Ready to get real about lesbian life in the American South? Ilene Chaiken, creator of The L Word and its reality TV spinoff The Real L Word, has made a 90-minute documentary about lesbian life in Mississippi.
L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin will screen for free tonight at 7:30 p.m. at West Hollywood Library, 625 N San Vicente Blvd. at El Tovar, as part of the recurring Outfest screening series in WeHo. On Friday, the film will premiere on Showtime. Chaiken will attend the screening, as will director Lauren Lazin.
In terms of LGBT acceptance, the South is a whole different world from the cities where other L Word projects have been set. The L Word took place a glamorized version of West Hollywood (one that included a lot more queer women than the actual population of WeHo), and The Real L Word followed the lives of lesbians and bisexual women in Los Angeles and New York.
The event Facebook page says that L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin tells the stories of 12 women, “including a newly out-and-proud former pastor banished from her church, but who later regains her self-esteem by launching a program to support her local LGBTQ community. A white mother would accept her daughter’s black lover, if only she were a man. A couple grapples with both infertility and female-to-male gender transitioning. And a former life-long lesbian struggles to ‘pray the gay away,’ and hopes to do the same for her openly gay son.”
