Feeling and the production of lesbian space inThe L Word

Abstract

This article seeks to understand the production of lesbian space in the TV series The L Word (TLW) (Showtime 2004(Showtime -2009. To do so, it departs from theories of the lesbian gaze to discuss the visibility of feeling. Specifically, I consider how TLW represents the visibility of feeling as constitutive of lesbian bodies, communities, and spaces. In TLW real spaces (actual locations) fold into virtual ones (on screen) in a deliberate construction of televisual lesbian space. TLW implicitly reflects and is embedded within real-life configurations of lesbian space. I identify four excerpts from the series -'gay LA', 'the pool', 'Olivia cruise', and 'High Art' -that problematise lesbian visibility by foregrounding the relationship between feeling and place. Permission to feel, represented as permission to look, reproduces community as the threshold of lesbian identity. Critical to understanding this production of lesbian space is the way in which TLW associates feeling with social relationships as vividly depicted by 'the chart', a representational motif that maps lesbian sexual relations and the intelligibility of lesbian feeling. Finally, I develop my account of lesbian visibility through the example of the facial expression of feeling, at once a demonstration of the visible embodiment of lesbian feeling, and the intelligibility of lesbian space.

Geographies of sexuality I: Making room for lesbianism

“…Diverse forms of visibility are also created across real and fictional lesbian spaces, such as TV programmes like The L-Word (Cefai, 2014), as well as through music that transgresses and reworks temporal-spatial heteronorms and safe/dangerous – for example, by listening to particular songs, participants in Johnston and Hardie’s research (Hardie and Johnston, 2015) spoke about creating space that detached them from everyday heteronormative homes –and making people feel safe in public by playing music that connects to privatised sexual lives. Crossing between physical and real worlds, explorations of cyberspace in Paris have emphasised the use of the internet to create lesbian spaces online as well as through organising one-off face-to-face parties (Catton and Carval, 2011).…”

Filming female desire: queering the gaze of pop music videos

“…The lesbian, gay, or queer gaze has been considered by academics seeking to expand gaze theory (Drukman 2005, Cefai 2014). Studies of lesbian representation in the media have often been focussed on to what extent a 'desiring and/or identificatory 'lesbian gaze' is possible within (mainstream) cinema' (Lindner 2013, p. 277).…”

Intimate attunements: Everyday affect in Sydney’s drag king scene

“…Specifically, Esther Newton's (1972) ethnographic study of 1960s drag queen culture, Mother Camp, presents drag as a form of social organization and lived experience. Further, alternative approaches to lesbian cultures emphasize social activities and the more mundane aspects of everyday life (Caudwell, 2007;Cefai, 2014;Probyn, 1995;Valentine, 1995Valentine, , 1996. Together, these works downplay expressions of sexual identity and political activism in favour of collective practices and everyday activities.…”