title: Wanting to be Anna: examining lesbian sporting celebrity on The L Word.
abstract: This article adds to the limited literature on coming out and on lesbians in sport by highlighting the presence of lesbian sporting celebrity on Showtime's series The L Word. Through a reading of The L Word's character/professional athlete, Dana Fairbanks, we explore the economic impetus and the racial and classed undertones of corporatized coming out narratives. We devote considerable effort to unpacking Fairbanks' articulation that she wishes to be "the gay Anna Kournikova" and speculate on the consequences of this utterance for both real lesbian sporting celebrities and the lesbian fans that necessarily follow Fairbanks' corporate-sponsored coming out.
authors.affiliation: School of Sport and Service Management, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK. m.chawansky@brighton.ac.uk
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chawansky
authors.forename: Jessica
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Francombe
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D056352:Athletes / Q000523:psychology*; D005197:Famous Persons; D005260:Female; D049674:History, 21st Century; D018452:Homosexuality, Female / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D012933:Social Identification; D013177:Sports / Q000191:economics / Q000523:psychology*