L Word Casting
The L Word Online has up pictures of Janina Gavankar, the actress who’ll play Papi, a hot Latina who “…canoodles with everyone and competes with Shane.” She’s cute and all, but everytime we hear the name “Papi” we can’t help but think of a smaller version of David Ortiz. Anyone else? No? Never mind.
June 14th, 2006 at 11:52 am
[…] Sarah Warn at AfterEllen has a funny column up about recent news that an actress named Janina Gavankar will play a “smokin’ hot” (so says the Showtime press release) Latina named Papi on next season’s L Word. In addition to noting how Latinas on the show are always described as “smokin’ hot,” she wonders why they again cast a non-Latina for a Latina role (Gavankar is Indian-American). And why name her something silly like Papi? And why not just make the character South Asian? And why is the show so stupid? (That’s us, not AfterEllen.) […]
July 11th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
are we surprised? really? so far they have cast non latinas as latinas, the one “full” african american speaks like she cant form a complete sentence, the actual gay women play either straight or bi, the writing is choppy and sporatic at best and I can count ATLEAST 6 story lines that just either fizzled out or were never completed. The different director for every ep. leads very little to each next ep. to the last and the only constant is the band Betty, who i must say still cant possibly be selling more records.
Sorry, I love this show for the groundbreaking and unique show it is, but to expect any rational thought process in writing, casting or directing is absurd.
I hope it opens the door for more, and BETTER shows in the future.