No Gays of Our Lives

[R Sinclair]

While Aiden Turner hung on unbelievably for seven years.

[SFK]

Inexplicable. And people were indignant when he was let go when they should have been thanking their lucky stars that he was kept on as long as he was. When have you ever seen a minority character (on contract no less) dangle on the vine like that because TPTB "saw potential, saw something, somewhere... down the line."

[SFK]

And then there are of course the efforts to mainstream the marginalized, like putting lesbian Bianca with a woman in a man's body, having Kish tangle with and knock up women a la Steven Carrington, even making Jesse and Angie's son LBDNW (Jason Olive). There are many ways they try to make minorities more "palatable" on soaps which is so twisted and unnecessary.

[RomeAt50]

Well the second time it was Bianca's love interest not Bianca who they were trying to put with a man. They seemed to be ignoring the whole Zarf thing even when it was kinda relevant.

[Leia]

From reading the Kish article I received the message loud and clear. The mainstream audience wants core white characters written in soapy stories. All others will be featured only when it's necessary.

[DeeeDee]

And the worst of all

[SFK]

I literally laughed out loud at that picture which is horrible considering the gravity of the subject matter, but seriously, that would fit right in in one of those ebaumsworld.com "WTF!?" photo galleries.

[DRW50]

My hangnail!

[Soapsuds]

I'll play

[SFK]

I've always been a little resistant to this idea that the middle of the country is just teeming with a loud majority of intolerant people, I know there's some truth to it, but I sense scapegoating from TPTB. And what does that say of a network's integrity if that is in fact the case? That they'd rather abandon their "principles" (HA!) of tolerance and acceptance for ratings and dollars? I'm supposed to be okay with that, "Hey, business is business, you gotta do what you gotta do"??? How dare they even admit that that's their reasoning and not expect a backlash? If the middle of the country is giving you a problem, tell them to get the [!@#$%^&*] with it and catch up with the coasts. Agnes Nixon and ABC stuck with Carla Gray in nineteen hundred and sixty-eight and we're pulling "controversial" characters off the air in this day and age?

[DeeeDee]

It's NOT Middle America.

Middle America often unfortunately shoulders a lot of the blame for TPTB's decisions because of the middle america/southern stereotypes.

While some in middle america/the south are bigoted it still doesn't explain why TPTB are so focused on the 18-24 & why 40+ characters get little to no airtime.

TPTB don't care about diversity it's just a means to an end for them.

[DRW50]

In Schemering's book he talks about how it was executives who forced Love is a Many Splendored Thing to write out their Amerasian lead actress. Never are viewers mentioned. Irna Phillips quit in protest. So even back then there are indications that networks and executives are far more scared of diversity than viewers are. Viewers are just the scapegoats. I hear comments like, "They only care about writing for old viewers." Where in these shows are we getting treats for old viewers? I doubt Gigi Poddlehair clinging to the twitchy midget's leg makes the old fans proud.

[DeeeDee]

Exactly.

[R Sinclair]

[Leia]

I wonder how they justify middle America's non-reaction to controversial stories played on primetime or cable-oriented shows? The same viewers who watch daytime are also the same viewers who watch ABC's Flash Forward, Gray's Anatomy and Private Practice with their multi-ethnic audience. How do they expect us to believe that the same viewers transform into traditional bigoted prudes during the day? I think middle America stands for "traditional white soap audience," and nothing more. It's like I said as long as the writers can't get a mandate from higher up there is really nothing that can be done with daytime.

I'll say this and I don't mean this as a derogatory observation...at least GLAAD spoke up on behalf of Kish. I can't think of any organization that would make a peep on behalf of the regression of African-American viewers in daytime.