ABSTRACT
Neither Kay Ryan nor Carol Adair had any chance of being cast as one of the beauties on The L Word. Ryan had too many extra pounds around her middle, and Adair had too many of the wrinkles that appear on the faces of people in their fifties. Despite these physical imperfections, CBS chose to place the two women front and center in its coverage of one of the biggest news stories of 2004. And yet, at the same time, that decision clearly had been driven as much by what the lesbian couple looked like as by how they put words together, which was extremely well.
