The Shane effect

Diva UK 202002

ROXY BOURDILLON EXAMINES OUR ENDURING OBSESSION WITH THE L WORD’S RESIDENT HEARTBREAKER

The first time I stepped foot in a gay bar, I met Shane McCutcheon. In fact, I met her multiple times on what I now fondly remember as The Night Of A Thousand Shanes. Ok, so none of the women in Leeds’ Queens Court were the actual Kate Moennig, but they all had the same, studied, tousled hair, smudged eyeliner, and too-cool-to care stare. Shane’s arrival on our TV screens had a seismic impact, felt all the way from the sun kissed shores of LA to the damp drinking dens of West Yorkshire.

Of course, the whole show was a game-changer, and since The L Word premiered in 2004, choosing which character you most resemble has been a time-honoured gay girl pastime. Despite my ultimate ambition to be a Peggy Peabody (filthy rich, fabulously witty, spends all her time buying art and taking lovers), I’m 100% an Alice (writer, inappropriate joke- cracker, regularly uses the chat up line, “So you like girly girls, huh?”). But, as The Night Of A Thousand Shanes demonstrates, there is no character type more imitated in queer communities than Ms.McCutcheon.

While I never cut my hair short or wore a skinny tie, the journey to realising my own homosexuality did involve the following crucial milestones: watching Shane, realising I fancied Shane, realising I fancied Bette, Dana, Helena, ok, the entire cast… realising I might just be a giant lesbian. I’m by no means the only one who had a Shane inspired sexual awakening. From the outset, she was introduced as the heartthrob. In her second ever scene, she dives into an outdoor pool, bush fully out, and fingerblasts a blonde with “these really beautiful breasts”. Later on Bette remarks, “Have you ever noticed that every time Shane walks into a room, someone leaves crying?” The pilot ends with Shane doing a morning-after stride of Pride, wearing a now iconic ensemble of leather trousers, matching waistcoat, and not much else.

It was obvious she was the designated lezthario, but Shane was never just eye candy. We wanted to be her, be with her, or a confusing combination of the two. Even if you’ve never seen The L Word, I’ll bet you know who Shane is, what “Shane” means. She’s become queer shorthand. Shane was a global phenomenon, but which came first, the chicken or the Shane? Is Shane the original Shane? Were there pre-Shane Shanes? And who on earth inspired L Word showrunner Ilene Chaiken to write this incredibly influential character? Did Ilene know a Shane, fall for a Shane, get frigged in an outdoor pool by a Shane?

Playing Shane gave me the confidence to embrace who I was

A little digging reveals that Shane is widely believed to be based on real-life celebrity hairdresser, Sally Hershberger①. An out lesbian, Sally was known for partying with rock stars, seducing A-listers, and pioneering the quintessentially queer “shag” haircut, as worn by Shane, Meg Ryan, and most of the lezzas in Leeds in the noughties. Although Ilene denies rumours that Shane was based on her longtime pal, Sal, The L Word: Generation Q trailer reveals that Shane still sports Sally’s signature, and might I add very appropriately named, “shag” to this day.

Ilene offers further insight into the creation of this character in an interview with Vogue: “Shane was the one I had the most specific, visceral sense of. In my mind, she always had dark hair, and the voice was the most important part; it couldn’t be some cool young woman who undercut it all with a girly voice.” Both Kate Moennig and Leisha Hailey read for the role. “Kate was specifically and explicitly Shane. The straight, white, male network guy loved Leisha, and I did too, but not for Shane. We threw down, and I stood firm – ‘Trust me on this’ – and we made the deal that we’d find something else for Leisha, who I wrote Alice for.”

Kate was 24 when she was cast, and not yet out, even to herself. She says that Leisha, the only out lesbian in the original lineup, “called it instantly”, but it took Kate “a second to catch up”. It was Shane who helped her finally figure out she was gay. You and me both, Moennig! She explains on RuPaul’s What’s The Tee? podcast: “When I got The L Word, that’s where my wheels started turning. It was the first time I was in an environment when it was so welcomed and discussed. Everyone was open and proud and confident. I’d never seen that before.”

Kate was thrilled to have landed a dream gig, but how did she go about bringing Shane to life? She tells Vulture: “My cousin has this great saying, ‘The best game is to have no game’. I think that was the origin of how I figured out who Shane was. She didn’t have a game. And that works for her, because people were always coming to her, and that’s why it’s effortless, right?”

Shane’s unique magnetism is an ongoing theme, epitomised when she does a topless photo shoot modelling Hugo Boss underwear to a thumping soundtrack of Peaches’ Boys Wanna Be Her. In season one, she explains to her stalker, Lacey, “I don’t do relationships”, and she’s declared a “major hub” on The Chart, because she beds such a whopping number of women. She has more sex scenes than any other character, with storylines including: dashing the dreams of Sharmen fans everywhere by jilting Carmen at the altar, screwing an estate agent in the flat she’s considering renting with her girlfriend Paige, and having a threesome with entrepreneurs and lesbian Turkish oil wrestling superfans, Dawn Denbo and Her Lover Cindy. The serial shagger trope borders on parody when, while styling hair at a swanky wedding, Shane sleeps with not one, but three members of the bridal party, including the mother of the bride. Did Shane make lesbian promiscuity aspirational? Is she responsible for spawning a whole generation of fuck bois? Sidenote: does anyone else think that perhaps Shane should face facts and come out as poly? Because I’m really not sure this whole monogamy thing is working for her.

Shane was so potent because TV had never seen a woman like her. The Casanova type is almost always portrayed as male through characters like James Bond, Don Draper, and Fonzie from Happy Days. She also stood out as the only non-femme in an ensemble of long-haired, lipstick loving lesbians. She was revolutionary: visibly queer, embodying the beauty of androgyny, and serving an aesthetic many gay girls quickly claimed as their own. She showed a different way we could exist in the world, helping countless lesbians and bi women accept themselves, including Kate herself. “Playing such a self-possessed person for six years really brought me into my centre. It gave me the inner confidence to embrace who I was.”

While it’s a struggle to find onscreen Shanealikes predating the official Dawn Of Shane, there have been many direct descendants since: Orange Is The New Black’s Stella (like Kate, Ruby Rose became known as a “gateway gay” with giddy ladies rushing to tell anyone who’d listen that they’d “turn” for her), Erika Linder’s Dallas in Below Her Mouth (lines like, “I’ve got no emotional stamina for intimacy” and “I’m bad for you” are straight out of the McCutcheon playbook), and Lip Service’s Frankie played by Ruta Gedmintas (hair do – tick, husky voice – tick, ability to make women’s knickers spontaneously ping off and fly across the room – double tick). And who could forget The Real L Word’s Whitney Mixter? In the opening episode of Showtime’s reality TV spinoff, Whitney has three different love interests and, according to her roommate, “the power of the clam”.

Now, after 10 years away, the mother of all Shanes is back in The L Word: Generation Q. Her enduring appeal is confirmed when I attend a London screening of the premiere episode, hosted by House Of Pride. When Shane appears onscreen the audience is audibly flustered, giggling, whooping, and hollering with abandon. There isn’t a dry seat in the house. The Gen Q trailer shows her stepping off a private jet, hanging out with gal pals Bette and Alice, and making out with multiple different women including, naturally, the flight attendant. One thing’s for sure. It may have been a decade since she last swaggered across our screens, but Shane is still looking very Shane today.

①Sally Hershberger：（1961- ）美国著名发型师，在纽约和洛杉矶开了3家连锁发型沙龙。作品中以为Meg Ryan创造的发型最为出名，她同时还因为给奥巴马一家设计的发型上过《VOGUE》杂志。她是全纽约第一个单次收费达到600美刀的人，截止到2020年3月9日，她的收费标准为800美刀。