No Gays of Our Lives

[DeeeDee]

They don't have to because those shows usually don't stay multi ethnic beyond a season or two if that. They always center around White heterosexual characters with marginal interaction with/from their ethnic/sexual/racial peers.

Grey's & Private Practice being SOMEWHAT exceptions but even Shonda is guilty of centering her shows around Straight White Heterosexuals & their minority sidekicks.

They already know Daytime doesn't care.

[Soapsuds]

[Leia]

Primetime shows used to have black characters at the center but that's no longer the case.

I don't think they realize that daytime doesn't care. I think they feel that they are above daytime leaving the minorities who watch it at the mercy of the system.

[DeeeDee]

The Black Seat has NEVER been guaranteed at the table.

Nah.

They know PLENTY of minorities love Daytime but that Daytime is a racist/homophobic country club that will never celebrate REAL equality.

[DRW50]

I used to read that Donald Bogle book, well, one of them, which was written in the mid-80s, and he used to talk about how in the 70s you would find black-oriented sitcoms, hugely popular miniseries, but even then a lot of the projects that were filmed, like Sister, Sister by Maya Angelou, would be shelved for years. Then by the early 80s things became very much back to token roles. He didn't seem sure why, he just blamed it on political conservatism. That continued until some successes like Eddie Murphy or the Cosby Show. It's a shame that the default seems to be putting minorities in very limited roles, and it takes an exception to the rule to make any change, even change that is short-lived. These days it is mostly "reality" shows that have minorities, and that can come with rigid stereotyping.

[DeeeDee]

The solution would be to hire more minorities behind the camera but that's an old boy's club.

[DRW50]

It doesn't help that when a member of a minority does reach near the top they sometimes feel obligated to make sure no one else has the same opportunity they did. You hear that a lot about gay men in Hollywood.

[DeeeDee]

Or that when minorities reach the top the color they care about most is green.

[EricMontreal22]

To be fair reality shows tend to play up stereotyping in general (kinda ironic that).

You forgot one other element of minority casting, especially it seems to me when it comes to black. Maybe Fox did this first though to an extent the WB and UPN followed--essentially when starting out do more programming trying to target specifically a minority demographic--THEN when your station gets numbers "branch out" and drop a lot of that (if not all). Sigh

There's been a number of gay men (and of course women) when it comes to behind the camera of soaps (I know I read somewhere that daytime tv had the highest percentage of female directors out of any of the divisions--which doesn't surprise me, largely knowing how few female directors get work)--but I know it's been a real issue with ethnic minorities.

[EricMontreal22]

Zar was not handled well though Jeff C did the best job possible I think and it did get us a few great scenes (also loved the "real life"transexual group therapy)--but it did raise an interesting question and one you do see in the GLBT community--if a lesbian could fall ofr a post op (or even pre op) male to female transexual (or vice versa). They didn't explorethat aspect as much as they coulda or shoulda, but it didn't really offend me because of that (and it's not like Zarf and Bianca got tonsof onscreen action that she never did with a woman--they still seemed scared of that).

On the other hand, the less said about Reece and Zach the better (though again--I think if done well a story about a woman who suddenly realizes she'sgay--like they also tried to do but kinda failed with with Maggie, is relevent... It's just not done well)

[EricMontreal22]

What's LBDNW stand for.

To be fair I think SOME of this is just lazy soap writing. Especially with gay characters, with so few of them on the canvas, and with soap writers falling back on romance novel cliches, they think "howcoudlwe make this exciting--ooh let's get a man involved with the lesbians" etc and honestly I don't think they really see the repercussions or fully get why some would find it offensive. By NO means is this me saying its a valid excuse, but I do think SOME of it is done just out of laziness and ignorance--not trying to "de-gay"or whatever specifically.

[EricMontreal22]

To be fair the networks had diff priorities. Remember in 1968 Agnes couldn't even get P&G to allow two best friends--a black woman and a white woman--to move in together and be ROOMATES on AW. But ABC was still bottom rated and they realized their key to success was to do more "edgy" shows--so they were all for the controversy. Nowadays, with the huge worry about soap ratings, etc, everyone's becoming insanely conservative again...

[NorrthCafe]

I think the sucky writing did daytime more harm than good. If TPTB are foolish enough to think that getting rid of gay characters will change anything, it just goes to prove that they don't watch their own shows.

ETA: I believe that LBDNW = Light Bright Damned Near White.

[beebs]

Nevermind the fact that ABC = Disney now. Disney's going to avoid anything "controversial" because they're a "family" network now *yawn*. Never underestimate Good Ol' Walt's hand in all this.

[SFK]

EXACTLY!

Correct.