Guiding Light Discussion Thread

[Soapsuds]

@victoria foxton I've never found Jake yummy....but he was destined to play a gay character....

[John]

And Its spencer Treat Clark who was Steven Frame, Vicky & Jamie's son on AW

[antmunoz]

He was a teenager on ATWT playing a difficult alcoholism story.  Perhaps he wasn’t up to the gay storyline as well. 

 

As an adult now, I’m sure he can make different decisions.  Perhaps he regrets not playing Luke’s coming out. Perhaps not. 
 

Zimmer is sure getting a lot of crap on here but y’all know she WAS GL for many years, like it or not. I happen to like it. Every soap has one or two central heroines, and on GL, it was Reva, and Harley from the 80’s onward. 

[Aback]

 

THAT'S Kim Zimmer's son?  Oh my God...

[Vee]

Kim has always denied she took him off the show, but if she had - based on the rumor that she was concerned about the hate he'd receive - I couldn't really blame her. She's been nothing but proud of his work with STC on AK; she's no homophobe.

[All My Shadows]

I'm with you on this 100%. I recall at the time there were people ready to not only condemn KZ but also Jake as homophobes because he vacated the role. The reason they gave was extremely legitimate - he was 15 and wanted to focus on finishing school and doing music, and, surprise, that's exactly what he did. Kim's a very smart woman. I would imagine she encouraged him to do ATWT as a summer job that would be a crash course into acting so that when he was ready to do it full-time, he wasn't entirely green.

[SFK]

 

Not unlike Allison Hirschlag before she headed off to Northwestern.

[antmunoz]

And she was PERFECT as Lizzie. I loved her. 
 

Kim also still gets a raw deal for not taking that pay cut, one year into a three year contract.  Hey, a contract is a contract. She stood her ground and won. Apparently, others didn’t and lost. It’s not her responsibility to negotiate other actors’ deals. And those people would’ve been taken off contract anyway.  Liz K, Beth C, Yvonna...they all worked for years after that, until the end. Jerry ver Dorn was a huge loss, but that’s not on Kim. 

[Soapsuds]

Yes the one with the beard.

[Mitch]

Pam always wanted a red head for Reva.  I can see that but can't imagine anyone but Zimmer of course.

 

Yea, I doubt Kimmer is a homophobe. I am gay and at that point in "history" would have taken my 15 year old kid out of something like that..we forget how fast the world has changed and 15 is young to take that on. Though I think he would have been better then the annoying Luke we got. I  wanted Shayne to be gay just to see Reva not like it (a twist the mom is reluctant but the dad is not) and blame herself before becoming the most obnoxious PFLAG mom on earth! Newman was so good with the younger actors that it would have been interesting.

 

GL never needed a central heroine and, at their best both Reva and Harley were not heroines..they were complicated conflicted women..well until Rauch and Wheeler came along and made them perfect...(I actually like Wheelers Reva better then Rauch;s she came back down to earth a little.)

 

 

[KMan101]

 

Agreed on Zimmer.

 

Can some of y'all stop being petty and just enjoy they're doing this for us? I'd love just a tiny bit of less negativity in this time at the moment ...

[titan1978]

As someone that did not watch GL regularly as it was airing until the Annie story, and has only watched most of the show on YouTube, it works better for me during the Curlee era, before the Buzz takeover, when it was really an ensemble.  It’s one of the reasons I love watching that period on the show.  It’s so rich with characters that all have a point of view and something going on.

 

No denying Reva’s importance on the show and as a daytime diva.  Certainly no denying Zimmer’s talent at playing Reva, especially when she has good writing.

 

I think it is easy to take her comments about her son at face value- the show wanted more of a commitment than he wanted to give.  I also think when that story was airing, anyone would have been nervous to play a gay male character at that age.  I was nervous enough in my own life about it, at a similar age and I was only dealing with my immediate worldview and family.  Not millions of viewers.

[Soapsuds]

Admit it....you're actually Kim Zimmer.

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[chrisml]

As a GL viewer, I hold no animosity towards Kim Zimmer. I think Justin Deas did more damage and the the rewards were not worth it.

[antmunoz]

Mitch, I agree. However, GL did position Reva and Harley as the two female leads for many years. Their alternating GL openings with each of them at the beginning is proof of that.  I think Laura Wright’s Cassie was a strong third, but not Nicole Forester’s.  Were both (all three) characters better as complicated women rather than straightforward heroines?  Yes, of course, but every complex women on soaps eventually gets watered down, neutered. Any complexity in Reva or Harley was eventually down to the actresses. 
 

Contrast with Beth, who started as the most innocent of ingenues and eventually became a hot mess of repeat abuse victim, adulterer, conniver, kidnapper and so forth.  That forgotten daughter with Alan sealed her coffin for me.  Holly was always complex and fascinating, only sometimes a heroine. I choose to ignore her Stalker days.  I never saw Vanessa as a heroine, even in the Matessa years. 
 

The non-Reva years are awesome. GL was perhaps the best ensemble on daytime. Many other shows suffered without their central female lead (DAYS without Marlena and Hope, for example).  I don’t really like most of Reva’s post-return storylines. Amish. San Cristobel. Psychic Reva. Time-travelling Reva. Dolly. (I did like her with Pelphrey and I know that subject opens a whole ‘nother can of worms.)

 

But I’m glad to see some support of Zimmer. She gets a lot of bashing online, even ten years later. She’s not Ellen Wheeler, people. 
 

Now, in defense of Justin Deas...