Guin: You know, I didn’t realize that they kept mentioning Gabby Deveaux after I left because I stopped watching the show. Was it weird for you that they kept mentioning your character’s name throughout the entire run of the show, long after you had left? Jess: You came back for the 6 th season premiere, which was pretty cool of you considering you were replaced after two seasons by Elizabeth Ziff.
If you said 10 years ago that there would be a reality show about lesbians on TV we all would’ve been like “no way!! That’s so cool!” I’ll probably watch it when the first episode comes out, throw something at the TV and move on. I’m not against the L Word reality show, I’m against reality TV. I celebrate the wonderful society in which the lesbians get a reality TV show. So, of course they were having parties and saying “come over, come over!” but honestly… I’m NOT going to be on the fucking reality show when I was on the actual L Word! Hell to the no! In the immortal words of Whitney Houston! But, I do think it’ll be interesting. She’ll probably wind up on the show a lot too. Whitney is the roommate of my friend Alyssa who is also a make-up artist. Guin: The funny thing is, of course I happen to know someone who is on it. Jess: We have to talk about The Real L Word produced by Ilene Chaiken for Showtime. “I’m NOT going to be on the fucking reality show when I was on the actual L Word!” At the same time I have made 4 short films in LA and it’s been mostly lesbian crews and other lesbian filmmakers helping me out because I’ve helped them out… so, I do have a lesbian community here, it’s just not those guys. What’s more important in that world is what my take is on an adaptation on a novel, you know? And, my creative community is more in the indie film world.
I’m a writer of mainstream stuff so I kind of have a double personality. In my personal life I have a whole part of my life in which my sexuality is irrelevant/not even known. My world is pretty much non-lesbian movie-making and all of the filmmakers I’ve known forever.
I know them all through various events but it’s not my world really. Since 2007 there’s been a big boom in lesbian entertainment, defined by the video blog revolution and the “celesbians” that came out of that. Jess: You were one of the first well-known out lesbians making gay entertainment back in the 90s with Go Fish, etc. Guin talks to Jess about her lasting legacy on The L Word, her episode ideas rejected by Showtime, the current direction of gay media, the upcoming Real L Word reality show, how she feels about Go Fish two decades later and much more. When Rose Troche was recruited by Ilene Chaiken to direct the pilot of The L Word, Rose got Guin in on the ground floor where she not only wrote several episodes (including the season 1 fan favorite Dinah Shore episode) but also portrayed the much talked about Gabby Deveaux. She also co-wrote (and appeared in) the mainstream hit American Psycho starring Christian Bale and based on the novel by Brett Easton Ellis and her long-time passion project, The Notorious Bettie Page, starring Gretchen Mol. Turner went on to write and produce several short films which made the gay & lesbian film-fest rounds. The two bonded over their shared experience and their friendship inspired Chasing Amy, born out of Smith’s producer’s fantasy of dating Guin.
Go Fish eventually grossed over $2 million and changed their lives forever: while at Sundance in ’94, Guin met another first time filmmaker who’d just made it with his own little black & white movie about a bunch of guys talking – Kevin Smith ( Clerks). Anyhow! Frustrated with the lack of lesbian movies that depicted groups of friends like theirs, Guin and then-girlfriend Rose Troche wrote and produced Go Fish, a black & white movie with a $15,000 budget which surprisingly made its way to the capital of the indie film marketplace: The Sundance Film Festival. However, to understand her place in the lesbian pop culture landscape we have to go back all the way to the 1994 independent film that kicked off her career and busted open closet doors for lesbians everywhere: Go Fish.īack in the early 90s lesbian movie-ville was still pretty barren and the existing films basically told the same story: girl realizes she’s different/lez, girl kisses girl, girl usually ends up killing herself. Guinevere Turner is probs most widely recognized to teenaged and twentysomething lesbians as Gabby Deveaux, Alice’s perpetually cheating, bitchy ex-girlfriend on The L Word.