ALL: Do soaps value DIVERSITY?

[jacks]

Someone mentioned something about this not long ago so i wanted to bring it back into discussion. Why are people of color lagging on soaps? I started watching the CBS soaps when I was a little boy with my mom. Most people think it is kind of strange for an 18 year old male college freshman to be watching soaps, but even though they are so predictable and suck half the time, it's almost a force of habit to watch for me. Anyways I have watched Guiding Light for the better part of the last 14 years and it seems like there was so much more diversity back then than now. I was on youtube and saw the ending theme for GL in 96' and look at how the demographics have changed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAKbc4J8Rfo...ted&search=

You had the Grants, Speaks, later the Santoses and some other people. My point is that when you look at the show now, or many of the other daytime soaps, they might have one or two minorities but they never do anything. Remy is not integral to anything right now. Neither is Mel or Father Ray. It feels like the TPTB feel that we are not deserving enough to be in significant storylines or something. From Blacks to Latinos, Asian Americans to Native Americans and beyond, we make up 40% of the U.S. population but we are no where near represented like that a lot of times. Y&R is commendable for their efforts towards diversity, as is Passions and DAYS use to be that way-maybe with Lexi coming back that will help them. B&B is suppose to be in LA, one of the WORLD's most diverse cities but they just don't get it. I use to say that maybe it is because of GL's and other soaps budget problems that limit them to have a wide range of characters but that isn't a good enough excuse to almost make certain groups invisible. Does anyone else agree?

[KLN]

Soaps have gone backwards in every way.

They had more diversity and could get away with a whole lot more in the 80's than they do now.

[nassaunew]

For all of its faults, Passions is quite diverse.

[jacks]

agreed

[applcin]

I agree soaps have gone backwards in every way.

The scarcity of non-whites, or non-whites as major characters, is glaringly obvious. And the characters that they do have, they tend to group under huge umbrellas...you basically have 4 "stereotype" groups...whites, blacks, Latinos and all others. Even among the huge casts of whites, they think diversity is North vs. South. Either they are WASPY types, or they slap a Southern accent on them and make them either like the rich Texas Ewings or slutty trailer trash. One of the things I loved so much about Ryan's Hope was that, even though most of the cast was white, they were very different ethnically and in a lot of cases, that ethnicity was a core part of the characters...the Irish Catholic Ryans, the Jewish Feldmans and Greenburgs, the Italian Jack Fenelli...and you had names like Novotny, Pavel, Nieves, Szabo, etc. When he was first introduced, there was much mention of Seneca Beaulac's French-Canadian/Seneca tribe ancestry. I miss seeing some of those ethnic elements among characters and families. Since I watch OLTL, the best example I see there currently is the Vega family. Regardless of whether I like/dislike any of them, I do appreciate seeing their Latino ethnicity in the way they interact with one another. As an Italian, I identify more and see more familiar things within that family than in the "white" families.

The soaps may think they are going forward but what I see is they have mostly gone away from simply having a diversity of characters on canvas as a regular, integral part of the cast and telling good stories to depicting caricatures, stereotypes, and an overall monotony/sameness. They do things for short term attention, controversy or shock value and pat themselves on the back for being so "progressive" when in reality, they didn't have the courage to go any further. It's like those facades of buildings they use on sets....all facade and nothing behind it.

[jcar03]

You have to agree with that - the Lopez-Fitzgeralds are pretty much front and center and then Whitney and Chad are featured a lot as well. When it comes to diversity the award would have to go to Passions set aside whatever you feel about their out there storylines.

[billyjill]

Soaps have gone steadily backwards somewhere between the 90s and now. I think now the folks in charge don't want to come off as too "PC". Plus there is just less of an obligation felt towards representing and keeping in touch with reality. Homogeneity seems to rule, and efforts made to counter this only serve to remind me how far soaps have sunk back. I wish race, religion, class, all that stuff was treated as ways to enhance characters and setting and plots, incorporated simply as real aspects of real human beings.

PS Good post by applcin.

[Casey]

Straight to the point: No.

Soaps idea of diversity now consists of deciding whether a character should be brunette or blond or *gasp* a redhead.

[jacks]

yea. i agree with pretty much everything everyone else said. I never got to see Ryan's Hope but I remember hearing how ethnicity was a big part of the show. That's a great place to start and show the different cultures people have. Isn't Nora on OLTL like the only Jewish character in daytime now? That too is said!

[ATWTCarOn4Ever]

Ryan's Hope was amazing.

As for soaps its quite sad how they seem incapable of injecting any diversity into their casts. All soaps are guilty of this including ATWT. Although ATWT use to be pretty decent in this catergory the random disappearing acts of Jessica AND Dallas have basically left Jade as the only person of color on the show which is quite depressing. I love Jade and all but there need to be MORE characters of different backgrounds on shows. People of all races have issues. People of all races can be evil, sweet, funny, in love, and involved in business.

I have a question though. Do you think its too late to introduce a new major core family to a soap? Like for examply I'd love for ATWT to create and implement a storyline that involves bring an Indian family to Oakdale. It could be as small as a man and woman with 2 daughters and 1 son. 1 daughter is in the Paul Ryan/Meg/Emily age group while the younger daugther and boy (who are twins) are in the Paul/Gwen/Casey/Maddie group. I don't think it would hard to do this and EXPAND them so that over the next 5 years we get cousins, uncles, long lost relatives, untold paternity secrets, etc. Until they're just as much a part of Oakdale as the Ryans, Hughes, and Snyders. As long as its original and they create interesting, uniqute characters I truly don't know why it wouldn't work. The most important thing though is that this NOT be like Desperate Housewives Season 2 with the Whites who were only there for a few months. This would be an actually long term/forever undertaking in my view.

I'd love to hear peoples opinions.

[applcin]

I think they made a longstanding character on Y & R Jewish recently as a means to create a story? Nora's ethnicity is seldom brought up unless it's to serve a plot, like it is now because she was the victim of a hate crime.

With RH, it was just part of the characters' lives. Maeve talking about Ireland, the Ryans celebrating St. Patrick's Day, the Feldmans having Sabbath or having problems with their daughter dating a non-Jew, Jack cooking, or saying things in Italian sometimes or being called Giovanni by his old friends at the Gennaro Social Club, Seneca having some Indian mementos in his apartment. You had a very clear sense of these characters just from these added touches, it really enriched them and made them seem more true-to-life. I really enjoyed GL when they had the African-American Grant and Speakes families, and the very Greek Eleni and Stavros gave the Coopers (aka Kouperakis family) a nice sense of that culture. On OLTL, I like the touches when the Vegas speak Spanish or say "Mami" or make ethnic foods...it makes them feel more like a family to me.

Nowadays, the diversity, if you can call it that, seems to be more along the lines of which side of the Mason-Dixon Line they came from, or by economics/class, and those distinctions often either get stereotyped or just get eroded.