{"id":5901,"date":"2024-12-28T09:36:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-28T09:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=5901"},"modified":"2024-12-28T09:36:13","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T09:36:13","slug":"inside-wild-wonderful-world-mid-2000s-l-word-watch-parties-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?p=5901","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Wild, Wonderful World of Mid-2000s L Word Watch Parties"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"2004 Was So Gay<\/strong>\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0Them\u2019s look back at a pivotal year for queer history and pop culture. <\/em><\/p>\n

Just nine months before\u00a0The L Word<\/em>\u00a0premiered January 18, 2004, cast members Kate Moennig and Erin Daniels huddled under a practically anonymous booth in the hot Palm Springs sun at\u00a0The Dinah, the premiere queer women\u2019s party of the early aughties. They were promoting a little-known show about lesbians for Showtime that was still going by its code name\u00a0Earthlings<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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The next time the actors attended the party, just a year later, they had to be escorted by a security team of ex-Navy Seals as they traversed a horde of sapphics vying for their autographs and a chance to bask in their presence. After being featured on an early episode of\u00a0The L Word<\/em>, The Dinah\u00a0doubled in attendance. Everyone wanted to brush shoulders with the glitzy Hollywood lesbians.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was like Beatlemania,\u201d Dinah founder Mariah Hanson tells\u00a0Them<\/em>. \u201cThey had the \u2018it\u2019 factor.\u201d<\/p>\n

It might have been their \u2018it\u2019 factor, or maybe it was the fact that Hollywood had never featured lesbians living, laughing, loving, fighting, and fucking in earnest on primetime. Twenty years ago,\u00a0The L Word<\/em>\u00a0made queer television history, with hundreds of thousands of viewers tuning in every Sunday night. The show combined lesbian melodrama with explorations of LGBTQ+ political issues such as\u00a0same-sex marriage,\u00a0queer adoption, and the U.S. Military\u2019s\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d\u00a0policy \u2014 not always seamlessly, but it certainly tried. It highlighted the interconnected nature of\u00a0sapphic communities, spreading the joking stereotype that all queer women are each other\u2019s exes long before it became a meme.<\/p>\n

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The L Word<\/em>\u00a0was in many ways the first of its kind, though this might be hard to imagine for a generation that has just witnessed\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0year of the lesbian, with pop icons like\u00a0Chappell Roan,\u00a0Rene\u00e9 Rapp, and\u00a0Kehlani finally getting their flowers in the mainstream.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, the show was\u00a0far<\/em>\u00a0from perfect. The original iteration of\u00a0The L Wor<\/em>d made some major blunders that have been dissected by fans, haters, and media scholars alike, including its\u00a0blatant biphobia,\u00a0transphobia, and overall lack of diversity given its primarily white, chiefly cisgender cast. The 2019 reboot\u00a0The L Word: Generation Q<\/em>\u00a0attempted to right some of those wrongs but, despite its many mistakes and problematic plot points, the first run of the series still retains a vaunted place in sapphic history. There\u2019s a direct through line from the 2004 premiere of\u00a0The L Word<\/em>\u00a0to the 2009 founding of the queer website\u00a0Autostraddle\u00a0to\u00a0The Ultimatum: Queer Love<\/em>\u00a0premiering on Netflix in 2022.<\/p>\n

In order to fully understand the fervor and fever pitch excitement of that original moment, you just had to be there. And when I say there, I don\u2019t just mean at the many unofficial watch parties hosted by historic lesbian bars, queer nonprofits, and other groups. You also have to hear a bit about what it meant to be an out\u00a0lesbian in the landscape of 2004. Below, we speak to the people who remember where they were when season one of\u00a0The L Word<\/em>\u00a0aired, and share photos of viewing parties from the mid-2000s.<\/p>\n

Mariah Hanson, founder of The Dinah, a 33-year-old iconic queer women\u2019s festival in Palm Springs<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Mariah Hanson, co-founder and producer of The Dinah, never knew that allowing a pair of actors to table at the festival for their little-known show would turn into a\u00a0full-on sapphic moment\u00a0in history.\u00a0The L Word<\/em>\u00a0would go on to feature The Dinah in an episode, leading to an unprecedented spike in attendance at the queer women\u2019s gathering the following year.<\/div>\n
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Tell me about the\u00a0The L Word\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0booth at The Dinah, back when the show was unknown.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We were approached by [a representative from Showtime]. She asked if we were willing to have a couple people from a new show whose working title was called\u00a0The Earthlings<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 believe it or not \u2014 and would we be interested in giving them some time at The Dinah? She said, \u201cIt\u2019s associated with Showtime.\u201d I said, \u201cYeah, but those things cost.\u201d We actually made them pay for a booth. Then guess who showed up to sit at that booth? Kate Moennig and Erin Daniels. Nobody knew who they were. They were pretty cute, but\u00a0The Earthlings<\/em>\u00a0was just not a title that resonates whatsoever. We wanted Jennifer Beals. Then the show aired. We spent the next five or six years begging Kate to come back. We would pay her. That was a really funny beginning.<\/p>\n

But it was exciting in the same way that The Dinah\u2019s exciting. It\u2019s this eye-opening experience, especially if you\u2019re coming from Peoria, Illinois, because you don\u2019t have that kind of freedom of expression in smaller towns and in areas where people are still afraid to come out. When you get to The Dinah, it\u2019s this world that\u00a0explodes<\/em>. It\u2019s just such a celebratory, ecstatic experience. It\u2019s rapture for so many people, and\u00a0The L Word<\/em> was really similar to that. They reached millions of people where we were reaching thousands. Kudos to [them] for sharing that vision with the world, so that queer people can get closer to having the coming-out process be shorter and less painful.<\/p>\n

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In the episode they ended up filming depicting The Dinah, do you feel like they did it justice?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely, because the casting crew had been to The Dinah so many times. Even the workup [to the trip in the episode] was this excitement and awe of The Dinah, and that\u2019s how it is. After that, the cast would come to The Dinah a lot. I spent a lot of time with them. They used to do an event called Be Scene at The Dinah, and it would be Kate Moennig, Leisha Hailey, Jane Lynch, or Ilene Chaiken \u2014 they would judge scenes from\u00a0The L Word<\/em>\u00a0that customers signed up to act out on stage. It was super fun. We did that for probably about three years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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My favorite moment during that was when the customer who was going to play Shane got too scared. She wouldn\u2019t get on stage. There were three or four people in the scene, but Shane didn\u2019t come on stage. So Leisha goes, \u201cI\u2019ll do it.\u201d She played Shane as good as Kate played Shane. You really saw what a comedic brilliant actress she was, because she was Shane, she wasn\u2019t Leisha anymore. It was so weird.<\/p>\n