OLTL: SOAPnet March Preview

[DeeeDee]

Exactly.

[DeeeDee]

Yep.

WITCHCRAFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[marceline]

+1

[NorrthCafe]

So does this mean Rex/Gigi/Brody? I hope not.

Layla - David? Why not? He's almost never around. The writers wouldn't have to write for Layla any more than they do now. She could pop up whenever he returns to town.

[Vee]

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. 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.

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

[catsmeouch]

I hate to say it, but are the black characters really necessary? The show revolves around the Lords, Cramers, and Buchanans. It is impossible to take a character like Layla and make her on par with Dorian, or even Marty. Layla, Greg, Destiny, etc. aren't connected to the core characters and families we love. Better to lose all the black characters than one Robin Strasser or Erika Slezak. And please don't accuse me of being racist because I'm not.

[alexisfan07]

I think it's good to have diversity but the only thing I agree with kind of is that they're not really tied to anyone, which makes them scream "token black person" (like Epiphany on GH), which is almost worse than having them on the show at all. What's weird is they got rid of Rachel and she had the MOST ties and potential. Baffling.

[Vee]

Why don't we ask Agnes Nixon?

[DeeeDee]

They never will.

Daytime uses minorities as tokens for meaningless diversity accolades & as props to move stories for their White peers.

It's not that they don't know.

It's that they don't CARE.

Neither is Fish yet he's about the center of the entire show.

[Vee]

You're right, ABC doesn't care. But that's why both statements were part of the same sentence. There's nothing holding soaps back from accommodating these characters other than the network philosophy.

And no, Oliver is not the center of the show and this is a toxic argument I am not going to even begin to have.

[catsmeouch]

That's a little extreme.

[DeeeDee]

Neither does CBS, so you're not alone.

How is it toxic?

ESPECIALLY since it wasn't a negative statement.

Their point was that Layla, Greg, etc weren't viable because they weren't connected to core families.

Which isn't true since Fish isn't either yet he's heavily involved in most stories.

[DeeeDee]

How so?

He works with Bo, John & Brody, he's in a relationship with Kyle, he's Sierra's father & he lives with Cris/Layla/Ford.

You don't get much more interconnected than that.

[Vee]

I didn't say Layla, Greg, etc. weren't viable, and I don't agree with the other poster that they aren't. As for using Fish to rebut that, fair enough. But I don't blame Fish for how ABC treats its black characters, and I would not want to rob Peter to pay Paul.

[DeeeDee]

I KNOW YOU DIDN'T & THAT YOU DON'T.

I'm not either.

What I'm saying & always have is that it shouldn't be an either or choice.