WHOA! Stop the presses...
In an interview with PlanetOut.com, L Word creator Ilene Chaiken made this statement about Daniela Sea's new character Moira:
"She's our first real butch on the show -- a fabulously attractive butch, but nonetheless a real butch,'' Chaiken said. "And we deal with the issue of gender. We wanted to tell that story, a big story in the gay community and, in the last couple years, a huge story in the lesbian community.''
Let's take a moment to dissect that. What is "a fabulously attractive butch, but NONETHELESS a real butch," supposed to imply, exactly? Is a real butch supposed to be ugly???? I don't like to identify myself as strictly butch or strictly femme, but I do admit that the way I choose to portray myself comes off more butch than femme 9 times out of 10. For that reason, I must take offense at that comment. I also often find other "butch" women attractive. I really hate the perpetuation of the stereotype "lesbian = unattractive". Can we please stop it? Right now I just had a vision of a guerrilla art project...posters of beautiful lesbians - in every sense and interpretation of the word "beautiful" - plastered all over the place. What do you think?