FrenchBug82

When you think that one of the main characters of one of the main families has an Asian son and presumably by now unknown number (read: as many as writers need) of Asian grandchildren, it is particularly ironic for Y&R of all shows since it would be such an easy lay-up for them to introduce Asian characters that'd be right off the bat part of the core family. That said, in their defense, it doesn't mean their sentiment on anti-Asian racism isn't sincere and that it wasn't worth expressing. But I do hope they introduce Keemo's family sometime, regardless of Bergman's misgivings about the initial retcon.

That line says so much about how America treated the AIDS epidemic. If it is just the gays, what's the big deal? She is paraphrasing the sentiment obviously, not endorsing it. But this dovetails with what I suspected in my question. That it would be hard for America to care if it happened to a gay character. Very interesting interview. Thanks for digging it out. I am not sure her idea was such a good idea, personally. Considering there weren't any gay character, I am not sure the first introduction of anything LGBTQ related to the show being a drunken (no-consent) unremembered college-party-related (see the trope about experimenting but he will change his mind) potentially leading to AIDS orgy would have sent the right message. In so many ways. The fact soaps are written conservatively to appeal to the remaining conservative audience and the fact the remaining audience for conservatively-written soap is conservative would seem to be a pretty chicken-and-egg vicious circle. We don't know if there would be an audience for stories about gays and minorities and progressive tone because they haven't tried and anytime they dabble they freak out and back down. My personal theory is that there is a huge dormant audience for that stuff out but they don't take the risk to try and appeal to it. There is no reason soaps abroad can be thriving while dying here. The structural issues like streaming and stuff are the same in Europe than they are here. Something these producers should ponder.

Well on the other hand, if the logic is the community is very broad and diverse so you can't represent it in its diversity, the notion that all that is needed is that there would be *some* representation takes precedence hence the logic here. We also have, frustrated as we may be, to understand the tough spot they are in. If they have budget for thirty contract players and the number of pairings LGBTQ character can have is necessarily limited, LGBT character have a lower return-on-investment in terms of story for a producer. So expecting every strand of LGBT being represented is setting the bar unrealistically high.

Complete randomness. How hilarious is that.

Is that Ty Treadway at 3:06:25???????

I suppose this is a question whose answer is probably going to be in the question but has there ever been any discussion for why all the AIDS stories soaps did impacted straight women (AW's Dawn, AMC's Cindy, Y&R's Jessica, GH's Robin) rather than gay men? Did they think this would be more sympathetic to their audience than gay men who "might have deserved it" or something? What I mean is: I assume that's the case but has there ever been anybody who discussed this oddity openly?

Yep. 1982-1983 Dr. Lynn Carson played by Donna Pescow who you might remember if you grew up in the late 80s as the mom from "Out of This World". I may be wrong but I think the first gay man is ATWT's Hank Eliot although people usually credit Ryan Philipp's Billy on OLTL. He didn't start out bad at all. I liked him when they were in separate tracks slowly building up to us wanting them together. But yeah he was so wooden and unappealing by the end. I initially thought it was me because I didn't like what I was hearing of his off-screen activities but nope. It was him. Chandler M. was tuned out by the end too but to be fair they were giving him nothing of interest. I think his charm and layers still peeked through. On the list of BTS things I wish I could hear, the entire sage of GW, how he was cast, why his acting was so uneven, what his relationship with his costars really was like and why, etc is on my top 10. Based on his post-Days choices ('em tattoos!), he was probably a... character.

From the get-go they were pretty bold with a lot of the gay stuff that involved Will. Never Sonny which I suspect has to do with FS. If you remember Will's first kiss scene, it was very clumsy but it was a pretty passionate fake kiss. I read it as subtext of his gayness coming out first through sexual desire before falling in love properly with Sonny later but even if it wasn't the intent, it still was a lot more aggressive than you'd have expected.

Why is he whispering everything in that weird breathless voice? Why? Why does no one over there tell him it is a bad choice? And if he is deluded into thinking whispering sounds threatening then why does he do it when he is supposed to be loving? And if he thinks whispering sounds loving, why does he do it when threatening?

I know Kish is popular on this board but I disliked the Kish story very much and a very significant portion of fans (not least of which the soap press) hated them because the story started SO preachy. It was tedious overcompensation for the criticism they got for writing Daniel and it felt just going overboard the other way for me. Then when they tried to spice them up with regular soap stories, they involved them with the hated Stacy Morasco and that didn't help their cause. I will have taken them of course because it is not because they are gay characters that I have to like them and I am happy about "representation" but I am always surprised how the story is told around this board. I am glad people have fond memories of them but they were *not* unanimously well-received among fans, including by fans you should have expected to support them, like me, which is part of why they cut their losses after not too long. Now "sources" telling the press they were to blame for poor ratings, THAT was homophobic. But the characters being written off was not necessarily. They weren't well thought-out, I am sorry to say.

I hear you but this is exactly a reason why soaps are having so much difficulty: we complain when all the gays are domesticated but we also worry when LGBT characters are overly sexualized and "predatory". For a cautious producer, it does feel like they can't win. So they don't try. I want more representation and that does include "bad-acting" characters and, yes, at times flamboyant characters because some of us are like that and it is OK. What can't be is no representation or limited caricatural representation. But I am fine with a variety of LGBTQ characters including different facets of the human experience and we are never going to get anywhere if we overreact to anything that resembles a trope. Because, let's be blunt, 90% of characters in soaps, regardless of gender or sexual identity, are tropes. I will give an example: Adam on Y&R slept with a man for his own purposes. Do you think it is better for LGTBQ representation that that has never been mentioned ever again and that he has never been described as bisexual - let alone used that aspect of him for story - or that they explored it even in the context of admittedly a scheme that used his (gay) one-time lover for his own purposes? Personally, I would have loved this to be a proper story and a part of his subsequent identity, even if Adam is fundamentally an antagonist, rather than a forgotten footnote they quickly backed away from.

I have said for many years that one way soaps have warped us is that they present the on-and-off again thing as romantic; couple meant to be together finding its way back to each other through difficulties; rather than what it is really which is toxic and abusive. This cycle of cheating on both Rachel and Mac and the fighting and on and off and on and off is so toxic. Those people should not be together. I don't think soaps have changed much in presenting that kind of behavior in a more honest manner but if this was real-life in 2021, I'd tell either of them to run far away from each other and find better spouses with more respect for them, self-control of their genitals and better match temperament-wise. So to answer your question: yes, Mac wasn't very likeable if you looked at his actions and, even after she was reformed, Rachel was also still a pretty toxic person to be married to. Their love story wasn't romantic; it was co-dependant toxicity.

This is key. It is not always linked to a man (but it is particularly offensive when it is) but soap show runners cannot fathom a woman being a sustainable character if she is anything else than easy-going/nice/victim/romantic lead I was JUST commenting on just that regarding Natalie on AMC who also started off fascinating and strong but clearly unpleasant at times and ended her run having suddenly become an angel from above (and a victim). But same with Sami on Days and so many others. Characters that start off ambitious or scheming never stay that way if they stay for the long run. That's why I was mentioning Knots Landing's Abby earlier. That was a succesful example of a "bitch boss" character staying who she is in the long run, showing enough vulnerability at the right point to be something else other than detestable but not losing herself to a man or to show-business refusal to portray women as something other than saintly, bitchy or crazy.

She is outspoken but she also knows where her bread is buttered. It doesn't have to be a grubby deal or a quid pro quo - but a subtle way for producers to show their appreciation that she doesn't turn the way those men treat her publicly into a bigger thing. She speaks her piece but she also is the one who turns down the volume after she says it is not cool. She says "Let's work it out in private". That's the mature professional thing to do and if I was her boss, I'd appreciate her being a team player that way. If she wanted, she could turn this nuclear because if that's the way they behave publicly, I bet the BTS stories could be career-ending for some of them. So giving her an Emmy reel is an easy way to pat her on the back - and while Alexis has certainly been supporting, NLG is a great actress that can carry an episode.

So let me get this straight: they finally tease Lumi back again but it turns out only to set up an EJ return??? There is not giving a fanbase what they want - fine they write the show, they make the calls - but then there is being actively cruel to it. Come the f on.

Because I am a gossip and I like to read too much into this, I'd like to think GH hyping a "Alexis special episode" is related to the BTS shenanigans and a way for producers to send a message or at least pat NLG on the back if she doesn't push back further on the bullying she is on the receiving end of.

I am not sure I agree this is what defines an Alexis clone broadly speaking. Introducing an Alexis-like character does not mean mimicking every story beat. It just means introducing a very over-the-top-classy-wealthy bitch boss character. The particulars can differ. Iris was definitely a mild version of that when she came back as Carmen Duncan but I agree considering the timing I don't know if it was an effort to copy Dynasty or more being inspired by an archetype and using it when reinventing the character. Ironically, while I understand Dynasty had a bigger cultural impact, I think soaps would have done well to be more inspired by Knots Landing's Abby who was, too, a "scheming bitch" type character but who was usually motivated by her ambition rather than vindictiveness and was therefore a better model for a soap because she had a clear thoroughline.

I like her better brown-haired but either way she was a gorgeous woman back then.

Yes. Because he can't accidentally speak over someone or interrupt the flow of a great conversation he should have left alone to go on its natural course. One-on-one it is easier for him to know his timing, when to let his subject talk and when he needs to ask a new question.

Based on how everyone involved tells the story, that's an after-the-fact interpretation based on what we know because no one but her knew at the time these were her last scenes - and the writers certainly didn't know it when they wrote them.

That's usually the problem with soaps set in a proper urban environment. It seems silly to the audience that people who live in a big city would be constantly on top of each other in the same five places - that's not how it works in real life - but if you start spreading people out, you lose the sense of "place" that is crucial to soaps. It is a hard balance to waive and that's why writers have always set soaps in mid-size towns instead where they can stretch the importance and size of the city when needed for story. Britain has done much better finding a way to create a sense of place and community in a large city setting: both Coronation Street and East Enders are in proper cities.

It is funny because for the longest of times I never understood why Bev didn't like this story. I enjoyed it tremendously; it was great soap and it gave me one of my top GL moments of all time: the scene where Alex tells Billy about Mindy and Roger. That eyeroll Alex gives Fletcher when he tries to lecture her at the end is one of my favorite gifs to use. BUT thinking back about it I realize she had been in the business long enough to know that the way that once they started writing Alex that way, the cat would be out of the box for good. That was too easy for writers to create story with an hysterical vindictive matriach rather than the more complex character she had been so far. They had played with the DNA of the character and there would be no going back.

We are indeed missing a point when criticizing Marj's Alex is that while Bev gave the kind of performance only she could give, Alex during the whole blackmailing Mindy saga was already verging on the over-the-top huffy-puffy shrieky bitch that Marj played. Bev had a better handle on what she wanted to play so it was less in-your-face on-screen than it became but the character was already written differently - less cold and in control - in that whole saga.

I adore Donna Mills but that show was so cringily fake. I mean most reality TV shows like this are bad and transparently semi-scripted but that one was real bad. It does seem that she and CH have grown a real friendship out of it, which certainly was unexpected but I am into it if it gets me more of Donna Mills.

Yeah, if you read between the lines of my earlier post, I was kind of uncomfortable with how he delivered the lines and that's why I said it was the whole setup that did a disservice to everyone involved because if even Zaslow can't hit the right note, then it is the music sheet that is flawed. I didn't take it as a slight. I think even she hinted by the end that in her latter round after she came back post-Vanessa, the writing was so horrible that she was not even trying and just going full on OTT to please the writers. And, again, the fact she played Myrna so brilliantly shows that it was not on her. She could do it- they just didn't give her the material to do it and then she just let herself be molded by the writing. Reminds me a bit of Amelia Heinle over at Y&R. She too was taking over a really strong actress and a strong character and she too had played a somewhat similar character on another show with great results but the minute they brought Victoria back, the writing for the character had mellowed and she didn't try to push back with her acting. She let that carry where she went rather than try to cling to the OG's version that she could have emulated on acting skills alone. What would have been the upside for Marj to swim against the tide of what the creative team was clearly going for and risk being criticized for trying to copy her predecessor too much? She also didn't have great chemistry with many of her costars - which is intangible but a shame nevertheless. She and RR were fine but RR was, well, lacking so it didn't help Alex as a character and there was no one else that I could have watched her interact with just for the sake of it. Bev had not only great chemitry with her family characters but watch her with Roger or Fletcher or Blake or with Reva and the flow is delightful. Noone had that effect on Marj unfortunately - they should have tried to bring a character like that for her. That was the major loophole in that story regardless but indeed playing the initial confrontation as a comedy rather than concoct a reason for which Alex could not come back until now despite knowing but she is now on the warpath would have been so much more satisfying. Which is why we can bat around other great ideas for recasts like Constance Towers but ultimately the characterization had changed the minute Bev walked out. Alex would have known about Jenna and Roger stealing Spaulding and would have come back. That's where they needed to write her differently, whoever was going to replace Bev, because otherwise the absence made no sense. If you read any interview she did in her latter years, she was done. Like, really done. No amount of hands and knees, and certainly not on the part of JFP who had antagonized her, would have changed her mind.