Alice 10 years later. It's just really wild and fun to you know to meet them again and kind of feel where they have been and learn where they've been. But I also there's this gorgeous new cast that's been built up and created around them and that intersects with them in all kinds of different ways. And it's just mind-blowing for me.

Cristen: Well and is it true that sort of in the interim that it was Bette, Shane and Alice who sort of kept the idea of a reboot alive?

Ilene: Well I would - I would actually attribute it to Jennifer, Kate and Leisha rather than their characters. But yes it was. We've all remained good friends, and we talk from time to time, but it was something like five years ago at least that they started saying to me, “Ilene, what do you think about bringing back The L Word?” And I'm pretty sure I was in the middle of producing Empire at the time, and I would say I love it, it's a great idea, but I'm kind of busy, and I don't know if this is the right time. But they they were relentless. They believed in it so much and there came a moment when it was really clear to me that they were right that they they were onto something. And when the time really felt right to me I proposed it to Showtime.

Caroline: So what was the moment - when - when did it feel right?

Ilene: I hate to say this but it was just after the 20. What. What year was that he was elected?

Cristen: 16. Yeah. Was it like 100 hundred years ago.

Ilene: Yeah it was. It was just after that.

Caroline: In yet another six degrees of Ilene TV, the success of Handmaid’s Tale helped grease the wheels for Ilene to pitch the L Word reboot to Showtime

Cristen: Right! Like, OK fun fact y’all, Illene had been trying to get Margaret Atwood’s novel adapted for TV for a decade and had written the original pilot script for Showtime, but Showtime was like, “No thanks”

Caroline: So when Hulu eventually picked up the show in 2016, and it was such a massive hit, Ilene had plenty of told-you-so to leverage

Ilene: I called my friend Gary Levine who's now the president of the network and said, “What do you think about —” And he said, “What, you're going to do just you're just going to rub my nose in the fact that I didn't make Handmaid's Tale with you,” and I said, “No let me finish. What do you think about rebooting The L Word.” And it was that it was just exactly like that. And he called me two days later and he said, “OK, let's do it.”

Caroline: Ilene’s pal Gary, the Showtime president, definitely trusted her instincts this time around. L Word: Generation Q is coming out in December.

Cristen: And while Ilene’s passed along her writing and showrunning torch, she’s serving as executive producer on the reboot.

Caroline: And it’s really interesting to consider just how Ilene’s politics and what she’s bringing to the screen are linking up. With the original L Word, her goal wasn’t to burn down heteronormative systems and get radical. She just wanted to tell her community’s stories on screen, and, yeah, in her own words, see girls kiss.

Cristen: Yeah to be honest, Caroline, it was surprising to go back and read how Ilene was processing the sort of political expectations, like, fans had for the original L Word. Because at first she seemed a lot more uncomfortable with speaking to representation compared to how outspoken she's become

Caroline: So we're going to quote you to you. And in 2005 you told The New York Times, “I rail against the idea that pop television is a political medium. I am political in my life, but I am making serialized melodrama. I am not a cultural missionary.” So could you unpack that a little bit for us and tell us whether you still feel the same?

Ilene: No, I don't still feel the same. I - I think there's some truth in that statement, but I wouldn't say that anymore. I still believe in the power of entertainment, and I still like making shows and telling stories that are driven by the compulsion to entertain or engage or - or you know hook someone by the power of storytelling. But I do much more own the fact that it's also a very, very powerful medium that's just imbued with the possibility of changing hearts and minds. And in fact when I do speaking engagements now with - for - for younger writers or for really for any writers, I talk a lot about this idea that you know it used to be looked down upon to have an agenda, a political agenda, when you write or make movies and television, and I think that's nonsense. I think that our agendas, which are just simply another word for our passions, the things that we believe and feel strongly about. Those are the things that make us writers and creators and artists, those are the things that drive us, and what we do is really hard to do, and it takes a lot of work and energy and skill. And if you don't have a passion for what you're doing, your - your chances of doing it well are far less good, and frankly why bother.

Cristen: As a storyteller on these massive platforms what do you think is the most important ingredient to bringing inclusivity and unearthing these kinds of stories about people that are not often told, like what is the key to bringing those stories to mainstream platforms and audiences?

Ilene: Whew. That's a big question. I don't know that there's a simple key. I think that having a passion to tell a story and - and figuring out a way to tell that story is what it takes. And I think that those things that you cite that have always been - been considered to be the impediments to getting these shows on the air actually are - are the reasons that they get made and become hits because those are the stories that haven't been told that need to be told that galvanize people and make us feel seen and - and that engender kind of passionate fandom. I mean there's no more devoted, loyal, crazy mad audience than an audience that finally you know that feels like, finally I see myself, I'm being represented. And then the flip side of that experience is even if you're part of the culture at large that's used to always being represented in you know in entertainment culture, it's exciting to see something that you haven't seen. That's what makes a show a hit: Telling a story that hasn't been told but telling it in a way that gives everybody a point of connection to it.

Cristen: Y’know, Caroline, we never did find out whether it’s OK to reuse old dildos in new relationships!

Caroline: Come on, Ilene!

Cristen: We gotta call Ilene back! Or maybe we’ll find out on the reboot. The L Word Generation Q premieres on Sunday, Dec. 8 on Showtime.

Caroline: So, tell us your thoughts, y’all: Are you a diehard L Word fan? Are you so stoked for the reboot? Email us at hello@unladylike.co, hit us up on social @unladylikemedia or find the thread for this episode in our private facebook group.

Cristen: And if you’re looking for something cozy this winter, head on over to our shop because we’ve got some brand new tie dye, yes TIE DYE, sweatshirts and key chains. And, no, those won’t keep you warm, but seriously, head over. They’re super cute.

Caroline: Plus, you can sign up for our newsletter to get actually good news about women in the world delivered to your inbox every Wednesday.

Cristen: Unladylike is produced by Sam Lee and Nora Ritchie. Abigail Keel is our senior producer. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing, sound design, and additional music is by Casey Holford. Our executive producers are Chris Bannon and Daisy Rosario.

Caroline: Special thanks to Brendan Byrnes at Stitcher Studios in LA.

Cristen: We are your hosts, Cristen Conger

Caroline: and Caroline Ervin. Next week…

Cristen: Who is a maiden?

Esther: Who was a maiden, right. Who was a maiden. There's a dowry, right? If there's a maiden, there's a dowry.

Caroline: I bring my cow to the wedding.

Esther: Right. Right. Like you live in your father's castle and then you go to your husband's village. Like, it's just that's what you know, you're a virgin. It's like it's all that stuff. It's a package. Like, who are we kidding?

Cristen: We’re talking about all the nonsense that is maiden names

Caroline: Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike so you don’t miss this episode. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Cristen: And remember, got a problem?

Caroline: Get unladylike.

[Stinger]

Ilene: We like tricked out cars.

Caroline: Oh all right.

Ilene: It's not very P.C. but I've got a couple.

Caroline: All right. Well what do you what do you have. What kind of cars are we talking?

Ilene: Well at the moment the the most unacceptable car is is a big fat pickup truck with big wheels and sick rims.

Caroline: You would fit fit in swimmingly here in Georgia.

Ilene: And my wife is a southern girl. There you go