Y&R: Week of May 18, 2009

[Juliajms]

Nah, I should have used his quote to respond to, I was just being lazy.

[classicmoment]

I agree, and your example works for me too.

I don't like this angle of him kissing Rafe while he's not ok with it just to get this plot done. It's a bit over the top plot wise and not ina good way. Definitly shock value IMO

[Juliajms]

But you don't know how much I love it. I love the idea that someone would go totally balls to the wall and do whatever it takes to get revenge. And while kissing another girl is about last on my list of things I want to do, it does come before putting a

syringe full of botox in my eye. Just sayin'.

[Juliajms]

Yup and that would really be fun, but maybe better suited to primetime. On daytime it may be too offensive. Somewhere along the way soaps started "sending us messages" (which I hate), but since that seems to be the state of things, I don't want them sending the message that Adam is disgusted by Rafe. Better to just ignore the disgust part and focus on the manipulation part ,imo.

[YRBB]

While, right now, gay stories/characters don't work, I think the assertion that they will never work in US soaps is crap, with all due respect. If a little, backwards, antiquated country like Greece can have multi-dimensional, well-rounded gay characters on its shows--one of them was also the lead of his own show!!!--then surely the US can too?

[Ann_SS]

If Adam seduces Rafe, it is the end of Adam, period. The character will never be able to survive it. Yes, yes, it could be a wonderful story, yada, yada... The fact is that most of Y&R's audience is in the south and older viewers still hold negative attitudes towards homosexuality. I strongly suspect that Chris Engen knew this instantly. It is only matter of time before Adam is killed off. It will eventually be a "who killed Adam" mystery, maybe November sweeps. It was the same thing when Sheffer had Marshall Travers rape Jessica on ATWT. A black male character on a soap cannot survive being a rapist. There are too many societal stereotypes still in place which it make it impossible.

[Juliajms]

I think the question is why hasn't it worked so far? Nuke has worked to a degree, but they need to have more gay characters on to really make it interesting. But will people accept a soap that has 4 well established gay characters? The more practical thing to do would be to have some bi characters too so that they can move in other parts of the show as well. I have no idea if the general audience will accept any of that because soaps have built a certain kind of audience over the years. If this current crop of shows ends and there is a rebirth of soaps down the line without the legacy audience it's way more likely to work.

[MarkH]

This is interesting to me. Can you tell us more about the Greek example?

[Sylph]

They can, they could, but they never did. Ever since the 70s, when Harding Lemay tried to introduce the first male gay character.

Why? I have no idea. Many factors, probably.

[MarkH]

Interesting.

So how would you try to break down those negative attitudes?

[Sylph]

It wouldn't.

But you are right about everything else.

[Sapounopera]

Most of the gay characters in Greek TV -or all of them- provide their shows with comedy and laughter. Some times it is done in a respectful way, sometimes it is tacky.

The direction of Adam's storyline sounds insane to me. Billy Abbott might be flirty with a guy in order to do what he wants, but Adam never looked very comfortable with his sexuality to do that. Y&R is getting very crazy... Most of the new stories sound like fan fiction to me, and yet Y&R is the only soap I enjoy watching these days (apart from a liiiittle B&B ) But for how long? This is so OLTL, Summer 2008 all over again...

[Sylph]

Why isn't TMTE on that list?!?!

[Sapounopera]

You too? Everybody has been asking me that question for months! Do you know that my friends won't even pick up their phones when that show is on??? I will start watching when Elena Akrita announces that this won't be a three-year show like Vera. One thing I love about US soaps is that they never end, or at least they never ended. Once she starts saying that TMTE will never end, I will start watching I get too attached to soap characters, I can't see them go after a few years.

[Sylph]

LMAO! I bet!!! I hear it's all the rage in Greece.

Oh! So that's what it was about! I thought you didn't like EA because she didn't end VSD satisfactorily! It's so cute that you can't let go of your show! (And I know that cute sounds like something right out Christel Khalil's mouth. )