I guess a lot depends on audience response and where the show is willing to go with it.

Before Jesse, AMC only had token black characters. Then Jesse became popular and so did his friendship with Jenny. Then they brought in Angie or paired him with Angie, who also became very popular, and they were a supercouple, just as popular with fans as any other big couple at that time.

Would a soap do any of that today? Or would they somehow see Jesse's friendship with Jenny as a threat? Would they even allow a black man to be close friends with a white woman? If this became popular, would they just banish Jesse? Would they pair him with a day player and have him show up a few times a month, because they just assume that viewers do not want to see any relationship which is not about white people?

I was getting that from Leia's earlier post too. I say something is better than nothing. I'm with the late great Beah Richards on this one: Black actors, you take those roles, take the maid, the porter, whatever, and work it. Inject it with your humanity, your truth and things will inevitably translate to the audience. Black actors are capable of creating change in the most subtle of ways. This is why it's also so important to have GOOD actors in these roles! I think VR is the shining example of this ideal, look at what she brought to Y&R and what she was able to tell through Dru. Actors have more power than they sometimes give themselves credit for. Now of course soaps would rather hire the black Valley girl than the Around the Way girl, which is a whole 'nother problem (and thread)...

The thing is that no matter how good those actors are they will NEVER be good enough.

It has nothing to do with them & everything to do with the system the work in.

A system which was created & maintained to work against them so the glass ceiling stays in tact.

Then when those same actors push for progress & better representation they are derided as "uppity" and/or "divas" or as some moron said "they should eat a bowl of dicks".

At the end of the day regardless of tenure, popularity or status those very same actors are minorities & therefore expendable.

I feel like daytime got to a point where when it came to race, they were "over it"... been there, done that.

At first TPTB just didn't want us to be equal.

Seperate was fine but equal no way.

Now it's nothing at all.

They'd keep black characters on, but they'd stop telling stories that reflected the particular issues and struggles of the black community and they would start a trend of hiring white-looking and white-sounding black actors who functioned just as their white characters, and yes I am generalizing/stereotyping, yes we are the world we are the children we're all created equal, but I'm not pulling this out of my ass because we ARE different and THAT's OKAY.

Exactly.

Not only has the equal part of the equation been rendered nil the seperate part has too.

Anything that is remotely culturally organic is treated as WITCHCRAFT.

Leia, I like you but I have to call you on this. IMO there is no "elite" or "modern soap fan" and that suggests a dangerous divide which I don't agree with. The unspoken implication in there, intentional or not, is "those old soap fans just shun fun characters like Layla because they're sticks in the mud obsessed with lineage and core families." It's condescending and it's not so.

It's not condescending and its not meant to be a derogatory statement. My mum is an old-soap fan. She hates characters like Layla because she feels her presence detracts from the development of stories for Viki and Dorian. I can totally understand her point of view because she's been a soap fan since she washed laundry for white people and had to listen to it on the radio. Just because she represents a different generation of soap fans doesn't mean that her elitist point of view is something that isn't to be respected or honored.

The fact is soaps have always been elevating minor or supporting players, many of them "gossips" or "talk-tos" like Layla or outright antagonists, for at least thirty years, and fans have been loving it. It started with characters like Wanda Webb or Phoebe Tyler or Marco Dane (a pimp!) or Bobbie Spencer (initially just a mischief-maker in Port Charles) and Luke, and it's grown from there; anybody can be put on contract, anybody can go anywhere story-wise regardless of things like socioeconomic background or their function on the canvas (be it as a gossip or a heroine) or their personality. Brenda Barrett was once just Julia's bratty sister making trouble for Jagger. Rachel Davis went from town schemer disrupting the Tony/Pat supercouple to the queen of Bay City; Reva was Billy's nagging vixen wife, a thorn in Vanessa's side, before she owned Guiding Light.

I guess I wasn't clear because to me it's much more complicated. Soaps have elevated minor characters or supporting players but the point I was making is that it's much more difficult to do so for the MINORITY supporting players. I've made the statement before. To me, Rachel Gannon is like a Viki Lord but to the show obviously she was an expendable supporting character.

Nor do you have to be grayhaired and crocheting, watching soaps for forty years to prefer Rachel's presence to Layla.

No but it is possible that a Rachel would have more acceptance because she's Nora's daughter and Nora is more likely to have fans who span a greater span of cross-generalization.

I personally like them both a lot but value Rachel more; however, I have only been watching OLTL regularly since the early '90s and I am in my 20s. By most network standards and given my gender (male, a demo ABC continues to strive for) I would likely be considered a "modern fan," yet your definition seems to label me something that sounds suspiciously like an elitist because I prefer Rachel to Layla? I think not.

No, I'm saying you have a more sophisticated viewpoint of a soap than a modern fan such as myself who has a much more limited history with soaps. I didn't take many things seriously until I began lurking here and my educational point of view of soaps has expanded.

Whether people want to see more of either Rachel or Layla, I'm not going to fit them into a tiny box that says one fan is ready for the future and one is not, because that's just not so

At one point I believed there was room for both but I'm beginning to see the tiny box that the network subscribes to and that's the box where characters of color belong.

I'm all for daytime branching out and taking risks and upsetting the apple cart, as long as the writing and the characters (and the shows) are there. And characters like Layla have been around forever, and many of them have blown up into larger roles just as she has; like Sumpter, they did it because of popularity and audience interest, which in her case grew from her stellar work last summer. OLTL (or any soap) is perfectly capable of seeing its way through to a future which accommodates both a newer character like Layla and an older one like Rachel, and both are "modern"; the only problem is that ABC does not know how to accommodate two black women of the same age group on the same show.

I know you say that and perhaps you are more liberal than some of the fans I've encountered but there are many who don't want the apple-cart tinkered with and unfortunately, I think it's the latter that the network caters to.

Would a soap do any of that today? Or would they somehow see Jesse's friendship with Jenny as a threat? Would they even allow a black man to be close friends with a white woman? If this became popular, would they just banish Jesse? Would they pair him with a day player and have him show up a few times a month, because they just assume that viewers do not want to see any relationship which is not about white people?

That's exactly how it would happen.

But before there was a Drucilla there was Aunt Mamie who was a token maid for many years who preceded her.

But Mamie wasn't a token.

Real Mamie's existed & the character shouldn't be penalized for reflecting reality.

As the great Hattie McDaniel said "I'd rather play a maid than be one"

I guess a lot depends on audience response and where the show is willing to go with it.

Before Jesse, AMC only had token black characters. Then Jesse became popular and so did his friendship with Jenny. Then they brought in Angie or paired him with Angie, who also became very popular, and they were a supercouple, just as popular with fans as any other big couple at that time.

Would a soap do any of that today? Or would they somehow see Jesse's friendship with Jenny as a threat? Would they even allow a black man to be close friends with a white woman? If this became popular, would they just banish Jesse? Would they pair him with a day player and have him show up a few times a month, because they just assume that viewers do not want to see any relationship which is not about white people?

My understanding is that Darnell and Kim got a ton of hate mail even for Jesse and Jenny's friendship. The thought of them living together was too much for the rednecks to handle even if it wasn't sexual. Fortunately, the show stuck with that story, although I'm sure DW would've been happy without the death threats. That sad truth now is that the network probably would scrap that story and fire DW. There never would've been an Angie at all.

Leia, thank you for the discourse, I appreciate it and I've taken all of your points to heart. And believe me, I don't give the writers too much credit, I'm just indulging my own imagination, lol. And although I think you make a fascinating point about black women searching for the right guy and "missing the signs", I think you may be giving the writers a little too much credit there. Though that's okay because if that's what you gleaned from the situation, I have no problem with that, I think that's a very interesting viewer reaction. Case in point, it was never spelled out, but as a viewer I just instinctively connected a few dots of past relationship when Shaun's handsome, light-skinned doctor brother showed up. My own truth informs what I see on screen.

You might be right but I gleaned that from her dialogue when she mentioned that in college she was the one who used to warn her friends away from gay men and that her desire to find the right guy overshadowed her judgement.

So, to be clear, what you're saying is that you value Layla as a supporting "satellite" character who is a useful aide to other characters' storylines? Okay, I can get with that. She's sort of a Renee of her generation.

What saddens me about your response is that I sense you've accepted the fate of black characters in daytime, and I guess that's a reality I've resisted and I must learn to accept myself. I wish we had Tyler Perry back in the '80s when soaps were at their height, he would have most certainly delivered us one.

The loss of Rachel, Evangeline and more likely Layla soon makes me believe that the 80's which my Mum remembers or the 90's which is when I was a kid are as good as its ever going to be unless you watch AMC. The state of black characters in daytime is horrible. I've accepted it and I'm trying, obviously failing but still trying to find the silver lining of enjoyment in other genres.

Would a soap do any of that today? Or would they somehow see Jesse's friendship with Jenny as a threat? Would they even allow a black man to be close friends with a white woman? If this became popular, would they just banish Jesse? Would they pair him with a day player and have him show up a few times a month, because they just assume that viewers do not want to see any relationship which is not about white people?

Jesse's son is the perfect example.

Frankie & Colby were treated like the bubonic plague.

My understanding is that Darnell and Kim got a ton of hate mail even for Jesse and Jenny's friendship. The thought of them living together was too much for the rednecks to handle even if it wasn't sexual. Fortunately, the show stuck with that story, although I'm sure DW would've been happy without the death threats. That sad truth now is that the network probably would scrap that story and fire DW. There never would've been an Angie at all.

I can see that getting hate mail, sadly. I guess that's one of the reasons they brought in Angie, which also worked out. I guess that's what I miss about soaps, is that they even made the effort, because they knew the effort was worth it. Today everything is so shallow and they pander to the worst of the audience. I don't believe that America is some sort of racially tolerant paradise but I do believe the public is far more willing -- not just willing, but eager -- to watch a diverse canvas than today's soaps give them credit for.

The thing is that no matter how good those actors are they will NEVER be good enough.

It has nothing to do with them & everything to do with the system the work in.

A system which was created & maintained to work against them so the glass ceiling stays in tact.

Then when those same actors push for progress & better representation they are derided as "uppity" and/or "divas" or as some moron said "they should eat a bowl of dicks".

At the end of the day regardless of tenure, popularity or status those very same actors are minorities & therefore expendable.

I totally agree with all of this. I just hate it and I am beyond frustrated with it.

although I'm sure DW would've been happy without the death threats.

Darnell.

Keith.

Kristoff.

The only one who escaped it was Shemar & that's mainly cause he was kept a eunuch.

I just hate it and I am beyond frustrated with it.

I hate it too but as long as TPTB & fans work in tandem to keep the paradigm in tact that's the way things will be.

There never would've been an Angie at all.

Yep.

Minority men = Sexless eunuchs

Minority women = Bed Warmers

I'm sure we will be having this discussion again, once it has been announced Tika Sumpter has been fired.

I seriously can't believe this may turn into a Brody/Jessica/Cristian triangle.

Ugh.

I'd prefer an all-out Jessica/Cristian reunion, but I'll settle for a love triangle with Brody.

I don't believe that America is some sort of racially tolerant paradise but I do believe the public is far more willing -- not just willing, but eager -- to watch a diverse canvas than today's soaps give them credit for.

It's 2010.

America has a Black First Family yet television has regressed in a horrific way.

As we were talking about a few days ago, Cris and Layla have been kind of sidelined, simmering on the back burner. But it's amazing how his history with Jessica has turned out to be this insurance policy for Cris, ZAP goes Jessica's brain, BAM, Cris is back on the front burner. It'll be a little tougher for Brody and Layla to find their feet. I hope at least that Brody has Layla and Kelly possibilities, and Layla has Brody and Greg possibilities, the more possibilities the better for those two.

Edited March 1, 201015 yr by SFK