Final credits hadn’t even rolled on the HBO series, and already there was a new “Sex and the City” in town.
So it has seemed on Sunday nights at T’s Restaurant and Bar in Andersonville, where owner Colm Treacy has been showing “The L Word” to the cheers (and intermittent jeers) of hundreds of women, since it premiered on cable TV’s Showtime in January.
The morning-after chatter about the show, which centers on a circle of stylish lesbian and bisexual friends in Los Angeles, stretches all the way to Tuesday nights at DePaul University.
There, debate erupts during the class “Creating Change: Contemporary GLBT [Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered] Politics.” About half the students in it are gay or lesbian.
“We may be talking about something completely unrelated and someone just bursts in and says, ‘This is what happened on “The L Word” this week,’ ” said the teacher, Beth Kelly, an associate professor of women’s and gender studies.
Echoing across a handful of Chicago haunts is the same question that “Sex and the City,” whose final episode is Sunday night, regularly raised:
Do these fictional characters–with their designer clothes and personal-trainer physiques–really represent their real-life muses?
“One of my complaints [about ‘The L Word’] was that all the actors are so feminine looking, which isn’t very appealing to me,” said Linda Bubon, co-owner of Women & Children First bookstore in Andersonville, with a laugh.
“There are so few lesbians on television that you just don’t want to complain when there are some!” said Bubon, who identifies as bisexual.
Besides, it’s entertainment. “And I don’t expect it to be realistic any more than I expect ‘Sex and the City’ to be realistic,” she said.
One of Kelly’s students won’t cry over “Sex and the City’s” last samba in New York. “I like this way better,” she said of “The L Word.” “Way better.”