Gay characters on soaps

[Paul Raven]

With Luke/Noah on ATWT and Bianca /Reese on AMC (as well as the Natalia/Olivia story bubbling on GL)gay characters have never had such a high profile on daytime.

I'd like to know what posters think about these characters and their storylines as well as opinions about how and if gay characters need to be presented on soaps.

As a viewer,are you interested in seeing gay romances presented?

Do you feel every show should have a gay presence?

AMC and ATWT have been praised and critisized equally for their portrayals of gay characters.

What's your take?

[SteveFrame]

I am not a fan of any of the 3 romances right now. I was Reese/Bianca at first but with the latest direction of Reese getting so close to Zach I feel they hurt the romance to some degree.

I want soaps to have a gay presence, but I want it done right. I think the coming out stories for Luke and Bianca were done fairly well, but since then nothing has been done right.

I don't feel that every soap has to have a gay presence. It would be nice but it is not necessary. I know that for some people that one gay couple is tolerable but 2 are not. I don't feel that way and I don't write my online soaps that way. It is the same as the old philosophy that one black couple or character on a soap is enough but 2 is too much.

I just want the shows to have them and write for them - not just for the sake of having gay characters - but I want them to really write for them. Right now gay characters are written very much the same way that writers in daytime first began writing for black characters. It was years before we saw them integrated and really fleshed out. And then of course nearly all the soaps regressed.

Right now I don't feel like the shows really want them but it is a more of a publicity thing - like look over here what we have. If they did want to write for them and wanted them, the storylines would be lots better - well as good as the bad set or writers in daytime can do right now.

[All My Shadows]

My thoughts on Nuke should be well-known by now, so I'll just stand and watch

Though I will say that even though coming out stories will always be relevant, it's time for soaps (and the rest of network TV) to branch out more and feature gay character, and I mainly mean teens, who aren't "questioning" their sexuality.

[DRW50]

I think both AMC and ATWT originally envisioned Bianca and Luke as social issue stories which would also give new material to their mothers, who had both run through nearly every storyline possible. I don't know if AMC or ATWT had any idea of how popular Bianca or Luke would become.

Even with many hesitations, I think ATWT has allowed Luke to have a love life and in spite of rushing the early relationship with Noah and then dragging the later parts out for far too long, they've generally succeeded in branching him out to being a young leading man who just happens to be gay. I don't know if this will last, because ATWT is a very badly written show.

AMC took the victim route to avoid Bianca having a love life. This worked for several years, because the story itself was compelling. ER's returns haven't worked because they have simply used Bianca to push their agenda. Bianca was a plot device for Zarf, and in spite of many claims about how groundbreaking her relationship with Reese would be, she's again a plot device. Any attempts to show a romance or even a believable relationship went out the window so Pratt could showcase Tamara Braun and push her with Zach. In the process he also wrecked Bianca's character with this stupid story about having Zach's baby. I think a common belief is that all this has to be done because ER only returns for limited appearances, but I wouldn't be surprised if Bianca was given the same story if she'd stayed, only in that story, Zach would be turning her, not Reese, straight.

GL is the one I'm most fascinated by because so far they've managed to do what is almost impossible, believably, slowly position two heterosexual characters into a same-sex relationship. I don't know if they're going to actually go into a relationship, or if the writing will hold up, but so far I think they've written the most compelling material I've seen for a gay couple in daytime.

To sum up, I think GL and ATWT have been mixed in their efforts, and AMC succeeded at making Bianca a popular character, but failed at sustaining her or giving her a love life. It's just another disappointment from a soap which was once reliably progressive and thoughtful, but reflects the contemptuous or "out of sight out of mind" attitude for gay characters which has also popped up on GH and OLTL over the past decade. ABC has deteriorated so much of what they were respected for thanks to Frons and the headwriters he favors.

[quartermainefan]

I think if you watch clips of gay characters on european soaps, you see just how chaste and censored ATWT is with Nuke. Reese and Bianca I am not sure I can even count, because it looks like the whole thing was a giant trick to pair Reese with Zach.

[Phoenix11]

I don't watch ATWT or AMC so I don't feel that I could accurately comment on those stories. However, from reading viewers' comments, it seems that Nuke has gone the way of Bill/Lizzie on GL and now the storyline is very convoluted and with Bianca/Reese, they seem to be setting one of them up to be with a guy. I feel like the Olivia/Natalia storyline is very different, in that it's about two people falling in love with each other after initially being enemies and then friends. They were there for each other at their lowest points and helped each other recover and in the process fell in love. It's not necessarily a "gay" storyline, they just happen to be the same sex. I have to say though, at first, I was glad that Emma's presentation brought everything to the forefront. But now I'm wishing they had just let it play out between them. Although I am excited about watching Olivia go up against Alan/Phillip. But to semi-quote Karen Walker (Will & Grace), I don't care if they are gay, straight, bi, or Thai... it's all about the chemistry and writing, and much of daytime is sorely lacking in both areas these days.

[bleedingroseca]

I would have to agree. Irregardless of what label you slap on it, and I'd prefer GL continue to resist labeling them at all, the writing and acting for Otalia is giving daytime some of the most compelling material I've seen for any couple in a good long while; regardless of orientation.

It is the kind of soapy, slow build, romantic love story that daytime writers have strayed from in recent years. I knew I missed it but didn't realize how much until I started to see it again. This feels like an old-fashioned supercouple build and not only is it brave and socially relevant but it's charming and riveting to watch. I am all in for the journey no matter where it goes.

GL is doing this right and very, very well.

[DRW50]

I watch many of the clips of gays on European soaps, and while some of them had slightly steamy moments, they were brief, or the couples themselves were brief. All That Matters had a few steamy kisses and shirt removals between Roman and Deniz, but after a few months, Deniz left Roman for a woman, and is now chasing after another woman while Roman sits on the backburner. Forbidden Love had one quick scene of the two men in bed, and I don't remember any others. Hollyoaks had a few scenes of John Paul and Craig laying in bed together, but they weren't passionate scenes, one had to keep his shirt on (that's a rule over there apparently), and one encounter ended in Craig calling John Paul a homophobic slur and storming out. John Paul and his next boyfriend, Kieron, kissed and were once seen going towards a bedroom, but the door slammed shut. Kris and Ravi, the current bisexual couple, have only had some kisses.

The only foreign soap I've seen recently which has had explicit content for a gay couple is Clara Sheller.

[All My Shadows]

"Skins" is a soapy UK show, but it's only a once-a-week show, so I don't know if they'd consider that a soap over there. But anyway, one of the main characters was gay and what I loved about it was that we didn't have to see this drawn-out, predictable coming out tale with him. When the show premiered, he was already as out of the closet as out of the closet can be, so there was never a period where they danced around his sexuality. Unfortunately, the show had a big cast of central characters (eight), and they only really focused a lot on half of them, and so Maxx was more of a supporting character. Whenever they put him in a leading part, though, they never shied away from showing his sexcapades as explicitly as they showed the others'. One of THE hottest scenes I've ever seen was from the second season where Maxxie and this random guy from his neighborhood started to do it in the woods. There wasn't even much to see...they start kissing like crazy and rolled over, but that was the perfect example of not having to see everything for it to be really, really sexual.

[rsmith2k2]

My dream for gay stories.

[rsmith2k2]

My dream for gay stories.

[DRW50]

I thought the idea of Maxxie was great, and the times they tried to focus on him were interesting, but they sometimes fell into the trap of using him or his sexuality to drive reactions from other people. In the first season, his biggest role was to let viewers see Anwar's conservative religious beliefs, and to see just how desperate Tony was to have power over people. Then because Maxxie was the surprise hit of the first season, he had a little more to do in his last season, but even then one of his biggest episodes wasn't about him, but was about a girl who was obsessed with him.

At least they never had the usual cliche you see with other gay teenage boys on TV, where they decide to sleep with a girl. Yes that happens, probably happens quite frequently, but I don't think TV really presents the reality of the situation very well. I think the one that really made me roll my eyes was on QAF when the very gay Justin, who had no interest in girls, agreed to deflower his best friend. And then of course afterwards she thought this meant they were going to live happily ever after. Ugh. It was all very insulting to her character. I felt so sorry for that actress, I think the character vanished not long after that too.

[Huntress]

Um, I can only speak for the German soaps, but there have been a lot of sex scenes between gay and lesbian characters over the years. Roman on AWZ (or in English, All That Matters) has been on contract since the first episode in 2006 and has had two relationships so far, with quite a lot of memorable scenes (i.e. Vanessa noticing Deniz getting an erection while watching Roman in the swimming pool, steamy shower scenes, Deniz' dad walking in during Roman's and Deniz' first time etc.). Roman's definitely not on the backburner, because he's been involved in many other storylines since he's a member of the ice-skating squad - which is, btw, another field that will never be explored on any American daytime drama because people just stand around for ages and repeat the same dialogue over and over again.

I think the reason why homosexual characters cannot be that easily incorporated into storylines of American soaps is that they can't marry or change partners as often as most other characters do and social problems are rarely addressed. This is also the reason why characters without any family ties hardly exist.

[DRW50]

Hasn't Roman spent most of his time since he broke up with Deniz being a lackey for Jenny or being frozen out by his former friend Annette? Now he's suddenly a pairs skater so the show can pit him against Deniz (who is now magically a pairs skater) and Stella. He hasn't had any relationships since Deniz left him, and that doesn't seem to be changing. The ice skating story he does have has been going in circles for some time, and is now being co-opted into Deniz's Stella obsession.

I'm just hoping they aren't going to have him fall for Deniz again, or be written out.

As for sex scenes on German soaps, I was talking about recent sexual content. I know there was a steamy scene on Forbidden love between Tom and Ulli, back around the turn of the century, but most of what I've seen in more recent German soaps has been much tamer. Deniz and Roman had a few steamy moments, although most of them stopped before sex, but that seems to be over and the gay content went with it.

[All My Shadows]

True. I loved Maxxie's involvement with Tony and Michelle, and one of my favorite angles was when Michelle called Maxxie a slut, and so he apologized in front of the whole class for being a slut. It pained me to see my boy be so vulnerable! I could have done without Sketch, but I liked the stuff with Maxxie meeting the bicycler.

I never got into QAF, but I can only imagine how ridiculous that had to have been. Justin was one of the gayest in a show full of gays, so to have him doing it with a girl...that makes no sense.

I yearn for just two or three shows to have gay teen males who don't begin and end with their sexuality. I effing love DH's Andrew, especially in the first and second seasons. That evil, bitchy, conniving little queer turned me ON in many ways. He was the anti-Jack McPhee, and this comes from someone who refuses to believe that Jack McPhee was a fictional character.