Every form of media tries to appeal to a large audience. The more people that watch a program determine the success of a movie or TV show. The L Word and Saving Face are two lesbian stories released within a year of each other, yet the effort of the two stories to appeal to various audiences was vastly different. Premiering on Showtime in 2004, The L Word focusses on a group of lesbians and their daily lives and drama. It was the successful TV series that featured lesbian characters and sexuality as the forefront of the plot. The NY Times put it “Before ‘The L Word,’ lesbian characters barely existed in television. Interested viewers had to search and second-guess, playing parlor games to suss out a character's sexuality.” Saving Face premiered
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One of the overarching ideas of the movie is the conservative Chinese culture that Wil lives in. Her family is very patriarchal and old school. For example, the older people of the community throw parties so the young men and women can meet and maybe begin dating, and at the parties all the older people try and set up their kids with the kids of their friends. For the tourist this system is extremely foreign and unusual. Where The L Word has Jenny for the tourist to gravitate to, Saving Face lacks that person. It can’t be Wil or Viv because they are lesbians whom the audience is supposed to come to appreciate. It cannot be Ma because not many people can relate to an old, ultra-conservative Chinese mother who was kicked out of her house by her father for being pregnant with an unknown man and having a relationship with a man her daughter’s age. The closest thing the audience gets as an anchor to their normal life is Wil’s neighbor Jay. He is by far the most normal character, from the typical American viewer’s point of view. Unfortunately, he is only in a handful of scenes and the viewers do not have the opportunity to bond with him. When he is around, he is a very likeable character, especially the dinner scene with him, Wil and Ma. It is quite obvious he does not understand Ma’s traditional culture and it creates some humorous moments involving his shoes and …show more content…
While Saving Face uses one character, The L Word takes advantage of the maturation of Jenny. Before going into detail about Jenny’s transformation, it is important to note that The L Word assumed that all its viewers were either a tourist or a local, and if a tourist were to watch all of the first season, they would have gained enough information to become a traveler. Okay, back to Jenny. As previously mentioned, Jenny watched her neighbors having sex in the pool for quite some time. At first glance it seemed like it was just a creative way to engage the tourist without scaring them away, but it is actually more than that. Later in the series it is determined that Jenny is not as straight as was initially led on. She has a romantic fling with Marina and this ruins her relationship with Tim. Although she is clearly attracted to women, Jenny thinks that she is still straight and tries to date other men but to no avail. Such a scenario is something a traveler can understand quite well, a character wanting to be something that they are not. And the people who began as tourists can emphasize with Jenny because they have been watching her grow and develop. They can see and understand the outcomes of her actions. This type of bringing the tourists along and getting them emotionally invested into a character was a very strong strategy for The L Word. It initially provided some eye catching material and used the
One of the overarching ideas of the movie is the conservative Chinese culture that Wil lives in. Her family is very patriarchal and old school. For example, the older people of the community throw parties so the young men and women can meet and maybe begin dating, and at the parties all the older people try and set up their kids with the kids of their friends. For the tourist this system is extremely foreign and unusual. Where The L Word has Jenny for the tourist to gravitate to, Saving Face lacks that person. It can’t be Wil or Viv because they are lesbians whom the audience is supposed to come to appreciate. It cannot be Ma because not many people can relate to an old, ultra-conservative Chinese mother who was kicked out of her house by her father for being pregnant with an unknown man and having a relationship with a man her daughter’s age. The closest thing the audience gets as an anchor to their normal life is Wil’s neighbor Jay. He is by far the most normal character, from the typical American viewer’s point of view. Unfortunately, he is only in a handful of scenes and the viewers do not have the opportunity to bond with him. When he is around, he is a very likeable character, especially the dinner scene with him, Wil and Ma. It is quite obvious he does not understand Ma’s traditional culture and it creates some humorous moments involving his shoes and …show more content…
While Saving Face uses one character, The L Word takes advantage of the maturation of Jenny. Before going into detail about Jenny’s transformation, it is important to note that The L Word assumed that all its viewers were either a tourist or a local, and if a tourist were to watch all of the first season, they would have gained enough information to become a traveler. Okay, back to Jenny. As previously mentioned, Jenny watched her neighbors having sex in the pool for quite some time. At first glance it seemed like it was just a creative way to engage the tourist without scaring them away, but it is actually more than that. Later in the series it is determined that Jenny is not as straight as was initially led on. She has a romantic fling with Marina and this ruins her relationship with Tim. Although she is clearly attracted to women, Jenny thinks that she is still straight and tries to date other men but to no avail. Such a scenario is something a traveler can understand quite well, a character wanting to be something that they are not. And the people who began as tourists can emphasize with Jenny because they have been watching her grow and develop. They can see and understand the outcomes of her actions. This type of bringing the tourists along and getting them emotionally invested into a character was a very strong strategy for The L Word. It initially provided some eye catching material and used the