When "The L Word" first debuted on Showtime in the winter of 2004, its core audience of lesbian and bisexual women jumped on it like a metaphorical life raft, and then almost immediately began poking holes in it — continuing to do so until the show, and the raft with it, could no longer hold the weight of everything that was expected of it.
In its simplest description, "The L Word" was a show about a group of friends living in West Hollywood who, when not hanging out at the local coffee shop, The Planet, were busy cheating on their partners or seeking out new partners to cheat on. The notoriously bad theme song for the show tipped viewers off as to what was in store for them with the lyrics "talking, laughing, loving, breathing, fighting, f**king, crying, drinking, riding, winning, losing, cheating, kissing, thinking, dreaming." But there was a much more nefarious "ing" at work here: framing.
