TV Guide Article: Was OLTL too gay for America?

[wingwalker]

New article from Michael Logan discussing OLTL ditching Kish. Quotes from Jamey Giddens of Daytime Confidential, Brett Claywell, and a PR person from ABC.

http://www.tvguidemagazine.com/soaps/was-oltl-too-gay-for-america-4548.html

[dragonflies]

If it didn't have the appeal, then that's all on RC and his merry band of hacks, NOT Kish Kish are just convenient scapegoats.

Heaven forbid RC get the blame for effing things up

[Steve]

It might have been more appealing if TIIC hadn't diluted the gay love story with Dorian's fake gay wedding. Why did they have to have the mayoral race centering on a mass gay wedding instead of just telling a simple love story? Speaking as a gay former viewer, I didn't feel tempted to tune in to watch 2 guys disconnected from the main families fall in love. Now, if this had been one of Viki's relatives falling for one of Dorian's with the fallout out their families' reactions, I wouldn't have missed it!

[All My Shadows]

This article vaguely mentions the wild, crazy notion that maybe, just maybe, the other stories are what turned people off. It mentions Stacy and Mitch (which, really, Stacy is a total scapegoat for Rex and Gigi) getting lots of airtime, but it doesn't point out that their stories were getting a hell of a lot more airtime than Kyle and Oliver ever got. That's what needs to be said and repeated over and over again.

And ugh. "The door is open." Shut up, ABC. You say that when the actors choose to leave, not when you make them leave. You just fired them, so the door is most definitely closed.

And it all boils down to something in the article. The whole show being a complete and total mess: "Ron Carlivati...gone overboard."

[quartermainefan]

Seeing as how their total national audience isn't even large enough to fill half of Central Park, I would be curious as to what type of stories that might be.

[RomeAt50]

There are always those who are going to be opposed to such storylines, especially at the beginning but maybe that would've changed if they actually committed to the characters and the story instead of abruptly ditching them and scapegoating them for the ratings. People did not embrace Bianca on AMC over night.

[DRW50]

After the trauma that the Lords have gone through, a gay Lord hooking up with a gay Cramer would have been small time. The Cramers wouldn't care because they don't care about each other. Blair and Langston barely notice Dorian exists. They barely noticed a psycho running amok, even though he had almost killed Blair's mother not that many years ago. If they got upset over a gay relationship when they don't get upset over murderous lunatics, they'd seem silly.

I don't think the problem was these characters being disconnected from the main families, because there are no main families on OLTL. There are people who have the same last name.

[wingwalker]

Yeah, I'm glad it was finally suggested that there were other stories going on that had WAY more airtime and perhaps it was those stories that drove down the ratings. I just love according to ABC, Kish did have appeal, but going to focus on other stories that are more favorable. Like Rex & Gigi? How in the world are they more favorable than Kish? Is that because JPL is golf buddies with Frons? Perhaps Brett's golf buddy should have Frons been instead of TSJ.

While I enjoyed the "Big Gay Wedding" SL, I did think it was over the top and a distraction. It seems like it was with that story I started seeing backlash against Kish and the gays. So, I'll always wonder, had big gay wedding story been written differently or wrote some other event to bring Kish together, if Kish would not have been dumped?

Glad to here Brett is hopeful the show might revisit the story someday and seems open to returning. I doubt the show will ever have them back "full-time" like before, but a proper ending like a wedding that Brett suggested, I would be in favor of.

[wingwalker]

Yeah and they were starting to do that too. When the news of Kish getting ditched first came out, I remember reading a post on a board from someone who was very uncomfortable with the Kish sex scene, but since then, had grown more comfortable and now really enjoyed the couple and was looking forward to seeing Kyle and Fish raise Sierra Rose, so was very disappointed upon hearing the news.

That was just one person, but reading that the story had changed one viewers mind and even made them a van, that's why the story needed to continue.

[Juliajms]

I'm convinced that people wrote in and ABC kowtowed, instead of committing to telling the story they started. This all happened so abruptly and given that one of the actors said it was due to the love scene, I have to believe it was the reaction of certain vocal fans that caused this. Those of us who either liked Kish or didn't care probably didn't make as much noise, so ABC panicked. Otherwise why would they think that Kish are the ones hurting the ratings? OLTL's ratings have been hitting these low numbers for some time now.

[DRW50]

I think they know it was more than Kish. Rachel had nothing to do with Kish and yet she was fired. Like Kish, Rachel's story was also very abruptly cut off months ago, like they suddenly decided she was a burden. Everyone in the Rex/Gigi story was fired or quit. That isn't all down to gays. I think that someone at ABC believed that blacks, gays, and somewhat dark characters were causing the ratings woes. They blamed gays because they know that so many people in the media will bend over backwards to justify homophobia in entertainment.

[RomeAt50]

If thats true then you'd think they would know better than to be so surprised and panicky over negative letters.If you do something groundbreaking like that with gay characters its going to anger some people and those people will be vocal. There was negative backslash when Bianca merely came out 10 years ago but AMC/ABC still stuck with the story and the backlash eventually died down and many who were intially against the story eventually embraced Bianca. I guess they don't have the guts to do that anymore.

[Juliajms]

Except Rex and GiGi. I actually like GiGi, but not with Rex. I think some of the people you mentioned were fired due to money (and racism), but we know that the sex scene caused issues. TPTB knew it was being filmed and supposedly saw it, so I have to believe that negative fan

backlash was involved. I'd like to believe it wasn't, but then how did TPTB come to the conclusion the sex scene was a problem?

I also do believe that given time some people could have been won over. At the same time, I think OLTL probably panicked since the show is already on life support.

[DRW50]

It's an easy out for them. They don't want to address the systemic problems at OLTL which probably helped caus huge ratings losses months before that sex scene ever aired. Rex/Gigi. Todd. Todd/Tea. Their overaged retcon child. Boring John and the collapse of Marty's story. The persistent refusal to let Viki have a story. The botched Mitch return.

Instead they just blame a gay sex scene, air that out publicly, while firing others they consider to be a problem due to their race or character background, but not saying things to the press like, "We got a bad reaction to black people." Meanwhile they secretly hope that if all those scary non-straight or non-white people go away, then viewers will love the daily dose of Todd, Rex, Gigi, teenagers, and John.

[Vee]

RC wrote the Kish story; it was his baby. Unfortunately, writers can be both good and bad. The heavy focus on Todd and Tea doing Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw was also his baby, and apparently he didn't see much wrong with spending most of the year on Rex, Gigi and Stacy either. Those much larger, longer-term frontburner stories were the problem - not Kish, whose story kicked in by the time the year was mostly over. Kish is simply a scapegoat, which is a shame since that area of the canvas and the other people who've been recently dismissed (and I'm going all the way back to John Brotherton, whose ouster was clearly not an OLTL choice) comprise the better half of Carlivati's work in the last year.

In the end, if the ratings go down, the network is going to lean on a show, any show, and say get rid of whatever is 'different' and not what they are invested in, regardless of where else the blame should logically fall given airtime. If Rex, Gigi, Todd, John and Tea are logically at fault according to airtime, numbers and promotion, then someone else is going to have to be scapegoated. ABC is invested in Rex, Gigi, Todd, John; they're not invested in two gay guys, or Schuyler. Of course they're going to blame Kish, and OLTL has to go along with that game plan, and apparently some hack writers at TV Guide have to, as well. I just fear what kind of 'more mainstream' OLTL we're going to have to face now.