Gay Eye for the Sapphic Show: Lest We Forget
Since Max is officially a man now, I've gone back to my original title with the word "Sapphic." I think it is also in honor of Dana Fairbanks and what this television show started out as.
Tonight, we continued Part II of the Death of Dana Fairbanks. And, thank god, there wasn't a pubic service announcement at the end. Instead we opened with the most homophobic funeral service in the world (accompanied with "nearer my God to thee" and the "she never found the right husband" comment). Regardless of how much we've seen Dana and her sapphic journey, the funeral is more real to how the mainstream (and her family) would see her. But lest they forget (as Alice reminds them so poignantly), Dana is a lesbian. And this episode was about challenging decades of discourse about how to mourn.
Until the nation recognizes same-sex relationships and attitudes towards homoexuality change, even the right to mourn one's lost lover can be taken away. It may seem small compared to insurance and immigration rights, but even the right to mourn and celebrate a person as they truly are is a right that still is deprived of many queers. It happened in "Brokeback Mountain" in which the main character passes away but their consanguineal family claims that person and buries them, basically, not honoring the way that the person loved and lived their life. Funerals aren't often for the ones who have departed but for the ones who they had left behind. And the death of a friend can be so sacreligious that the queer friends wouldn't even bombard the church with rainbow banners and demand to be seated at the front as their "friends" because it would be disrespectful for "the family."
But who is Dana's family and who has the right to bury her? Bette's storyline crosses over into Dana's storyline. The annoying little prick that is Henry's child (I hate him for what he did to Bette) refers to his consanguineal family (which now include/forced upon Tina and Angelica) and it made me think how Dana's original funeral was for Dana's consanguineal family who prefer not to remember Dana as the "big gay lady." And lest we also forget...Bette and Angelica aren't white. They're mixed-race. Now that Bette knows how to scream again, she's back to her power-dyke self and fighting for the right to raise her child. Some may roll their eyes and think that Bette is power hungry and Angelica is the power-dynamic football but Bette is actually being practical.Through my mixed race class (refer to last Gay Eye entry), I've learned that queer people and mixed-race people have a lot in common (the sexuality thing varies though). Unless Tina gets some advice on how to raise a mixed-race child (I recommend Maria P.P. Root) and something tells me she won't, Bette knows what Angelica is going to go through, especially with the constant feeling of "being adopted" and never feeling like she belongs. And don't tell me that society should be colorblind because "South of Nowhere" already deconstructed that pointless conservative drivel. Try watching that show again for Clay's storyline and not fastforwarding to Spencer and Ashley.
Just like black Clay on "South of Nowhere" feels out of place with his "white" family, I bet many of my queer readers know the feeling that their parents will never accept them for being gay, or if they do, they only accept certain parts or at certain time periods. That is Dana's issue. Dana grew up in a consanguineal family that did not recognize her for who she was. As the flashbacks revealed, the trauma of not being able to come to terms with her identity as a lesbian were only recently relieved (as she came out as the gay Anna Kuornikova and as she fell in love with Lara...and evetually Alice) because Dana finds a queer family (our lovable "L" girls) who accepted her for who she is.
And Dana's queer family was not pleased with how Dana was buried.
Alice's decision to take out Dana's ashes out of the golden urn, which symbolizes the discourse of Christianity, , as well as Alice stepping up and screaming "Dana was gay," was absolutely sacreligious. It makes her ten-times awesome in my book. Dana's spirit was probably cringing in the back pew whispering "You're embarassing me Al!"). The last part was made up, of course, but that's probably what Dana would have said if we stay true to Dana's personality who found herself always balancing between her two families.
Since Alice is so awesome to break thousands of years of discourse, Dana's real funeral service allows Alice to fulfill Dana's wishes and remember Dana for who she really was, an awesome and quirky dyke. And Dana is one of the lucky ones, as Jack Twist could tell you. In Shane's flashback, Dana sees herself dancing on the stage with Tegan and Sara as a proud dyke. And, symbolically, she did. She got to come out, fall in love, and leave the world out and proud, and we got to watch her journey and connect with her. Heck, Dana is even luckier. She got to be buried at the place that she wanted. I'm sure Jack Twist can remind you all of that. Not many people in this world can really say that they are as out and proud as Dana Fairbanks was. We connected to her so much (and even I as a gay man did) that it hurt to see her leave the world.
But somebody else important did not get to say goodbye, even at the lesbian memorial service. Lara. And that's why Alice saves some of Dana's ashes in that seperate red jar because she cares enough to know that Lara hasn't said goodbye. It's hard to remember Lara because she is still seen as Dana's old lover and a secondary character, distanced from the main story. But in that way Lara is more symbolic than secondary. The opening of this episode starts with Dana, a lesbian who is struggling to find her identity, but the end of the episode is Lara, the lesbian who is already out and proud of who she is. Even though BETTY makes it hard for us to remember it, there was a time before "The L Word" when there were no lesbian characters in the mainstream...and we could even go back to a time when the word "lesbian" was only whispered. But "The L Word" has helped create a whole new generation of Laras who are proud of taking on that identity and challenging "The L Word" with their own narratives. Awesome dykes KC and Elka who have even taken this breakthrough show and challenged it and dissected bring us a whole new narrative about the "way that we liive and looove." And if you haven't heard of it, listen to the Planet Cast at http://www.theplanetcast.blogspot.com/. This is the only time I'm going to promote these ladies. I'm so not going to overdo it like Chaiken has.
Based on the ending of the episode (which I'm also shocked at), something is telling me that we're going to see more of Lauren Lee Smith in Season Four. I hope all of you Lara-lovers come back on the surface because sounds like the soup-chef is going to become a main character.
Dana, symbolic of the past struggles of the queer community, has passed her spirit onto Lara and the out and proud lesbians of the world who will continue to fight for their rights to exist in a world that won't even let them grieve. We've may have lost Dana but let's hope Erin Daniels comes back as a guest star as Dana's spirit or Dana's flashbacks. The saying goes that you don't know what you have till its gone and the fans have lost someone who has become bigger than she was. But her legacy lives on, as the many "Laras" of the world come and grieve her death and fight for a world where girls like Dana won't have to struggle to come to terms with who they are and who they love.
In queering the funeral service, Alice not only made her funeral service for her friends, but for all of us "L-Word" fans who are still reeling in the fact that Dana is gone. We are the lucky ones to have had a strong presence like Dana in mainstream. We will never forget Dana and the journey that she took us from her life to her death.
Thank you for that, Dana. We love you, sweetie.
COMING UP: Left Hand of the Goddess...slaps "The L Word" in the face. Spirit of Dana, use your supernatural dyke-y power to pull our "L" ladies out of the bullshit that they are heading towards.
Oh and we had Harrison! Wheee! Dana pulled the closeted dyke dating the closeted homo storyline.
Tonight, we continued Part II of the Death of Dana Fairbanks. And, thank god, there wasn't a pubic service announcement at the end. Instead we opened with the most homophobic funeral service in the world (accompanied with "nearer my God to thee" and the "she never found the right husband" comment). Regardless of how much we've seen Dana and her sapphic journey, the funeral is more real to how the mainstream (and her family) would see her. But lest they forget (as Alice reminds them so poignantly), Dana is a lesbian. And this episode was about challenging decades of discourse about how to mourn.
Until the nation recognizes same-sex relationships and attitudes towards homoexuality change, even the right to mourn one's lost lover can be taken away. It may seem small compared to insurance and immigration rights, but even the right to mourn and celebrate a person as they truly are is a right that still is deprived of many queers. It happened in "Brokeback Mountain" in which the main character passes away but their consanguineal family claims that person and buries them, basically, not honoring the way that the person loved and lived their life. Funerals aren't often for the ones who have departed but for the ones who they had left behind. And the death of a friend can be so sacreligious that the queer friends wouldn't even bombard the church with rainbow banners and demand to be seated at the front as their "friends" because it would be disrespectful for "the family."
But who is Dana's family and who has the right to bury her? Bette's storyline crosses over into Dana's storyline. The annoying little prick that is Henry's child (I hate him for what he did to Bette) refers to his consanguineal family (which now include/forced upon Tina and Angelica) and it made me think how Dana's original funeral was for Dana's consanguineal family who prefer not to remember Dana as the "big gay lady." And lest we also forget...Bette and Angelica aren't white. They're mixed-race. Now that Bette knows how to scream again, she's back to her power-dyke self and fighting for the right to raise her child. Some may roll their eyes and think that Bette is power hungry and Angelica is the power-dynamic football but Bette is actually being practical.Through my mixed race class (refer to last Gay Eye entry), I've learned that queer people and mixed-race people have a lot in common (the sexuality thing varies though). Unless Tina gets some advice on how to raise a mixed-race child (I recommend Maria P.P. Root) and something tells me she won't, Bette knows what Angelica is going to go through, especially with the constant feeling of "being adopted" and never feeling like she belongs. And don't tell me that society should be colorblind because "South of Nowhere" already deconstructed that pointless conservative drivel. Try watching that show again for Clay's storyline and not fastforwarding to Spencer and Ashley.
Just like black Clay on "South of Nowhere" feels out of place with his "white" family, I bet many of my queer readers know the feeling that their parents will never accept them for being gay, or if they do, they only accept certain parts or at certain time periods. That is Dana's issue. Dana grew up in a consanguineal family that did not recognize her for who she was. As the flashbacks revealed, the trauma of not being able to come to terms with her identity as a lesbian were only recently relieved (as she came out as the gay Anna Kuornikova and as she fell in love with Lara...and evetually Alice) because Dana finds a queer family (our lovable "L" girls) who accepted her for who she is.
And Dana's queer family was not pleased with how Dana was buried.
Alice's decision to take out Dana's ashes out of the golden urn, which symbolizes the discourse of Christianity, , as well as Alice stepping up and screaming "Dana was gay," was absolutely sacreligious. It makes her ten-times awesome in my book. Dana's spirit was probably cringing in the back pew whispering "You're embarassing me Al!"). The last part was made up, of course, but that's probably what Dana would have said if we stay true to Dana's personality who found herself always balancing between her two families.
Since Alice is so awesome to break thousands of years of discourse, Dana's real funeral service allows Alice to fulfill Dana's wishes and remember Dana for who she really was, an awesome and quirky dyke. And Dana is one of the lucky ones, as Jack Twist could tell you. In Shane's flashback, Dana sees herself dancing on the stage with Tegan and Sara as a proud dyke. And, symbolically, she did. She got to come out, fall in love, and leave the world out and proud, and we got to watch her journey and connect with her. Heck, Dana is even luckier. She got to be buried at the place that she wanted. I'm sure Jack Twist can remind you all of that. Not many people in this world can really say that they are as out and proud as Dana Fairbanks was. We connected to her so much (and even I as a gay man did) that it hurt to see her leave the world.
But somebody else important did not get to say goodbye, even at the lesbian memorial service. Lara. And that's why Alice saves some of Dana's ashes in that seperate red jar because she cares enough to know that Lara hasn't said goodbye. It's hard to remember Lara because she is still seen as Dana's old lover and a secondary character, distanced from the main story. But in that way Lara is more symbolic than secondary. The opening of this episode starts with Dana, a lesbian who is struggling to find her identity, but the end of the episode is Lara, the lesbian who is already out and proud of who she is. Even though BETTY makes it hard for us to remember it, there was a time before "The L Word" when there were no lesbian characters in the mainstream...and we could even go back to a time when the word "lesbian" was only whispered. But "The L Word" has helped create a whole new generation of Laras who are proud of taking on that identity and challenging "The L Word" with their own narratives. Awesome dykes KC and Elka who have even taken this breakthrough show and challenged it and dissected bring us a whole new narrative about the "way that we liive and looove." And if you haven't heard of it, listen to the Planet Cast at http://www.theplanetcast.blogspot.com/. This is the only time I'm going to promote these ladies. I'm so not going to overdo it like Chaiken has.
Based on the ending of the episode (which I'm also shocked at), something is telling me that we're going to see more of Lauren Lee Smith in Season Four. I hope all of you Lara-lovers come back on the surface because sounds like the soup-chef is going to become a main character.
Dana, symbolic of the past struggles of the queer community, has passed her spirit onto Lara and the out and proud lesbians of the world who will continue to fight for their rights to exist in a world that won't even let them grieve. We've may have lost Dana but let's hope Erin Daniels comes back as a guest star as Dana's spirit or Dana's flashbacks. The saying goes that you don't know what you have till its gone and the fans have lost someone who has become bigger than she was. But her legacy lives on, as the many "Laras" of the world come and grieve her death and fight for a world where girls like Dana won't have to struggle to come to terms with who they are and who they love.
In queering the funeral service, Alice not only made her funeral service for her friends, but for all of us "L-Word" fans who are still reeling in the fact that Dana is gone. We are the lucky ones to have had a strong presence like Dana in mainstream. We will never forget Dana and the journey that she took us from her life to her death.
Thank you for that, Dana. We love you, sweetie.
COMING UP: Left Hand of the Goddess...slaps "The L Word" in the face. Spirit of Dana, use your supernatural dyke-y power to pull our "L" ladies out of the bullshit that they are heading towards.
Oh and we had Harrison! Wheee! Dana pulled the closeted dyke dating the closeted homo storyline.