Profile: Ilene Chaiken
Ilene Chaiken is the creator and executive producer of Showtime's groundbreaking hit series The L Word, about lesbian life in Los Angeles. In 2006, she received the GLAAD Media Award recognizing The L Word as an Outstanding Drama Series. Chaiken currently resides in Los Angeles with her eleven-year-old twin daughters.

―First of all, thank you for creating a drama with lesbian characters. It has increased our visibility considerably, and has grown to become a remarkable phenomenon all over the world.

I'm delighted to hear that! I don't even really know what has been aired in Japan actually. How many seasons have you seen?

―In Japan, it has started airing this year, so we're still in season 1. It's on a small cable station so, unfortunately, not many people know about it. Of course there are fans and fan-based websites, but most lesbians and the mainstream don't know about it yet.

I hope that we can change that!

―Yes! Japanese lesbians are still very closeted, so we hope your drama will become more widely known, in order to help change prejudices against LGBT people here. So, back to the topic of The L Word, I'm sure you've been asked this question many times, but can you explain to us how the show was created?

(laughs) Yes, I have been asked often. Several years ago, I think in 1999, I first proposed the idea to Showtime. I proposed it very casually, and I really didn't think that they would do it. I mean, I thought it was a good idea, but I didn’t think it was a commercial idea at that time. And, I just said to them, almost like a joke, "What do you think about doing a lesbian prime-time TV drama?". And, they laughed, saying there was not a chance. About a year later, everything was starting to change. It happened very, very quickly. The changes happened of course for men first, because men always get things first in this culture. About a year later there were several shows on TV about gay men. And, one of them was Queer as Folk, which had started in England, but Showtime did an American version. And it was very successful for them. So, I went back to them, and pitched my show again. This time, they immediately said, "What a good idea! Of course, we should do the lesbian show!" (laughs)

―(laughs) That was in 2000?

Yes, because from the moment they started developing it, it took 2 years. We shot the pilot in 2002.

―Now it's a success, but at the beginning did you think there were risks in airing a lesbian TV drama?

No, there was no risk to me. Well, there was a risk to Showtime probably. There was certainly a financial risk, and possibly a risk that there would be protests. But they are a cable network, and the business and the politics on cable television are different when compared to those for broadcast network television.

―Right. I was wondering because I had seen the public protests that resulted when Ellen came out on TV.

The protests happened because that was on ABC and it is a network backed by advertisers. Showtime doesn't rely on advertising, so they don't have to worry in that sense. And premium cable is known for taking risks, you know, for putting on programs that some segments of the American demography might find objectionable.

―Many stories or details to stories in The L Word feel as if they have come from an authentic lesbian point of view, in the sense that we recognize some characteristics of the lesbian community. Where do you get the ideas for stories from? Are you inspired by true stories, or your own experiences?

I started with the stories of my life, that is the life that I live in Los Angeles, but not literally. It's all fiction, all the characters are fictional characters, and the stories are fictional stories, but they're about the community and the lifestyle that are very familiar to me. And a lot is inspired by things that happened to me, or to people that I've known, or the ways in which we interact and the culture that we live in here in Los Angeles

―Which story for example is close to your own experience?