OLTL: Actress FIRED!

[Vee]

So for me to properly fight against discrimination in the media, I must support an actor who may have quit OLTL over personal prejudices against people like me. No thanks.

And thank you for another manic moment, marceline, but I voted Obama, proudly so.

[miajere]

You know I got the same feeling. It's as though there isn't enough happening in this industry, and industry that feeds on a promotes drama, and I've felt like people have been thirsting for it. I include myself in that.

About a year ago I wouldn't have considered this groundbreaking news, but it's been presented as thus. Here's a character I gave up on a long time ago, and she's been fired from a show that hasn't showed much interest in her character in eons. You get those emergency podcasts, and you think- this story just reeks of desperation. The headlines, etc... And no, I don't trust the people who've presented the story, you hear them speak on the topic and they definitely have trouble with just reporting the news and staying objective. they want me to agree that this woman deserved to be fired for stepping out of her place and allowing her personal opinion about her character affect her ability to do her job, and I'm not riding on that bandwagon.

[Vee]

Again, the current story goes that Mauceri quit due to her own beliefs about homosexuality, not Carlotta's.

I'm not calling Daytime Confidential a pillar of new media. Far, far, faaaa-ha-ha-har from it. But I do think that even a neophyte operation like that would not be stupid enough to print what they did about the actress without having confirmation. They could also be vulnerable legally if they were wrong. And I don't think they are colluding with Nelson Branco in a Velvet Conspiracy to support the ABC Daytime party line. Neither party is exactly a fan of ABCD.

I'm not interested in a societal analysis of what's gone wrong with daytime or with us here; we talk about what's wrong with ABC Daytime and soaps and soap journalists all the time. For me, the issue is very simple: Was the actor a bigot, and did they quit or allow themselves to be terminated due to their own bigotry? That's all I care about. I'm not going to make this a soapbox for something else. All I want is for people to stop bringing their own pet issues to the table and occasionally, just once, if there is a case of homophobia, to maybe, just maybe, condemn it without equivocating or qualifying or apologizing.

[miajere]

You have to make that choice for yourself- you've obviously done that. Of course I have my own limits. I live in America, I still have to buy clothes, I still enjoy television, but I have to look at each show critically and ask myself whether or not they promote the openness I support- storytelling, casting, and otherwise. I don't presume to make that choice for anyone and ask that they don't do the same for me. -And in the past I don't think daytime has been in support of "openness" to different people.

I can still love my soaps, like my favorite actors, and in the same vein say, what these people decide on a business level is wrong. And from where I sit it doesn't sound as though PM wanted out of this s/l because she's homophobic. She's aware that this romance is going ahead regardless her perspective. So, we still disagree; but is there a reason for the sarcasm?

[marceline]

No. I'm calling you a dupe who is being played, manipulated and used.

I can easily think of some of your posts that fall under the category of " a Unabomber-esque rant." As do some of mine and many others of other posters. And that fact that Branco admits to inflating and twisting the story destroys his credibility. He admitted that he lied for the sole purpose of "breaking" the scoop and advancing his agenda. What else did he lie about? What is he lying about now? Nothing he says can be trusted and frankly TVGuide Canada should fire him. I can't think of another situation where someone working for a publication admits to falsifying content and gets to keep his job.

Soap Digest is simply repeating Daytime Confidential's excrement. The same thing happened with the Engen story.

If you look at the story on SOC there's mention of PM's having problems with Carlotta's role on the show. The Vega Diner becoming the Bon Jour for example. Is that true? Who knows. But it makes more sense that PM turing into Carrie Prejean.

If there are different bits of info THAT might be an example of someone asking questions instead of just repeating DC's garbage. Perhaps people learned from the Engen story that they need to verify information before they believe it or repeat it. Unfortunately not enough people learned.

That's apparent to YOU. To me this is apparently an example of an actress who was punished for questioning the authority of her "betters." People with a history of firing and slandering women and minorities.

But why are we fighting? It's not like ABC has ever done this before or might possibly ever do it again. Mauceri's gone so let's get on with the manloving!

[Vee]

Come on, soaps have let us all down in more ways than one over the years, but the fact is this board is called "Soap Opera Network," not "Marshall McLuhan Masturbation;" people are here to talk soaps. If they didn't love the medium nd still have some investment in it, they wouldn't watch them. We talk about what we think is wrong with BTS choices all the time. And according to the current reports, PM quit rather than play scenes in which Carlotta came round to being gay-friendly. That's a homophobic reaction and as much as I've loved her past work and will dearly miss her, I can't support that, and I don't think condemning that kind of behavior means I am in any way enabling Brian Frons or his policies. And I don't think you could explain it that way to me, even if you want to. The choice you posit - either Mauceri's homophobia or ABC - is impossible and a no-win scenario; it's an ideological purity test which makes no sense in the real world and with the info at our disposal. The fact is that no matter what a soap does or what mistakes its execs make, there will also always be beloved actors or other staff who make foolish choices on their own, with no basis in fault from another party, and we can't blame everything they do on someone else.

[brimike]

:D

This gay says: "Touche"

[marceline]

And some of my best friends are gay.

[DeliaIrisFan]

You know, I don't actually know what the legalities are. Is being accused of being a homophobe grounds for libel? Who would the burden of proof fall upon...TPTB to prove that she is a homophobe or PM to prove that she's not? How did a discussion involving whether or not a non-contract actress would play a scene escalate to such a point that what was quoted could ever be proven or disproven? I'm not a lawyer and I don't really know the answers to those questions. I do know that someone leaked this, and even if what PM is accused of is 100% true and legally it's all kosher, what was the point? As a gay man, I am not sleeping any better at night knowing that an actress I have liked in the past but have honestly not given a lot of thought to in over a decade - except to lament the lack of all kinds of diversity that have not been portrayed on OLTL much of the time - is out of a job for potentially being a homophobe. If it's true, then I didn't need to know that, actually. I have had to deal with homophobic reactions from real people in my life. I don't need to think about what the actress who plays Carlotta would think of me. And the fact that a role that has been reduced to nothingness is being recast with a younger, bigger name actress who will probably have more to work with than PM has had since 1997 is not necessary either. I do agree that the last thing the LGBT community needs is for racial issues to be pitted against sexual orientation issues, even in an incident as banal as this. PM is an easier target than advertisers or network executives, and her age and her ethnicity are the main reasons for that. And I still say that racism has played some role in Carlotta's family being marginalized on this show at some point in the last 10 years or so. So I personally don't feel comfortable latching onto this woman as some sort of rallying point, even if it were apparent that this story is true.

Which it still isn't, to me. I still can't imagine a scenario in which an actress who has lived through several reportedly gay showrunners over the past decade and a half suddenly flagrantly made it clear to the current, openly gay executive producer (is FV out?) that she objected to having any involvement in a gay storyline within earshot of whoever leaked this. I've just never burnt bridges like that when leaving a job, even in fields that are much less incestuous than daytime TV, even when I have had another job lined up; and in my experience a lot of bible-banging Christians (at least, the ones who don't make millions of dollars off of their megachurches by spewing invective) clam up about gay subject matter and hide behind the "hate the sin/love the sinner" party line. If there is a grain of truth in all of this, I could see a more likely scenario being that PM took offense to being trotted out to prop up a story featuring two newcomers, in a plot point that maybe she construed as trivializing her on-screen family's history on this show (

). And maybe she said something that could have also been construed as trivializing this story that maybe FV, et al, are really proud to be telling, maybe for personal reasons. I'm not saying that's what happened, but it just seems more reasonable to me..

If she did quit for the reasons being alleged, it's wrong...no question, in my mind. But why is it newsworthy? I watched the same-sex (non) love scene on Y&R online tonight, and I think an analysis of the rationale behind the directing, blocking, breaking, etc. would be far more timely if the soap press were interested in actually addressing homophobia and heterosexism than scapegoating an actress who couldn't have gotten arrested a week ago.

[You're Soaking in it]

Let me put this out there one more time: At the root of all this is Mauceri reportedly standing up for the "integrity" of her character, insisting that Carlotta would NOT support a gay lifestlye.

Do we longtime viewers agree with THAT viewpoint? That Carlotta is SO DEFINITIVELY NOT SUPPORTIVE of an LBGT person? To the point of where Maurceri would throw her job over it? Is Carlotta THAT crystal-clear homophobic?

My personal opinion is NO, which is why I suspect there's more to it - or that Mauceri is deliriously misguided about her character (and, consequently, her job). And yeah, that makes it a little easier for me to say to bye to her and accept her recast.

But that's the foundation of the argument - that she was standing up for her character. The question some people are asking is, "how credible is that argument, REALLY?"

And I guess when I see people insisting that she must be standing up for her character, I'm wondering if they're saying they actually AGREE with her that Carlotta is a clear-cut homophobe... and why?

[Vee]

And who is playing and manipulating me, marceline? The oh-so-fey puppet masters behind the power play to remove key veteran Patricia Mauceri and "get PR?" Can you explain this scheme to me in detail? You are aware that if this was an evil scheme to make the actress look like a bigot, they could all be sued for that, from the network down the line. This sort of thing may happen on soaps, but in real life, no network takes that kind of a massive litigation risk just for kicks.

None of this changes the fact that Engen never denied leaving over gay material. Oh, well. Thanks for playing.

The story you mention is very poorly sourced and could just as easily have come from Joe Blow off the street, and includes multiple versions of the story; one mentioned in the article supports the Daytime Confidential version of events. For you to support the SOC story because it suits your worldview makes you just as guilty as me.

Actually, the kind of slander you describe is actionable. ABC doesn't do that. No network does that, in fact. Certainly not to a minor recurring player like Patricia Mauceri. In the end, the network would be the one that pays, and their corporate and business bottom line is all that matters to them. To do something like that would compromise them on so many levels; they would be vulnerable legally, financially, and they would take a massive body blow in the media and with various advocacy groups, rightly so, if they'd done such a despicable thing. That's exactly why they don't. It might work for Skeletor on He-Man, but in the real world, ABC Daytime is full of middle-aged risk-averse weenies in suits.

As for "questioning the authority of her betters," you're putting a lot of background into a few brief sentences. The only two versions are this: Mauceri either protested playing a gay-friendly role, or protested a character choice by Carlotta. What I'm getting from you is there is no way to make this real for you. You will always claim this is really another chapter in a meta-narrative about ABC Daytime's treatment of vets and minorities, even if Mauceri's supposedly being a homophobe is either confirmed or never disproven. Because that meta-narrative is so much more important to you than taking a stand on anything that's actually right or wrong. Well, I hate ABC Daytime and the way it treats its vets, women and people of color too, baby, but you're not going to catch me ignoring homophobia just to prove a point. I have a little more respect for myself. And if it was you in my place, I'd have more consideration for you than you do for me.

[Vee]

You know, I at least do you the courtesy of being very straightforward with you when we have an argument, so if you're going to call me a racist for some insane reason I'd rather you just do it to my face. Even though maybe a third of my posts on this board are taken up lamenting the loss of Ellen Holly and the Halls and Gannons, I'm sure there's a way you can make us all see that I am in fact a closet racist.

[miajere]

I get the sense that you were hoping for a more practical approach. People do something wrong, they are punished fair and without bringing up other outside influences. I don't agree with that. I think that ignores the society that promotes homophobia as a just perspective and cause; and I do think the soap industry has done so on occasion if not in everyday practice. I'm not talking about soaps letting people down because so and so didn't get together, or it wasn't realistic on some day. Brian Frons is just a suit, these policies were put in place long time ago.

PM is gone from OLTL; and I think their grounds for termination were wrong and exploitive.

[Vee]

I agree that rationale's very suspect at best, but that's not the story that's presented now. The current word is that she quit because she, the actress, personally did not believe in homosexuality, or in playing a character who did.

It's very sad because I really loved her on the show. I remember watching as a kid, and she was always crying over Antonio and his time in prison. I would've given anything to give her a hug.

[miajere]