Gay characters on soaps

[brimike]

Yeah, Sara's great - but sorry. That comparison is all sorts of wrong.

[All My Shadows]

Natalia was generally useless before Olivia. People wanted her and Rafe out of Springfield with the quickness, especially once Gus died. Would they have called her the new Maureen Bauer then? The story with Olivia has given her layers, which is to be applauded, and so I hold Otalia in a different place from Nuke. I was skeptical about Otal at first, but I like them generally and think they make GL watchable (along with some other things).

With Luke, it's different, I think. It's hard to explain. I look at it like this: Would you have a problem if Luke was listed as one of the best-written gay characters of the 00s? Take out the "gay." Would you have a problem if Luke was listed as one of the best-written characters of the 00s? Like I said, if he wasn't gay, he'd either be gone by now or he'd be in Casey storylines. Which it isn't a problem for me that he gets publicity because he's gay...the problem is that his storyline has consistently been filled with more holes than a block of Swiss cheese, but because he's gay, all of that is overlooked. He'll go down as one of the best things to happen in daytime during this decade, but as always, the highly atrocious writing will be ignored for the sake of his place in history. Luke has been subject to terrible storylines just like every. other. character. on the show, but you won't see that mentioned in the history books/magazines/websites/blogs. ATWT gets to pat itself on the back for throwing out crap and getting praised for it, the fans who enjoy Luke and Nuke get to say that their couple made history, and those of us who are jaded as hell are looked at as bitter old curmudgeons. My main issue is...yay, gay dudes in daytime, kissing, having implied sex, yay, yay, but THEIR STORIES HAVE SUCKED EGGS (IMO), and in soaps, that is what should be more important above all else. When Parker and Liberty had sex, how many people raised a stink about that? "Even Parker and Liberty, the teenagers, are doing it, and Luke and Noah haven't!" But Parker and Liberty's storyline generally SUCKS EGGS too, so why does it even matter? That sex is over after one act. A good story will have long-lasting effects.

Having a well-written gay couple would *have* to include affection between the characters. Having a gay couple that shows affection doesn't *have* to be supplemented with well-written storylines, and ATWT has proven that tenfold. Look no further than Zac holding Noah hostage in a [!@#$%^&*] dungeon. I just feel that if the emphasis was on ATWT, as a whole, giving us better storylines and better character interactions, then all of the other stuff (the kissing, the making out, the sex, etc) would come naturally. And if we were getting good stories, but still not seeing natural affection between Luke and Noah, then that's when you raise a stink about the lack of kissing or whatever. But when the emphasis is squarely on getting Luke and Noah to kiss...I don't see what is accomplished. They kissed. They kiss frequently. Stories still suck.

[brimike]

AMEN AND HALLELUJAH!!!!

I couldn't agree more. I love that a show on daytime got two guys to kiss - but it means nothing to me if the story isn't there to back it up. If I want to watch two guys kiss, I can do it in primetime, on cable, in porn, or even outside on my sidewalk. I watch soaps for the story-telling.

Otalia, on the other hand, has a STORY. I have to be honest - they don't really excite me on GL. Mostly because what they've done to Olivia over the years, and the way they've altered her to suit whatever story they want to tell - I don't know, I love CC but I don't get Olivia anymore. And Natalia I have *never* gotten. So I'm not a big Otalia fan, but that's just me. Having said that, I totally and completely respect Otalia and their fans, because the show has given them a real love story. It's human, it's emotional, it's relatable, and I totally get why their fans feel the way they do. The show has given them something very real to "come home to", when they watch GL. Whereas Nuke... God, I don't get them at all, and I never have. Which is why I don't always understand their fans either. I don't see the show giving them anything to connect with, except for the fact that they're young gay men who struggled to come out. But that was years ago, and they haven't been close to interesting since.

[DRW50]

I think the reaction was about the messaging, not the story. The message was ATWT wasn't allowed to let Noah and Luke kiss or have sex because of conservative backlash. Yet two teenagers were having sex, which isn't something conservatives are overly happy about.

It's the same reason why I think it was important to let us see them kiss, and hear about sex even if we're never going to see them have sex. This is about paving a road for future gay storylines on TV, not just Nuke. There are very few gay couples on TV and if one of them had been forced into chastity by the anti-gay lobby, then it would have had a chilling effect.

Something similar is going on in Australia right now, with Home & Away's lesbian storyline.

[JackPeyton]

You know what i want?

A gay character to have a storyline that doesnt have to do with being gay. will that ever happen?

[sactownfan]

Sadly, I think we're a long way away from that. How many Asian characters are on - or ever have been - on daytime TV? Same goes for most other ethnic groups and race.

GL is in it's 57th year. In those 57 years, exactly ONE soap was created with a primarily African-American cast, "Generations" on NBC. It ran for what, 2 seasons? And besides the years on Y&R that Drucilla/Neil/Olivia/Malcolm were front-burner, black characters rarely have broken out of the one black family, or even going back, the one black couple, per show. Remember Scotty & Laura's best friends on GH. Claudia and....? Did they ever get a real story?

And unfortunately, that's the era we seem to be stuck in. Which I don't get. "Grey's Anatomy" fabulously shattered the racial stereotypes, mixing all kinds of people. They have black, white, Asian and Hispanic characters, who mingle with little thought of ethnicity. And when they do, Diahann Carroll not liking Christina marrying her son, was it because they were different races? Or different classes?

And so while every soap (except maybe B& has always had their "one black story" -- when does it break past that? Why do Lexie and Abe always have to be paired with each other on DOOL? They aren't a "supercouple" in my book. The only time Lexie is tempted, it seems, is by one of Abe's long lost relatives. Why not Bo?

I think it will be just as hard for gay & lesbian characters to break past this. Take "Brothers & Sisters", for example. One brother is gay. And he got married. Great. But for them to have any romantic strife (as all the other Walker siblings do) -- another outside character has to come into the mix. As opposed to Rebecca, who can be torn between Justin, and the new half-sibling.

Same with ATWT with Nuke, or Rianca on AMC. Unless you introduce other gay or lesbian characters, the third party -- and 90% of the time on soaps with a good couple, there is a third party -- the third party has to come from a straight person. Look at how the gay community hated Reese for kissing her brother-in-law. (True, it was right before her wedding. I would hate that if a straight character did it, too.) But would it have been any more appealing if it happened 6 months, or a year, after Rianca got married? I don't think so. If Reese was tempted by another woman, it could be just another triangle. When she goes after a man -- unless she's stated she's a bisexual, or discovering she is -- it seems more harmful than helpful.

And if not, you have to have more than just two gay characters per show. Which islands them even further, unless more than ONE gay character per show is attached to a key family.

I hope it happens, and I'd love to hear someone who thought otherwise. But before you do, can you name five, past or present inter-racial couples who lasted longer than six months?

Here's what comes to my mind:

-- Santa Barbara - Cruz & Eden

-- OLTL - Evangeline/Cristian/John

-- ATWT - Duncan & Jessica

-- Y&R - Lily and Cane

-- AMC - Tom and Olivia

Okay. On the good side, I thought of those quickly. On the bad side, the only one that is current is Lily & Cane. The OLTL triangle stopped a few years ago. And the others? At least ten years gone.

Blah. I'm depressed by my own post!

[Sylph]

I now want to see MarkH say how evolution wasn't a factor in their downfall...

[MarkH]

In whose downfall?

[Sylph]

Soaps downfall.

[Khan]

Not while any of us are still alive.

On the one hand, I applaud that also. However, on the other hand, I am disappointed. I mean, Natalia had to "turn gay" before she got interesting. Something about that cannot be good, right?

Exactly.

[DRW50]

I don't think Natalia has become interesting because she's now gay. I think it's because of her chemistry with Olivia, and because they've finally found a voice for the character. If she were in a lesbian relationship with Marina, or Ashlee, I don't know if anyone would care about her.

[moila]

All im saying i dont like seeing 2 women or 2 men on my screen kiss!

[Rakesh]

Moila, like others have stated, you can FF through the scenes that you don't like, switch the channel when they are on, or simply tune out. This is not 1970, it is now 2009. It's about time US soaps starts catering to many of their audiences.

As for GL's Olivia and Natalia, I'm really enjoying those two and I can't wait to see more of them. I love the way they are being written. I just hope they continue to take things slowly and not just rush everything and leave town. lol

[jfung79]

So you could have a cold, steel, alpha, business gay character! Or, in the case of GH, fix it -- I don't think it works as a "cold" show.

Two things I wanted to comment on/add:

1) I have always liked Natalia and Rafe, since they came on in 2007, and posted on the board about that in 2007 also. So Natalia has not been made interesting to me because she "turned lesbian", or even, in my opinion, because of the Otalia story. She was always an interesting character - single mother, woman of faith, conflicted. And Rafe, the Spaulding connection, wow what a goldmine! With a great actor portraying him in EJ Bonilla. Meanwhile, Olivia, I was already a fan of hers (not of her character's actions, but of watching her) when she was with Josh, and I also loved her relationship with Buzz. Olivia is the star of the show for me, a wonderfully complex character. Crystal Chappell is amazing. This too, you can see evidence of in my earlier posts from 2006 and 2007.

2) Earlier I had given some counterexamples from Olivia's talking to Bill, Jeffrey, and Mel, to whoever wrote that gays coming out on the soaps are faced with either extreme forced acceptance eventually, or extreme bigotry, and nothing in between. I forgot that Luke, too, had an in-between reaction from Kevin. Yes, Kevin used the f-word, but virtually every Kevin appearance since then has seen Kevin trying to make it up to Luke and yet being awkward. Luke also came to bring Kevin into his confidence again during the murder mystery, only to have that confidence be somewhat misplaced. This is precisely the in-between reaction that the poster said does not exist on soaps.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I'll give Otalia one thing, at least they gradually built up to their connection. Luke, on the other hand, fell for Noah within 5 minutes of meeting him and they got "together" rather abruptly. That relationship was severely botched from the beginning IMO.

To this day, I don't know why Luke loves Noah and what the hell he sees in him.