Brexit puts brakes on a highly-anticipated lesbian web series
Production of a new lesbian web series has apparently been halted “because of Brexit”.
A highly anticipated lesbian web series has been put on hold after investors pulled out due to the UK’s unstable economy post-Brexit.
Different For Girls – an adaptation of Jacquie Lawrence’s novel of the same name – is a drama featuring a group of lesbian and bisexual women in West London whose lives and loves revolve around children, marriage, betrayal and divorce.
The series was due to star The L Word’s Rachel Shelley and Heather Peace (Lip Service, Waterloo Road), with filming expected to start this month.
However, following last week’s vote to leave the EU, investors wary of the UK’s unstable economy have pulled out – leaving Different For Girls with a “funding withdrawal which is insurmountable”.
Crowdfunding helped to bring the series to life, with “nearly 25% of the funding raised via Indiegogo, mainly from lesbians and bisexual women,” Mrs Lawrence said.
As the website explains, Different For Girls was a project to “save the fate of fictional lesbians.”
The webs series was a response to television’s “dead lesbian syndrome” (DLS) – the increasingly high rate of lesbian characters being killed in television shows
“It’s easy to be glib about DLS,” Lawrence said. “But in reality the constant ‘disposal’ of lesbian characters has an acute impact on younger viewers who are struggling with their sexuality.”
When Different For Girls finally hits our computer screens, viewers can “rest assured that no lesbian will be killed or harmed during it’s making.”
And Lawrence remains confident that the series will eventually get off the ground.
“Different For Girls is not dead. Director Campbell X, producer Fizz Milton and myself see a bigger, bolder and better Different For Girls.”
Earlier this year, fans of The 100, an American teen drama set post apocalypse, tweeted the phrase “LGBT fans deserve better” over 280,000 times after popular lesbian character Lexa was killed.
