Diversity in Soaps: Black Characters, Gay Characters, Latino Characters

[Leia]

We have a good discussion brewing in the Christel Khalil thread that really deserved it's own topic. We've seen some progress with Carlivati's diverse canvas on OLTL in respect to the gay story and the reintroduction of Rachel Gannon along with the expansion of Shaun's character and Layla's character. The addition of Destiny, Greg and recurring characters of Mr. and Mrs. Evans and Dr. Wright all look like a step in the right direction. Kyle and Fish's romantic story is supported by the addtion of Nick Rodriguez and Mr. and Mrs. Fish. Love them or hate them, the Vega family has been around since Malone created them and with Saundra Santiago taking over as Carlota, it seems that the show is still committed to that family. All My Children has the Hubbard family and though they suffer from poor writing, they still have great potential if the show fully taps into their rich daytime history. And then there is Young and the Restless. I don't think a person alive can dispute the failure of the Anna, Tyra, Devon and Neil stories of last year or the Adam and Rafe debacle.

It's 2009 and we've lost Guiding Light and ratings for soaps aren't delivering so it is a very real possibility that we could lose more soaps and that they will never overcome the diversity obstacle. Consequently, with the loss of some of daytime's most popular diverse characters such as Drucilla Winters, RJ Gannon and Evangeline Williamson the fact remains that when black soap fans lose characters of this magnitude there is a void that isn't capable of being filled because there is a lack of committment still from daytime to address how the needs of their black audience. What's worse is black soap fans don't have the luxury of tuning in to another soap to connect with another black character to soothe the loss. Black soap fans certainly don't have the luxury of having long-standing protagonists such as Nikki Newman or long-standing antagonists such as Jill Abbott to build a future on. I've seen debates in regards to Kish versus Nuke versus Otalia and that's great that we are at the point where we can have those debates. With the exception of B&B and GH in 2009 almost every soap experimented with a gay or lesbian story.

What are your thoughts in respect to where daytime stands on diversity? Please include the good, the bad and the ugly.

[Cyberologist]

WOW First of all I'd like to applaude you for starting this thread (I never start threads on SON) I don't know why I think because I would read such profoundness here I was kinda intimidated years ago people really know their business here. Then once I felt I could hang with the big dogs on the front porch. Most of my thoughts had already been posted (like this) LoL...

The Bad: I have a huge huge problem w/soaps & diversity mainly the portrayal of women, and how (ABC GH) portray the vets (age) and the non-portrayal of African Americans (GH) in top tier LEADS in LEAD story. The Beulahland Butterfly McQueen mentality of the portrayal of Sonya Eddie's Epiphany.

The way they treated Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Kent Masters King and how Angie and Jessie is being portrayed. How Victoria Rowell was treated re: Emmy & not letting her break ground to become a 'writer'

The Sad: African Americans were HUGE soap opera fans and they have contributed greatly to the dying of this genre (although we don't get credit or mentioned in articles of having influence re: this) because most of us got tired of waiting around for diversity in a "fair and balanced" way and we've for the most part have walked. In my experience, once African Americans leave a soap they are gone aren't coming back. My issue is ABC's "Cotton Club" mentality.

The Ugly: You can bring NeYo, Mary J. Blige to perform but I'll be damn if you can be a lead actress in top tier story. They are pimping Kelly Monaco to the rafters but what did Frons do for Kent Masters King and Kiko Elsworth when they came to GH Zilch and their fans walked. Ratings reflect also the loss of African Americans watching soap opera!

And as far as them going to Africa? I have never read anything so insulting to me as an African American bring a African back to star on General Hospital then I'll be impressed otherwise stop pretending to care about diversity that's all I thought about seeing Lucci, Geary and Monaco up there what hypocrites, what bullshit they are peddling. My issue with soaps? Age, Race, and Gender. I am a huge Minae Nojii fan (Dr. Kelly Lee GH). I never see her..I guess she's recurring too...I was hoping for a "romantic storyline for her with the Asian guy McFarty on GH who worked at the Metro Court but golly gee they let him go or even Dr. Andy the anesthesiolgist that got Ko'd in the bioToxin storyline.

The Good: You see us on the screen even though its wall paper bit day players eg sitting in restaurants, a judge on AMC...sitting in the hospital or an orderly, working at the airport. These actors are allowed to say a few lines from time to time/

The Ugly: I remember when you didn't see Black/Spanish/Asian/Gay (or straight) people period. I watched (I was young but remember) The Halls, The Grays, The Gannons and the Asian Blair.

The Good: Ron Carlivati, DOL, ATWT there are shows who portrayed minorities in lead story with a positive focus; I use to think that about Y/R.

The Bad: How Olivia (Y/R)is not given lead story just a prop, Tatyana Ali was awesome mesmorizing as Devon's girlfriend, I haven't seen her lately. I guess she's gone...Devon actor was tweeting some of his concerns...What are they doing over there with Neil Winters? He's not IMO driving lead story.

The Bad: Why this genre is dying is a lot of "their fault" not always the audience not watching because the ones that are they are working over with crappy stories....they refuse to write for a changed global society they are still sticking with old formulas imo keeping minorities in their places.

WheW thanks a lot this felt good!!

The Excellent: (ABC) Ron Carlivati. I was happy with Angie/Jessie coming back but I see it was a (Pratt) stunt. I like Frankie and his bride but I want to see Angie and Jessie in some serious lead story as lead actors..

The most racist soap GH hands down without a doubt. Not speaking about Maurice Benard who is of Spanish descendents. Guza does not like Black folk. I was stunned when he gave Kent such a great front burner storyline on NS1 which didn't but could have transcended to GH in a kickass story with Graham Shiels (Cody Paul) their fans waited...She was regulated to the bench duty he slowly appeared then disappeared they refuse to write for her/him/ or for them. Same said with Kiko Elsworth.

I cancelled soapnet when I had it there were no black people on it (other than whoever appeared on the re-run soaps, Ugly Betty meaning their "original programming". It may have changed but I don't watch it anymore so I don't know.

[DeeeDee]

The saddest thing is while Black actors struggle for equity in front of & behind the scenes other minority groups still can't even get seats at the table.

In this day & age that is a horrible travesty.

[DRW50]

The regression is what I really hate. It's not right that we can look back at soaps 15, 20 years ago and see a more diverse canvas than what we have now. Even worse than that is the degradation of many of these characters. Like RJ. He finally had some semblance of a family, beyond just being the evil man around town/punching bag/brother of the DA we never saw past 1997, and then they turned his daughter into a lunatic to prop Antonio and the blonde princess Jessica, and then Keri's child with Antonio is alternately used as a prop for Antonio, and then dumped on RJ whenever Antonio has something better to do. RJ as the Emma Snyder of Llanview. Then he vanished even from that.

And Y&R -- that's been discussed to death, but rarely in the show's history do I remember such outright contempt for black people that we see now. And then they actually got praise for the "Ram" fiasco, two men who did not kiss, barely touched, who amounted to a bit player being manipulated by the cliched evil bisexual villain. Only for the bit player to vanish immediately after the story ended. I'm sure he might return long enough to be killed.

I also hate the condescension and the patronizing, the crumbs we're supposed to devour. That has gotten us to the point where every attempt at a gay story on a soap is automatically seen as a stunt and automatically disliked by many fans, even if they aren't homophobic. The worst ever was that Rianca garbage on AMC, where we actually got major media publicity for a "groundbreaking" wedding between people who did not even have a honeymoon because one of the brides was turning straight for her brother-in-law. The only reason the story had a "happy ending" was because both actresses quit.

There's been more success with Latinos, I guess, but even that can be very stereotype-laden. The Montez family, full of "hot-blooded" women and A Martinez and that awful accent.

[Faulkner]

Not that the UK soaps are all that much better for diversity, but imagine a U.S. soap including a Muslim family like EastEnders. Now THAT would truly be groundbreaking. But we're not even close to going that far on American daytime. I suppose Talia on OLTL could have been the start of that.

I hate that minorities are considered expendable. You always know when writers of these shows aren't passionate about these characters, and they're just filling a quota.

They're rarely as complex or as larger-than-life or as original as the WASP characters.

If it's at all possible, their cultural background gets played down to an almost laughable extent.

They rarely get A stories with ramifications outside of their ghettos.

They rarely get the number of chances (failed stories, failed love interests) to succeed that WASP characters get.

Writers may keep them around for a while (like Y&R's the non-Lily Winters), bloating the cast lists of their shows, but sooner or later, they are dismissed quietly, as if they never existed.

What Y&R did with Devon and Tyra exemplifies how daytime treats minorities. Give them this twisted, vile story that had no underpinning in character, play out a yearlong story in a couple days, reap no dramatic impact from it whatsoever, and use it to rid the show of those "deadweight characters."

Latino characters have fared only slightly better, but let's not even get started on East Asian, South Asian, Arab, or even JEWISH characters. Understandably, it's tough to invest in new families while payrolls are being cut, but couldn't they, instead of bringing on yet another WASP family, bring on something different?

The treatment of gays and lesbians on daytime is laughable. At least OLTL (and to a far lesser extent, ATWT) realizes that you need more than ONE or TWO gay/bi characters for these stories to have an impact.

[Faulkner]

Yikes, double post.

[RomeAt50]

I agree. A lot of the time its very clear that the writers are not as interested in the black and latino characters. Even when the characters are relatively popular with viewers they usually don't get the same kind of treatment a white character of equal popularity would.

[MoTheGreat]

The reason why Latinos fare better because they will hire the white Latinos or Latinas.

RC might have deversity but really by Rachel being torn between two brother who's that really effecting but maybe Destiny. They are always isolated from the rest of the cast.

They will blend in latinos with the whites cast memebers maybe for not that long but at least they will. Until they can find a white guy & girl to rescue them from the latinos or blacks.

the gay storyline I feel will also be isolated from the rest of the cast too. Since the gays are minorites I'm sure they will keep Layla & Cristian involved.

[Cheap21]

Thats true. They always seem to be more like white people with flavor. Soaps dont really do diversity all that great. Asians tend to have it the worst.

[All My Shadows]

Word to all of this.

My main gripe is that because of groups like the NAACP and GLAAD, whenever these shows do get the sense to add at least some kind of minority group, they're forced to write the characters with kid gloves. These characters are almost always forced to be either "evil" (bad portrayal, per NAACP/GLAAD) or "upstanding citizen" (great, amazing, outstanding, realistic portrayal, per NAACP/GLAAD). Yeah, when minorities are first being featured on a show, it's good for the characters to positively represent their particular group, but geez...how long does that have to last?

[DRW50]

I'm not sure about the kid gloves these days. GLAAD will give a stamp of approval to most stories. They even kept quiet about the horribly offensive Daniel Coulson mess, didn't they, as OLTL had that brief gay marriage story with Marcie's brother as some type of balance? And GLAAD had nothing but praise for a story which involved Reese making out with her brother-in-law right before her wedding, then the marriage ending on the wedding night, a storyline which also ticked off almost every single negative stereotype about lesbians (I guess GL ticked off the rest).

As for the NAACP, I don't believe soaps care about them. It's not like they are dying to write all these edgy portrayals and the NAACP is stopping them. They don't want to write about black people, period. I didn't see Y&R skipping the horribly offensive, stupid storyline about Tyra and Devon getting busy a month after they learned they weren't blood relatives, even though I'm sure people could say that story was racist.

[EricMontreal22]

What I'd like to know is how it compares with Primetime network (NOT cable) shows. It's true it's not as diverse (gay characters aside) as it has been in the past but I've read that Primetime shows likewise are suffering.

[Paul Raven]

Y&R has the perfect opportunity to diversify by bringing back Jack's son Keemo.Straight away you would have an Asian character in the thick of things.I like the idea of Keemo and Phyllis hooking up.

Bill Bell created the character,but for whatever reason,the writing was never really there.Phillip Moon was a bland actor in this role.

Unfortunately,the current regime have trouble writing effectively for most characters,so chances of Keemo not only returning,let alone being written properly are slim.

It's sad that overall soaps are performing poorly in this area.there has been plenty of time to slowly diversify,but nobody seems committed.

[JackPeyton]

oops, posted in the wrong place...

[bellcurve]

I'm all for morally gray characters, but it has to make sense and it can't be told in a way that makes a particular character/group look like a minstrel show. I'm not saying be extremely sensitive and non-threatening, but know what you're putting out there.

There's a big difference between a character like, say Y&R's Drucilla and GH's Beulah. It's in the production, but it's also in the acting too. And I also think there's a huge difference between a black villain whose motivations, while it may shock or offend, are clearly known by the viewer than some one dimensional, cardboard badass. The same could be said about other stories on soaps, but I don't think that people

But on the other hand, I believe people have to vote with their remote. No matter how good the show is, if a writer is not invested in writing for a black character, no matter how many letter writing campaigns generate and no matter how many consultants you add to the show, the person in charge simply won't care about integrating them and working them into the show as a whole in the longrun.

Bad example, but Desperate Housewives, after a season of coasting with stellar ratings and critical acclaim, decided to add a black family to the show, but they kept her and them locked in a house, away from the additional cast and made both of the sons freaks and quickly scrubbed them out of the show when they saw that they weren't working. But Marc Cherry(who was probably forced by ABC to bring on a black family) wasn't really invested in them to begin with, because he sacked them with a lame murder mystery involving a character and a backstory no one cared about and was determined to keep them away from the cast, assuming that hiring a high-caliber has-been like Alfre Woodward would raise the stakes. And by the time Betty started blackmailing Bree, it was too late.

I'd rather not see a show try to add minority/gay characters if those characters are going to be safe tokens or extreme caricatures or if the writers/producers are NOT fully invested in them. The story HAS to be there too.