Dana Fairbanks, You Will Always Be Famous

I admit, I used to watch The L Word to unwind and enjoy the vibes and drama the urbanite WLW community has to offer. Dana starts the series in the bisexual-to-lesbian pipeline, but she’s included from the start as a member of the main cast.

I spent the first two seasons begging the writers to take Jenny, the ever insufferable, instigating goth stereotype. They were a short putt from putting it in the hole with a brief mental health subplot. At this point in the storyline, I would have been okay with anyone else but Shane. Instead, they gunned for the most unproblematic character in the series: the Subaru driving, professional tennis playing Dana Fairbanks.

In recap, Dana’s ex-girlfriend Alice is still obsessed, keeping a shrine to her along with a life-sized cardboard cutout in her bedroom. Dana, on the other hand, is trying to and explore her options.

Prior to the tournament, Dana is encouraged by her girlfriend Lara to face her fear of the lady doctor. The initial visit leads to a mammogram, which in turn leads to a mastectomy to remove a tumor.

Given the show’s reputation for gratuitous sex scenes, I expected the same educational and body-positive representation taking place for Dana over time.

But after learning the cancer has spread to her lymph nodes, she becomes an absolute monster to everyone around her. It’s fitting that she went down kicking and screaming, because that’s the way I felt the entire weekend I binged the season to rip the band-aid off clean. For the next five episodes, I watched my favorite character rapidly deteriorate before my eyes. In a matter of scenes, she rapidly loses hair and energy while Alice never leaves her side. Every “Previously on The L Word” twisted the knife.



I regret to report that part of the fandom still views Dana’s death as necessary for Alice’s character development, but when did my happy lesbian show turn into an episode of Gay’s Anatomy? Why couldn’t Alice have simply piped down for a few seasons before inevitably finding her way back the way everyone wanted? Wouldn't the loss of her tennis career have made a suitable compromise?

I had to Google to see if Erin Daniels had a conflict but it doesn’t appear to be the case, so I have no option other than to point the brunt of my anger at Ilene Chaiken, who apparently wanted to send the message that anything can happen, but instead she broke my trust.

Ilene Chaiken, you broke my trust. If visceral is the reaction they were going for, they hit home here. Forgiveness is off the table.

The remainder of Season 3 forces us to face the loss head-on. Alice and Shane get bonus points for keeping it real as she was laid to rest.