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As the (Lesbian) World Turns
They are quarreling bitterly: their
relationship is falling apart; they're not even
sure they want to stay together. Unknown to
them, but visible to the television viewer, the
teenage daughter overhears their quarrel.
Knowing she is partially responsible for their
problems, she rushes out the door, sobbing...
In the waiting room, the receptionist greets a
new client; another is already there, reading a
magazine. The two catch each other's eye, and
fraught, sleazy music wells up in the
background. They continue eyeing each other,
and the receptionist picks up the vibes. She
knows, as do we, that this chance encounter is
going to turn into a heavy and dangerous
romance...
Perfect soap-opera scenes - you could be
watching an episode of The Guiding Light or
One Life to Live - except that all the characters
are women. For this is the world's first lesbian
soap opera. TwoinTwenty ("because one in ten
sounds lately") is the brainchild of Laurel
Chiten. It started three years ago: Chiten,
interning at a local TV station and feeling bored
and powerless, made a casual remark to an
acquaintance, Cheryl Qamar, about wanting to
make a lesbian soap opera. Qamar took the idea
seriously, mentioned it to several other people,
and a month later, a wonan who waked at a
cable network called Chiten and asked her if she
was serious about the soap. Chiten decided she
was.
But how do you go about making a lesbian
soap opera? Chiten didn't know. "A lot of
people start a project knowing exactly what they
want to do, and they write a proposal and get
some money, and then they find the people to
work with," she remarks with a laugh. Chiten,
on the other hand, just started calling people.
"It's like when you suddenly realize you have a
night free and you want to do something, so you
go through your phone book calling everyone
you know." She pulled together a meeting of
four women; the next week there were ten, and
the next week thirty - including Qamar, who
eventually became associate producer." "I
wanted a co-producer," says Chiten wryly, "but
nobody would do it. Finally Cheryl agreed to be
associate producer. That means I get all the
headaches, and she just gets some of them."
In the beginning they knew three things: they
wanted to write a lesbian soap opera, they would
be able to use public-access equipment because
Chiten was a member of Sonerville Canmunity
Access TV, and they wanted a traditional
hierarchy, not a collective, because it would be
more efficient
Why a soap opera? Why not a documentary
or a serious drama? Chiten herself was a soap-
opera fan; she had reluctantly acquiesced to a
lover's addictiai to General Hospital and had
becone hooked herself; she knew and respected
the power of the form. Qamar wasn't a soap fan,
but she recognized the uses of the genre. It had
the ability to present people's lives in an
ongoing, open-ended fashion rather than a
contained, neatly tied-up package of one or two
hours. It was a form that if staunchly
heterosexual, had been from its beginnings
woman-centered - a form created for an
audience of women, and representing female
values and sensibilities. And it was fun. "So
many things done about lesbians and gay men
are so serious," she says. "That's impotant, but
we also need lighter things; we need to celebrate
our lives." Adds Chiten, "I believe in
entertainment."
Chiten also believes in using the material
available to the best advantage, and the material
available was videotape, na film. "If I tried to
do sanething that locked like a movie, it would
look schlocky at videotape." she says. "Even
sitcoms and nighttime soaps are shot on film.
Soaps are shot on video; they're quick, and
there's a certain technique that's na so slick that
soaps use. I knew we could do it."
They were also very clear about their
intended audience - this was to be a work for and
about lesbians. "It's fine if straight people watch
it," says Chiten, "but it's not written for them.
We're not trying to convince them that lesbians
are really wonderful people, and we're not
watering anything down for them. This is about
the way life is lived in the lesbian community
that we know; it's saying that this is what our
little subculture is; this is what our life is like.
Lesbians are almost always invisible in the
media, and when they show up at all, it's in
sanething like Personal Best where she ends up
with a man."
To get a sense of how to make a soap, Chiten
went to New Yak, where she had sane contacts
in televisiot, and was able to attend rehearsals of
several soaps there and to meet and talk with
people involved with them.
When she came back, she and the other
writers (six in the beginning, then four), mapped,
out a list of characters and themes they wanted
fa their soap. They went through a list of all the
issues they wanted included in their storylines:
AIDS, racism, lesbian custody, sexism,
discriminatiai against the disabled. Then they
listed the main characters they wanted. "They
were basically stock characters; we wanted it to
be loose enough that we could adapt the
character to the acta who played her." They put
ads fa auditions in local papers and were
stunned when over 100 women came to try out
fa the roles. The result is a multiracial cast of
talented stage actors, most of whom had never
befae waked on TV. They also assembled a
complete crew of volunteers.
In true soap opera form, the show revolves
around two households central in mythical
community of the soap, but, of course, the
households are not the extended biological
families of mainstream soapland, but lesbians
living in various roommate-lover combinations.
One household is composed of Lee, the Jewish
mother of a confused and rebellious teenage
daughter; Lee's lover Niki, a therapist; the
daughter Charley; Sharon, a medical student;
and Luna, a separatist astrologer. In the other
household, MJ, an aspiring rock musician lives
with her young roommate, the 'baby dyke"
Helene. MJ calls herself "trysexual" - "I'll try
anything." She is at work on a rock video
(which is shown, complete with an original
rhythm aid blues song, in one episode. Helene
is struggling with coming out to her mother;
Sharon, as a med student, is facing the pain of
working with an AIDS patient; and Lee is
caught up in a custody suit with her ex-husband.
Sound melodramatic? Yes. Sound like real
life? Yes again. Chiten and Qamar have an
understanding most people who do takeoffs on
soaps don't share, they know that soaps
exaggerate, but also reflect, real life, and that the
reflection of reality is as much a part of the
soaps appeal as the escape from it. The result is
that, at least in the pieces I was able to see in
their 20-minute promopicce, they've created a
genuine soap ambience combined with a
genuine depiction of life in a lesbian community.
If they don't make fun of soapsjiowever, they
do make fun of commercials and news
promos.They've created a line of funny products
advertised by campy lesbians and gay men.
They have a wonderful newsbreak; a perfectly
tailored anchorwoman blandly announces that
"the wald is on fire; more after this," followed
by the inevitable, cheery commercial. And
there's an absolutely wonderful mock PSA, in
which a dental hygienist earnestly begs viewers
to use dental floss, because the law requires her
to repot any signs of pubic hair in her patient’s
teeth. (There's also ate serious PSA for a
program called "Buddies" designed to create
support for people with ADS.)
Though it's good fun, Two in Twenty is also
good politics. "I didn't put three years of my life
into this just so people will have a nice evening
and go home and faget about it," says Chiten.
She and Qamar want other people to see it, to
realize it can be done, and to take the idea
further, to make these depictions of lesbian life
more available to lesbians. And, when they're
encouraged to pipedream, they admit they'd like
to influence mainsteam soap operas, so that gay
and lesbian characters will find their way into
Pine Valley and Port Charles.
Meanwhile, they're gratified that they've been
able to conplete Two in Twenty and gratified by
the support they've gaten. "Debbi Grannik, our
production assistant; our writers; a woman and
two men who donated $7000 worth of work
putting captions fa the hearing-impaired at the
videos." They were also helped by grants from
the Mass. Council on Arts and Humanities and
the Astrea Copaation in New Yak, as well as
by individual contributions from all around the
country. The money and time contributed made
it possible to continue on a practical level; the
support behind the contributions made it
emotionally possible.
With the project completed, Chiten, Qamar,
and their associates look forward to resuming
their nomal lives. "People don’t realize how
much work goes into a few hours of video,"
Qamar says. "One ten-minute scene can
represent 20 hours of work and 30 people's
energy."
But it's work they're glad they did, and they
look forward to its being seen in cities around
the country, and to spawning future efforts by
other lesbian video-and filmmakers. And why
not? There are twelve network soap operas
protray ing the lives and fantasies of heterosexual
America: there's plenty of room fa mae soaps
portraying the lives and fantasies of lesbians and
gay men. And judging from the response to
Two in Twenty so far, there's energy to do it.
-Karen Lindsey
Author's note: To buy or rent copies of Two
and Twenty call (617) 625-7882, or write
Two in Twenty, TO Box 105, SomerviUe,MA
12144. (Reprinted with permission from
SojournerThe Women's Forum, Feb. 1988)
SPORTS
Hotlanta
Volleyball:
Of Legs and Pheremones
I think, possibly, it might have been Harvey
Milk who once said, "Those who can, do.
Those who can't, report on it." Thus it was,
constant readers and fellow sports fans, that
this roving reporter found himself at the
weekly Hotlanta Volleyball League games,
Friday night, March 4, at 774 Virginia Avenue.
Since this is my first on-the-job sports
event, I arrive a little early to get the feel of the
place, to get a sense of the teamship and
competitiveness between players before the
games begin. Well, if you didn't know, the
games are played inside a gymnasium, and
folks, this was my first major deja vu of the
evening. It’s been I can't remember when since
I've been inside a gym, but there are some
things you just can't ever forget. That smell.
The gym smell. I swear, some industrial
supply company must have this stuff in aerosol
cans somewhere that janitors all over the world
spray inside gyms before anyone shows up. It's
too universal.
Anyway, there are already a bunch of people
milling around, talking, stretching, volleying
about, and my second major impression is (hey,
I'm only human) legs. All kinds and sorts of
legs. Lots of legs. Long legs, short legs, hairy
legs, smooth legs, even cast legs. No lie, there
was one player there with a leg cast that went
from toe to crotch. Oh, what we'll suffer in the
name of sports. But hey, I'm on assignment
here. Look, team t-shirts! Hotlanta Volleyball
fits everyone up in a nice long-sleeve jersey
upon the front of which is the state of Georgia
with an HVA volleyball net waving across it
Kelley green numbers above an embossed
volleyball highlight the chest area, the same
numbers being repeated on the back of the
shirt, and some exceptional detailing down the
left sleeve. Nice look, guys and gals. I'm ready
for some net action!
7:00 p.m., the whistle blows. All players
must pay up and be in uniform. There is a brief
meeting before play begins (and I'm hoping they
don't have an official volleyball prayer that I've
never heard) where announcements are made
and people generally "psyche up" for the action.
Finally, we're ready to start.
Two courts are used for two simultaneous
games per match, and it works something like
this. Each match is the best two of three games,
with the third game played only if necessary.
Each game's score will begin at 44 once both
teams field at least five players and list their
numbers on the lineup sheets. Games are
played to fifteen points by either team, as long
as the winning margin is at least two points.
During the third game, teams will change courts
once either team reaches a score of ten points.
Ya'll with me?
Now, there are eight teams playing four
matches, so before the night is over, each team
will have played two matches. Who plays who
in which match is decided before the start of the
game; in fact, on the sheet I was handed, it's
already decided through the end of April. But
who initially gets which side of the court is
decided by the good old tried-and-true made in
America proverbial "coin toss". (Although I
never once actually saw a coin being tossed, I
was assured this was how it was done.)
The first match pits Burkhart's Pub against
The Armory on Court 1 and Deana's One Mo'
Time against Crazy Ray'z in Court 2. Once
again, I am struck by the variety of people that
are here; short, tall, young, not so young, male,
female, black, white, probably even rich, poor,
but who can tell in those jerseys? And nothing
matters but the sport and the sportsmanship,
playing with others of the same bent, and even
if I can't assume that everyone here is gay, at
least they've got to be sympathetic, right?
Heady stuff.
Playing is tough and serious, especially in
Match 2 when Backstreet and Renegades spar
off. The volleying is high (we're talking
ceiling scrapers in some instances) and the
hitting is hard. (There's nothing like the sound
of a serve; a good, solid, healthy sound.) Lots
of yelling, lots of clapping and high-fiving.
Now, I'd like to mention a little bit about the
pheremone theory in passing. It is speculated
that the reason sports events get so violent,
even in the stands, is that, when you get that
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