B&B's Alley Mills @ The Republican Debate?

[Quent]

Thank God there are some sane people on the Left Coast. I remember Patricia Heaton saying she was at a party once, and mentioned how she liked President Bush. She said it's as if she was holding up a live grenade. There was dead silence in the room, because no one ever dares to challenge the wacko liberal mantra.

[AMCer]

Well, I doubt Alley Mills is the only republican in daytime. Susan Lucci has always been fairly conservative politically, she was good friends with Donna Hannover, Giuliani's 2nd wife and has donated to local republicans.

But daytime is full of democrats to, like Nancy Lee Grahn, Susan Flannery, and Heather Tom. Anyone remember Daytime for Gore?

[Cat]

Thanks for the shout-out but I think you put it more perfectly than I ever could.

I don't really care what political views B&B or Y&R transmits as I always felt that William J. Bell and later Brad mostly managed to keep the political debate within the context of the soap itself. I don't think they were trying to actively influence my politics when they had, say, Amber considering an abortion and then unable to go through with it. She was lonely, she was scared, she also may have been weighing up the pros of keeping the baby as a key to becoming part of the wealthy Forrester clan. I felt that in this case it was relevant to the SL and not some Political Message.

I also don't have to relate politically to the characters on a show to enjoy that show. A show like Brothers & Sisters tends to preach and talk down to the audience with its soft-focused "politics" much more than Y&R or B&B ever did. And politically I am probably closer to the philosophy Nora McCallister espouses than Stephanie Forrester's. And yet because of its preachiness, I have not really gotten into B&S after its first season.

I do think B&B is really missing the presence of gay, Asian, AA and hispanic characters. But they have to be characters first and not just a walking, talking quota. They need to be a Drucilla! An Angie and Jesse. A Luke. A Sonny (pre-1997). A Gabi. They need to be like characters on The Wire. Actresses like Gong Li and Aishwarya Rai! They need to be real.

I also think that Daytime in particular and network TV in general is hamstrung by what it can and cannot show. And what its superiors believe "middle America" can or cannot take. We see a lot of violence on GH but rules on sex scenes have been severely tightened. The same with any meaningful political debate which the media have been actively suffocating for about 15-20 years now. [i mean, New Orleans and the racial, economic and social issues that stemmed from that (violence, deprivation, a system broken down, etc) were a shocking contrast to the way 98% of TV shows portray America. And since then? Nothing has changed].

[Sedrick]

As far as the abortion angle on the Bell shows goes, especially Ashley's story in the 80's, I would think that situation would have more to do with network concerns/interference rather than Bill Bell's political party registration...of the handful of stories featuring characters actually going through with having abortions in daytime, no matter what the show or the writer, the networks were scared crazy about offending anyone in the audience and/or sponsors, so the women who exercised choice had to be shown to be 'punished' for the act, hence the women either going insane, being left unable to have children afterwards, and/or suffering medical complications following the abortion.

As far as Bill Bell's attitudes towards gays, let's remember that it was he who in 1974 on Y&R introduced Joann Curtis and steered her towards a lesbian relationship with none other than Kay Chancellor...however, the audience reaction was so negative and the backlash so intense that Bell for the first time in his career bowed to pressure and dropped the story. Perhaps that whole episode left a bad taste in his mouth, a situation he maybe never wanted to experience again.

I would agree with the earlier post that stated the Bells are more of the Reagan/California-style GOP'ers. We have to remember that it has only been in the last twenty or so years that the GOP became to be so dominated by what I think of as the religious right intolerant fanatics who give the party such a bad reputation, beginning with the rise of the Moral Majority and such in the late 70's. I always have to remind myself that many many Republicans are more focused on fiscal conservatism and business, and that the party's members were originally the ones more supportive of the civil rights movement in the 50's and 60's while the Democratic Party was held hostage by its powerful Southern racist bigwigs.

Also remember that Y&R throughout the 70's and into the 80's was THE most progressive contemporary soap on television, even more so in many regards than Agnes Nixon's shows on ABC, and the credit for that belongs to the Bells.

[Cat]

Thanks for the context, Sedrick. I hadn't realized some of the fiscal Republicans had been involved in the struggle for Civil Rights. As far as Bell and Y&R, I do remember some of those early, forward-thinking SLs. I believe the show actually started on the premise that one of the character's wife (Barbara) had an abortion.

[Quent]

Hey, here's a novel idea: Not everyone shares the same beliefs. Some of those forward-thinking ideas are offensive to whole groups of people. If a soap character denounced abortion as murder, or gays as immoral, you'd be raising the roof with righteous indignation. Yet it is perfectly all right to push your agenda, because, of course, you have the "correct" opinion. I myself am gay, but I've always found those on the left to be far more intolerant than those on the right.

[Cat]

Um, ok. Is there a particular something in this thread that offends you? The posts evolved into a discussion of whether William J. Bell's likely political beliefs were mirrored on his shows. The answer is pretty much a "no," I would think, and most people who responded where not shouting down other people's political beliefs. Everybody just spoke for themselves. Your post seems to imply a lot of intolerant agenda-pushing has been going on.