The L Word Season Four, Episode Seven: The Parenting Perspective

(Minor spoilers below.)

Shane is livin’ la vida loco parentis this week. Her nine-year-old brother Shay and his friend Jared got into a fight with some kids who teased them about their moms being gay. Shane goes with Jared’s mother Paige to meet with the school principal, and they argue that the school must teach kids not to use “gay” as an insult. The principal admits he doesn’t know how to talk about the issue, and Paige volunteers herself and Shane to do so.

In a subsequent scene, we see parents and students both attending the diversity training. After some opening comments from the facilitator about tolerance, a mother stands up and asks if they’re going to talk about sex: “How detailed are we planning on getting here?” Shane and Paige respond in calm and reasoned tones to that and the rest of the questions.

As Scribe Grrrl points out at After Ellen, the scene is full of clichés and predictability. The mother’s fear is remarkably similar, however, to those of certain real parents in Massachusetts and New Jersey, who are up in arms about materials used to discuss LGBT families in the classroom. Coincidentally, too, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled today that students who are harassed by others may sue the school district if it fails to take “reasonable steps” to stop the behavior. The decision stemmed from the case of a boy who was physically and verbally harassed for several years by classmates who thought he was gay.

If I want a “torn from the headlines” drama, however, I’ll watch Law & Order. From The L Word, I expect more creativity and insight. Don’t get me wrong: teaching students and straight parents about LGBT families is an important step on the road to acceptance and equality. I’m glad to see The L Word tackling the matter. Like Scribe Grrrl, though, I was left flat by their treatment. Maybe it’s that I want my entertainment to entertain, not drag me through parts of my own life with no additional insight or humor. The show fell into the same trap when it dealt with Dana Fairbanks’ breast cancer last season. Not that breast cancer should be entertaining, but if you’re going to fictionalize it, at least show some new perspective. If you want to do a public-service announcement, do a 60-second spot after the show. (I’ll say the same twice over for The L Word’s male predecessor, Queer as Folk, which clunked through quite a few “socially meaningful” storylines during its tenure.)

Yes, there may be some people watching the show who need a lesson in “LGBT Tolerance 101.” I doubt that’s the majority of the audience. Even if it were, there would have been ways to give the scene more dramatic tension. Make Conservative Mom the mother of Shay’s love interest, or put her on the zoning board that oversees Shane’s haircutting salon. Step it up, because parent-teacher meetings aren’t really all that interesting, even if they have Katherine Moennig and Kristanna Loken in them.

While we’re talking about schools, however, I have to ask why neither Bette nor Tina brought up LGBT-friendliness in their discussion last week about the best preschool for their daughter. This is a central concern for all the LGBT parents I know. Are we to assume all private preschools in LA are enlightened places that put up rainbow flags in June and have “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” on their admissions forms? Have Bette and Tina lived lives of privilege for so long they have forgotten about such mundane matters as prejudice? Or did the writers feel that one storyline about LGBT tolerance in schools was enough?