Lack of Racial Diversity in Daytime

[bakedghoti]

but that's what you originally wrote to my first comment when i began this thread. anyway, going back to the TOPIC, none of the main soap divas (atwt's lily and carly, b&b's stephanie and brooke, days' marlena and hope, oltl's viki and dorian, y&r's katherine and nikki, gl's reva, etc. are never paired with men of color. amc has virtually killed erika's interracial pairing!

[DeeeDee]

Jeanne Cooper was & quite liked it.

I would've loved a Dorian & RJ relationship cause she & TDS have great chemistry.

[JackPeyton]

Passions is the best at this. They have three main families - All three are of a diff race. Theressa is the main heroine on the show. I don't know about now, but when the show was NBC Eve & Whitney both had huge roles on the show and did drive there own story lines.

Y&R has a good history with African-Americans, but not at the moment. The few they do have are supporting. They also had Jimen, but he was killed off (and that was for the better, IMHO he and Korbel both sucked as characters and the actors lacked chem with anyone else on the show).

AMC & OLTL also seems to be on the better side of this. But do have some ways to come.

GH has had pretty strong major non-white characters like Sonny, who drives every single storyline on the show. Brenda is perhaps second only to Luke & laura among fan love, and she was played by Vanessa Marcil. Taggert was the best police officer that show has had in the last 10-15 years. Gia who was great with Nikolas and i wish they would have played her up more.

All that said diversity, of all kinds, is much needed on daytime.

I wish Days would give Lexi something to do. Renee Jones is fab and can carry a storyline. Lexie is rather complex, there is no reason for her to sit on the sidelines and do nothing like she has for years.

[bakedghoti]

RJ and dorian were great! too bad the writers didn't push them together. i think it's because dorian is a MAIN diva, and they can;t have the main diva be paired with a person of color.

hey Deeedee do you know what y&r released when they killed off ji min? he was such a GREAT character and the only asian leading male on daytime. y&r is so stupid to kill him off!

[DeeeDee]

It seemed like GH had plans to make The Campbells into a core family which got dropped.

Is Justus even buried with the rest of The Quartermaines?

I wish ATWT would bring back Lien.

Daytime needs more diverse writers behind the scenes cause it's hard for non-minority writers to understand the complexities of being a minority.

[DeeeDee]

I loved them together.

Robin Strasser smokes with TDS but he smokes with just about anybody. lol

Ji Min & ES were great but Latham wrote the character into a corner like she did Shackelford.

The only reason Shackelford got a reprieve is cause of Barbara Bloom.

[bakedghoti]

exactly. rj was smoldering. he was so sinister and complex. almost snakelike. too bad he never got paired with dorian, or even with lindsey!

[JackPeyton]

Who were they? I do not remember them.

very true. i loved him when he first came on but then not too long after the writing screwed him up. Not to say LML didnt screw up almost everyone and he could have been brought back on track, but at the point of his death i didnt mind at all.

[bakedghoti]

I know Deeedee! it looks like only the white male character can have a doppleganger/clone, and not the asian male! how typical of daytime.

latham destroyed the entire y&r show. the other characters are "rehabilitated" by the new brass but not the one asian male.

did you read the Y&R anonymous interview? it was funny, but the one thing offensive was that the unidentified actor didn't care that ji min was killed off with no explanation.

that is typical with the way minority characters are treated on racist daytime in general.

[DevotedToAMC]

She is also way too much of a diva and has an ego the size of New York....just because she can write a memoir does not mean she can excel at soap writing. They are both different crafts and require a different type of creativity.

[DevotedToAMC]

That works for me. GH is an English speaking soap opera so I expect to hear English, not Spanish. I got sick of it on AMC when they had Juan Pablo and Carlos converse with each other in Spanish. Uhh hello I know some of it but am not fluent in the language. It sucked that they did not even put subtitles on the screen the way they did when Henry's mom spoke Chinese. How could I possibly know the characters' objectives and motivations if I cannot understand a damn thing they say? And I believe Sonny was born in the United States, a country where the chief language is English....was he born in Mexico or a Spanish speaking country? I know Maurice Benard was born in USA (Martinez, CA which is about a half hour away from me).

Sorry if I sound politically incorrect

[JackPeyton]

word.

i couldnt agree more. does sonny even speak spanish? if he does then it is rare.

[DevotedToAMC]

Well JP you and I both know what a pain it is here in California with half the population pretty much speaking Spanish. It really irritates me but what irritates me even more is that, in our Constitution, the official language of the state is English. That is the biggest joke I have ever heard.

Never heard Sonny speak Spanish and I hope he does not

[bakedghoti]

why would it irritate you that people in california speak spanish? the more racial diversity, the better. it makes for a richer experience. it entertains me when characters of color can speak in their mother tongue on shows because it makes a scene appear more natural. if speaking in their language lets them celebrate their culture, then all the more POWER to them. it's a win-win situation.

but going back to TOPIC (the lack of diversity in daytime):

if she (the great victoria rowell!) is not being given the chance to write for daytime, then it is problematic and biased against people of color. rowell has the experience in daytime being a critically acclaimed and popular actress. she has worked in primetime and i think in an interview she mentioned that a lot of her own personality and background (ex. dancing) was incorporated into the character of drucilla.

and so what if she has the ego the size of a state? kim zimmer is like that. a certain soap journalist is like that. yet those same qualities get praise from people on this mb, but victoria rowell gets slammed for the very same qualities?

i think she's highly qualified to write for soaps and transition to behind the scenes work. goutman is an atwt ep and he used to act on soaps. same with the actress that played aw's marley since she now directs for gl. why are these people allowed to work behind the scenes but not an actress of color? that sounds biased.

[DeeeDee]

The Campbells were Taggert, Gia & Flo (their Mom).

Taggert had a complex history with Sonny, Gia was the feisty supermodel & Flo got a job at the hospital.

Then they just kinda faded away

The main problem was Ji Min was never meant to be a long term character.

ES proved popular so they gave him a contract but Latham didn't know what to do with him (or Jill) so she killed him off like she did Shackelford a few months earlier.