Faulkner

Yeah, today was a mess, and that was one of many WTF moments.

You make great points. In many cases, the types of small-town settings for soaps are the type of places queer people often leave for bigger cities with more dating options (London, NYC, Los Angeles). The City would have been a great opportunity to showcase LGBTQ characters. I know they attempted something with Azure, the trans model, but you can’t tell a credible NYC story without gays and lesbians. There are SO many issues that gay men that are unique that aren’t tied to blatant homophobia and gay-bashing, HIV fears, or coming out to friends and family. I would love to see gay characters who are older than 30 or 40 on these shows for once. In theory, trans characters should have more romantic “options,” but there are a lot of very complicated issues there as well. Notably, hesitation from cis people to pair up with trans people, and how to dramatize that. But it’s also an opportunity to show them learning and growing.

It’s sort of amazing: NLG and Lauren Koslow are the only women born before 1960 who’ve been reasonably consistently written for (if not always written well, NLG rarely) on soaps over the past several years. Cyrus is such a lukewarm villain. This show used to be so good at baddies.

Dude is pretty marketing-savvy. Never thought I’d see an explicit song about gay male love and sex (name-checking a contemporary gay movie classic and accompanied by a music video featuring him giving Satan a lapdance) shoot to No. 1. Yet here we are, in the Year of our Lord 2021.

Male bisexuality is so frightening, confusing, and threatening for a lot of people, I think. Some gay men included! We’re more likely to get bisexual female characters like Otalia on GL and Mariah on Y&R. Rex on OLTL, of course, is a character that should have been bi. And apparently almost was.

Here’s the thing, though: with soaps cycling new characters in and out, there could (theoretically, of course) be opportunities for new love interests to pop in and out of the lives of LGBTQ characters. Similar to the way Chloe comes in to provide angst for Brady and others on DAYS. I’ve said it many times, but bisexual people have had very little representation even in primetime. Especially compared to the numbers out there IRL. Transmen (FTM) are also barely featured. Then there’s only been a handful of non-binary characters (like Asia Kate Dillon’s character on Billions).

It’s a pretty interesting inside look at Warner Bros.

More from Ray Fisher re: Joss Whedon and Warner Bros.:

From Spain 🇪🇸

Bradley Bell has entered the chat... No, I kid. He’s certainly not the only one. But, yes, I’d prefer stories with queer characters enduring the same infidelities, etc that straight characters do. I haven’t watched Hollyoaks regularly in years, but don’t they have a gazillion LGBTQ characters in high-profile roles? I just don’t think we’re ever going to see something like that when viewers are mostly Facebook grandmas. We’d need to have a totally new soap on streaming.

If primetime did a better job of it, I’d hold out more hope, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen in hyper-conservative daytime. If anything, they’ve gotten less inclusive to LGBTQ in the past decade as a whole. I never thought I’d see two women kissing and making out on Y&R, but they quickly put an end to that. I always thought it would be interesting to have a soap legacy character who’d been off canvas for many years return as openly trans.

LOL

Lil Nas X has his second No. 1, buoyed by the Satanic controversy:

Something about Laur Allen felt very Bill Bell Y&R to me. She was beautiful and had sort of a sexy allure with her ScarJo raspy voice. Of course they had to kill her off.

My initial issue with Ravi was that he seemed a bit like a South Asian stereotype. And they did lame things like GT/Phyllis giving him a makeover in one of those silly ‘80s dressing room makeover montages set to pop music. And he felt isolated from the other young characters, especially during a time when the show needed a more viable youth scene. (Like why not have him befriend Mariah or Devon or someone?) Yet Abhi Sinha did give him more depth, and he worked reasonably well with ED. I just wanted some direction, which the show overall didn’t get under Sussman’s watch until too late. Exactly. And once he was established, it could have been a great way of bringing on a South Asian family, as many have stated.

I like RB as Hayden, but one issue I had with Rylee was that there wasn’t that spark. Maybe they’d have a different vibe here, and I know they have their fans who think differently than I do. Yeah, he works as sort of a B-list leading man. Not a show-dominating star.

Is the suggestion that he might be playing Ryan again?

I mean, he’s not a bad actor. He just was never talented or charismatic enough to warrant the elevated profile he received.

From USA 🇺🇸 (Actor Trevor LaPaglia)

I don’t think they are ready to give Frances her third Best Actress. It would have to be an undeniable, generational performance like DDL in “Lincoln.” I thought Carey, Viola, and Andra Day were all ahead of her. I think Youn is now the Supporting Actress frontrunner. She has a good narrative; she’s a South Korean actress in this monumental “Stop Asian Hate” year, which is a year after they gave “Parasite” Best Picture yet nominated none of that film’s great cast. And it’s a good place to represent “Minari,” which is unlikely to win much else yet had enough support for a Best Picture nomination. Which... oof, Glenn. She’d be the new Susan Lucci in terms of acting Oscar nominations without a win.

SAG Film winners were Ensemble: The Trial of the Chicago 7 Actor: Chadwick Boseman, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Actress: Viola Davis, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah Supporting Actress: Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari Davis throws a loop in Best Actress. The other categories feel locked. I can imagine people being up in arms with the very white and male “Trial of the Chicago 7” winning Best Picture if indeed the acting winners are all POC.