Gay characters on soaps

[DRW50]

Unfortunately ATWT is a couple-heavy show. When Luke wasn't in a relationship, he spent over a year babysitting and being marriage counselor to his parents. If the relationship with Noah ends I think Luke would probably go back to the backburner. He could get another boyfriend, but I think many of the same complaints will pop up, because of the limitations ATWT puts on the relationship.

I never knew why. I think he was as much of a plot device as Noah. I didn't see any chemistry between the actors, since they were only allowed to be friends a short time before Kevin started treating Luke like dog doo (and now pops up again a few times a year to continue treating Luke like dog doo). I think Kevin and Luke are an easy fallback for viewers because nothing ever happened between them. If the show had put them together, then we'd probably have some of the same complaints about them we have about Nuke.

I thought the triangle was about getting Luke and Noah together. Many soap triangles involve someone who is involved with a person they have no feelings for. Like that Lizzie/Jonathan/Tammy triangle on GL.

Yes, but I think all of our opinions are subjective. You think Noah and Luke would be as bad as some of these other couples if they were straight. I don't. I don't believe they're popular just because they're gay. I don't think there is a large amount of people out there who will blindly support a couple only because the couple is gay. I think many people who like Nuke know full well the story isn't perfect and the characters could be better, but think there's still something worth valuing.

[Mitch]

I would actually have had Reva be the one who pulls the trigger...."You misgononist pig ,made my boy sell his body for money and drugs, and now I have to deal with the fucked up mess you made him...I shoulda knows that somethin'g was wrong with all that eyeliner you been wearin' lucky that H.B.s gun never missess!!!!BANNNGGG!!!" Then Wheeler could have done a trial run of her new filming technique as they throw a dummy off of the Peapack lighthouse and we see it bounce against the walls a couple times until he hits the ground.

And Jonathon would go on to break hearts both men and women, for years to come, mean while pineing over the damaged Tammy..who he, like Roger, wont feel he is good enough for.

[All My Shadows]

Oh, I know. It's an issue with the writing. Upthread, there was discussion of how B&B doesn't do gay characters probably because a lot of their storylines are based on lovers bouncing from lover to lover, and I think that the same may be true for ATWT. I'd rather have Luke start off all over again with a new guy and a new (different from his own) storyline.

They never flat out stated why Luke had feelings for Kevin, but it was easier (for me at least) to buy that Luke had feelings for Kevin. They'd been best friends for years, and it was with Kevin that Luke would get drunk to forget about the problems he was having with his parents and Keith. The whole back massage scene came waaaaaay too early. Way too early. They jumped the gun there big time, but I think that it was still different from the situation with Noah because, again, Luke and Kevin had known each other, they'd been friends. Luke had barely known Noah for little more than a couple of days (in Oakdale time; a couple of weeks in our time), and he spent most of those days being mean to Noah, but lo and behold, he told Jade that he was "falling for the wrong guy again." With Kevin, one could look at it and think about it, and Luke having feelings for Kevin wouldn't be that bad, it wouldn't have come that far from out of left field. With Noah, there was nothing for us to go back and think about it, there was nooooo history between the characters at all.

That's just the thing. In the Luke/Noah/Maddie triangle, the one that Noah didn't have feelings for was Luke. I bought that Noah had feelings for Maddie, and real feelings too. The show was treating them like a real, endgame couple up until Luke told Noah that he wanted him. We saw scenes between Noah and Maddie where we got their connection and could understand why they would fall in love. It wasn't until Luke revealed his attraction to Noah that Noah began to rush his relationship with Maddie. Even when Luke told Noah that he was gay, Noah just shrugged it off and paid no mind to it. For that to be a decent triangle, IMO, what we got between Noah and Maddie, we should have also gotten between Noah and Luke, and we didn't. Noah's reaction to Luke coming out should have been much more indicative to his own issues with sexual orientation. And I know that ATWT is full of horrid writing these days, and that is true, and that's where the blame should lie, but the difference between the horrid writing for Meg and Paul and the horrid writing for Luke and Noah is that...as long as Luke and Noah are kissing and having sex, people tend to overlook their horrid writing. Not all of their fans, and probably not most of them either, but it's definitely a good bit of them.

All of our opinions are subjective, I agree, and I hope I didn't give the impression that I think otherwise.

[brimike]

I really think that number is larger than you think. And I'm saying this as a gay man. I can't tell you how many people I know automatically become fangurls over a movie or TV show BEFORE THEY'VE EVEN SEEN IT just because of the gay element. It drives me up a wall. Maybe it's just in my city, but I've encountered it over and over and over again.

Not to mention the number of times I've been called a "self-hating homo" just because I didn't find anything interesting in that afore-mentioned TV show or movie. Or how I'm "not supporting the rights of my sexual orientation to be treated equally in the media".

Not everybody will blindly like something because it involves homosexuality, but there certainly is a large amount who, I believe, definitely do.

[bellcurve]

Thank you! X 1000.

[All My Shadows]

Deffo!

And you know, I can get why a person would get excited over the prospect of a movie or show having an important gay character or characters. I mean, real representations of us are generally few and far between, and so anything is going to scare up enthusiasm. But you're basically admitting bias when you're calling a couple a supercouple and say that they're having a "love story" before one of those characters even appears.

[DRW50]

I've encountered more gay men who are strongly critical of gay content in movies or TV shows than I have gay men who automatically support gay content on shows. I knew many more straight women who loved QAF than I knew gay men who liked it. In the first season of Brothers & Sisters, I liked most of the stories for Kevin, but the recaps at Afterelton usually hated Kevin and blasted him for seemingly every decision he made and had no idea why anyone would want to be with him. The comments at Datalounge would tear him apart every week. I didn't bother to read the comments after that season. And then Brokeback Mountain also got a negative reaction among gay men I knew, they said the movie was depressing, they said it was negative stereotypes of gays, they hated the sex scene, they hated that the film was used as a cheap joke by comedians and the public. You had Nathan Lane go on various talk shows and rip the movie apart with a big grin on his face.

There are a lot of gay men out there who feel if you like much of any positive gay content on TV or movies, then you're desperate, you're delusional. Media which presents a gay man as sleazy, or mentally ill, or a murderer is more likely to get a free pass because that's just being un-PC.

Even GLAAD typically condones or ignores anti-gay content in the media.

I guess I don't think the writing for Nuke has ever been as bad as the writing for Paul and Meg, or had as much prominence on the show, although I'm not sure if any writing for anyone on the show is as bad as Paul and Meg. Sometimes, when the writing for Noah and Luke is too ridiculous, like the kissing ban, or the Ameera storyline, their fans do end up letting their displeasure known to ATWT, which may or may not make a difference, but is better than just putting up with the writing.

I think it's typical for fans to have the highest expectations for a couple before they actually appear onscreen.

I know there are people who are desperate to have a male couple on a show and will cut them a lot of slack, and those people make themselves very known, but I think there's often just as much of a tendency to hate a same-sex couple (at least a male one), from both sides, one side being furious about "agendas" and the other side being furious that more isn't being shown, or that the couple doesn't fit their idea of what gay men are supposed to look like, how they are supposed to act, what they are supposed to be.

[All My Shadows]

Paul and Meg are the extreme, LOL, so I just tossed them in there. From what I saw, and it was a lot, the main complaint with the Ameera storyline was that Ameera was coming in between Luke and Noah. It was the same thing with Brian, but there wasn't as much backlash (perhaps because Brian is a man? hmm). Mind you, I think that those complaints were valid because the two-people-together-but-one-person-comes-in-and-drives-them-apart story gets old. Real fast. And Nuke has had two of them.

Right. But is it typical for people to make banners on top of banners of said couple before one half of said couple appears? I mean, it was just silly...about a week before Noah made his first appearance, I found this person who made like...7 different banners based on the SAME EXACT PICTURE because there was only one promo pic featuring Noah and Luke together.

For me, it has nothing to do with how Noah and Luke, as characters, are portrayed at all. Sure, I think Luke's become a whiny little girl ever since Noah's come along, but that's the type of issue that I have with many characters on most soaps. All I ever wanted was to see Luke get into a relationship with someone that he has a deep connection with. That's what I want for all of my favorite characters, and I felt shortchanged with Nuke, and still do. It's attractive to see Luke and Noah hugging and kissing and getting it on, but if I don't know the motives behind their relationship...it's all pretty hollow to me.

But, your opinion may be totally different, and I have no prob with that.

[DRW50]

There's always going to be backlash when someone comes between a couple, but I think most of the greater dislike for Ameera was her being a pointless character with a badly told backstory and because of how easy it would have been for the show to have had her sleep with Noah (which they thankfully didn't do, as it would have just been another bad cliche). I don't think Brian had the same level of backlash because people knew nothing was going to happen between Brian and Luke and because his story made more sense.

With today's fan groups, probably. I don't go to most of the soap boards but when I used to go to the boards for American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance, people would start up fan threads and scour for images of people who hadn't even been on TV yet, but had been on a spoiler list or knew someone who'd been on a previous season.

I can see that's how you feel and I respect that you came into the story with an open mind and were disappointed. I'm only saying in my experience there are as many or more people who are always looking for the worst in gay characters as there are those who will accept anything as long as it involves a gay character.

[NorrthCafe]

I have to wonder if the problem with understanding what makes Nuke tick isn't about a problem with Nuke, but with the writers telling love stories, overall. The writers have a hard time doing backstory on some characters. Just like with Nuke, and with Luke and Kevin, I've always thought what drove Luke was his half-baked parents. As someone pointed out, most of his time onscreen was about Luke playing marriage counselor to his own parents, and the fact that they never let parenting get in the way of their sex lives. I've been annoyed with Lily and Holden for YEARS because of that.

Luke has always been searching for someone who would put HIM first and would make him feel as if he wasn't invisible. Both Kevin and Noah gave him that. In different ways, they made him feel like he mattered.

He's no different from Emily, on that score. It was never clear to me why Em loved anyone she loved. One kind word and she was showing up on your doorstep the next morning. Tom? WTF? There was never any couples development there. Tom and Margo were kind to her and off she went chasing after him until she got him in bed. Em and Paul? Em and Holden? Em and Diego? Em and.... it's all the same.

Luke is just a less desperate version of Emily. His feelings run deeper than hers. They are both people who grew up with impossible people and impossible circumstances. Neither is prone to rationality (Luke drinking his kidney and liver away with his medical history).

[DavidEvanSmith]

Loving the debates in this thread!

I'm one who will support gay representation in the media, and I am willing to take the good with the bad.

Luke/Noah (ATWT): The intentions are good. I see both sides of arguments here. For me, there are a lot of problems with Luke & Noah. The fact Noah is disconnected from the rest of the canvas, serving only Luke's story. No legitimate family ties to the canvas. And casting has been a HUGE issue in Noah's case because I feel Jake Silbermann lacks a lot of experience and especially chemistry with Van Hansis. I think enough time has been devoted to this "first relationship" for Luke and he needs to be transitioned into another relationship. Someone who Luke identifies more with, someone passionate, someone with a personality! I doubt the audience would object if they saw someone share actual chemistry with Luke.

Daniel Colson (OLTL): Daniel as the closeted serial killer was critically attacked by GLAAD, the soap press, viewers. I guess that makes it bad. I think the only thing that makes it bad was that the message was lost. I don't object to the notion that some people are so uncomfortable in their own skin, with their sexual orientation, that it drives them over the edge. People that can't reconcile their personal desires (love/sex with a man) with their professional goals (a political career) WOULD constantly be at war with themselves, and that inner conflict could manifest itself in violent and devastating ways. But I think the message about Daniel's inner conflict was lost. So the motivation was murky and combined with the fact that the audience had little emotional connection to Daniel and his college-aged lover, the story failed. I personally think it's hypocritical of people and GLAAD to expect that all gay-themed stories should be all hearts and flowers. It's not realistic. People aren't always comfortable with who they are. It's important to tell THOSE stories too. By witnessing the intolerance, hopefully someone will learn tolerance. Watching someone who can't accept themselves and the things it drives them to do may help someone else accept themselves. Was the Daniel story extreme? YES, but this is a drama-based genre.

Lucas Jones (GH): Ugh. Let me count the ways. I had really high hopes, but GH made no commitment, and I honestly don't know why they even bothered when they let him fade off the canvas again anyway. Poor Lucas. So much drama surrounded him from BIRTH, from Cheryl Stansbury and the Jerome crime family, to maybe Robert Scorpio being Lucas's biological father, to Bobbie wanting to adopt him, to Cheryl changing her mind and moving away with Lucas, to Cheryl dying years later and Bobbie/Tiffany's war over who would raise Lucas, to Bobbie and Tony's marriage dissolving and their battle with Lucas caught in the middle... And you'd think with all that turmoil over the baby, as a teenager they'd be able to mine some drama from that history. But missed opportunity after missed opportunity, and coming out as GAY can't even bring drama?? GH just needs to get their lives together, I can't even discuss them anymore.

Bianca/Reese (AMC): I don't mind the idea that members of the Kane/Slater family would look for drama and flaws in Bianca's lover. But where THIS story went wrong was letting Bianca jump on the bandwagon and doubt her fiancee too. Reese WAS used to prop Zach while Kendall was out of commission and for Reese to utter words that compared her connection to Bianca to her connection to Zach ruined the relationship for me. Undermined the whole damn thing. I don't know if I can buy into the relationship after that.

Overall, there's good and bad. No worse than any hetero story on any canvas. But it's important to keep trying, one day they'll get it right. The casting will align with the chemistry, will align with the writing, will align with the audience... It just hasn't happened yet.

[Sindacco]

No.

No.

[DRW50]

I don't think the message was lost. I think the message of the story, and probably one of the reasons GLAAD veered from their usual mode of defending and capitulating, was that viewers were supposed to be shocked at the weirdo who was killing people because he was gay. It was all shock value.

[NorrthCafe]

I never read the GLAAD statement about the Colson storyline, so I can't speak to that. I can say that I found the storyline highly anachronistic. I can't imagine that in (2005?) a man like Colson would run around town murdering people to keep the secret that he's gay. Uh, WTF? That's a storyline that would have made sense 30-40 years ago (maybe even 20 years ago), but in 2000-whatever? It would make more sense for him to pay someone off to keep his secret [thinking 'Melville Farr' in 'Victim' (1961)]. Serial murder? I don't think so! Wasn't this even after McGreevey? The only thing that would have made more sense of the Colson storyline would have been filming it in black and white!

[dragonflies]

Given Zach & Bianca were both character assassinated for Reese, I'd say it's the other way around.

I can't buy into the relationship cause they clearly know NOTHING about each other but yet decided to have a baby. Also what ruined the relationship for me is that we were TOLD Reese was cool and awesome all before she even debuted on screen. They never gave viewers the chance to decide that for themselves.

So to me the upcoming wedding with Bianca & Reese is a farce for many, many reasons