TV Guide Article: Was OLTL too gay for America?

[DRW50]

Unfortunately the biggest source of ugliness at the show, which is the misogyny, and the need to glorify men who rape and beat and destroy, seems unlikely to ever change. That and the women on the show, the women who are featured anyway, have become so hollow -- they're either headcases (Jessica), or overly propped, plaster goddesses (Tea, Gigi, Kelly).

[Scotty]

Yes, just look at some of the leading men....like the rapist (Todd) or the idiot (Rex) who blames his sleeping with Stacy on Gigi.

This whole show is screwed up and it's only getting worse. It deserved the ratings it is getting right now.

[JONNYSBRO]

Someone was comparing Bianca to the Kish story. Bianca's coming out while lots of backlash was a success. Mainly because Bianca was a HUGE VITAL IMPORTANT CHARACTER tied to the biggest character in daytime history. Also Eden Riegal who was a newcomer was a breakout. It had all the elements you wanted to see and Bianca was going to stay because she was a very important character. Problem with KISH is no characters had any real ties to any characters on the canvas. They were islanded in their own storyline which means it was going to play off short. Not to mention I always found Scott Evans to be kind of a weak actor as Brett was stronger. ABC pulling KISH didn't surpise me, right now OLTL is verging on the cliff of cancellation. Right now they are up against the wall, IMO they need THORSTEN/ROGER HOWARTH to return to OLTL. Big stars with big stories in an umbrella to get old tiem viewers watching. Honestly I always wanted Malone to be able to make Joey gay as he always wanted but network in 1992 was scared. Joey being gay would have had huge impact as he was Viki's son.

[EricMontreal22]

This is what pisses me off. I do believe that the DOrian mass gay wedding was a mistake and mixed the focus and maybe, I hate to say, did seem too gay for some viewers--that with Kish (for a brief second it did seem like every new character on OLTL was going to be gay). But *really* I'd love to read what stories ABC felt were compelling to viewers and didn't turn them off but somehow Kish got in the way of and made them change the channel. Cuz I really can't think of any during the Kish time I'd really give much credit to--at least not any that got developped.

[EricMontreal22]

So this is all spin? Cuz I swear I read ABC or someone after the love scene saying they had gotten next to ZERO complaints about the Kish story--much to some's surprise....

[EricMontreal22]

The theatre fag in me has to point out that Fosse was one of the few, very very few, male choreographers in the business who was completely and utterly heterosexual and indeed lots of straight theatre critics championed his work (now in some embarassment) for showcasing the sexuality of women in a way the other choreographers were ignoring. Just saying (Though i guess saying Fosse and making jazz hands is the standard interpretation of the word which woul dbe gay )

I do think a couple of weeks, like I said, were perhaps a bit much (I'm still shocked the network let them go "so gay" for a while there). But overall the gayness and campness of OLTL hasn't been much diff than it was under Gary Tomlin, etc. I still think the Kish reaction is an utter scapegoat. If anything havign them in a baby story (which I personally kinda hate with gay characters because it seems a way to have them focus on a child and away from romance or sex) would have been a safer choice--and considering all the other gay stuff has been "eliminated" (even if we now have campier stuff like Mitch...)

[EricMontreal22]

It was a bizarre story idea from Ron--and one that didn't have any real fallout either IMHO (which I guess is to be expected)--I mean yeah it did lead to Fish's coming out scene but it wasn't interconnected to their story very well, and Nick and his friend havign their secret gay agenda, Dorian doing all this, and then after that we never even found out if the marriages were upheld as Dorian promised, Dorian's partner went back to the Psychic in a 3 minute scene, and nothing more was spoken about it.

[ReddFoxx]

When it comes to ratings, the went down because of most of the stories were drawn out and boring. That said, many soap viewers tend to be conservative about a lot of things and I do believe they wrote the characters out because of complaints. It happens.

[EricMontreal22]

I'm not sure I completely buy the "most soap viewers are conservative" line. In Worlds Without End there's a fascinating essay that mentions the research ABC did, partly due to sinking ratings, when they realized how large a gay male viewing demo they had for AMC and wrote the gay storylines they had in 1996-97 (which granted were not at all explicit when it came to gay male affection). They also did tons of research on if these stories were turning conservative viewers away, and aside from some complaints the essay claims, anyway, that they found the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Soaps often had interacial couples before primetime tv did, not to mention some other taboos.

[Vee]

Compared to the Gary Tomlin era, the gay wedding/Kish sweeps story was positively butch.

I have no time or patience for any claim that it was all "too much." It was fine by me and I've been watching almost exclusively heterosexual soap opera for almost twenty years. It was one storyline in a sea of stories, with most of the frontburner action going to the same old people. Claiming they detracted from Dorian or Viki is a fallacy at best since Kish or no Kish, Viki and Dorian were not going to be allowed a frontburner story by the network, whether wholly about their warring campaigns or anything else. Kish was the vehicle by which they got any story last fall.

[DRW50]

I agree that Dorian and Viki weren't going to get story even if Kish weren't involved. I think that some viewers might have felt like they got their hopes up then the gay wedding section took over, so that might have hurt the ratings, but I think any viewers who stopped watching because of Viki not having airtime were already gone. If I had a problem with the story it was that there were lengthy periods of time when Kyle and Fish barely shared scenes together. Fish was with Layla. Fish was dealing with his parents. Kyle was offcamera with Nick. It's one thing if this had been a long term relationship viewers had seen, but since their actual relationship had taken place before they'd been on the show, there was less to go on. By the time they actually did get together as a couple, it was wonderful, but by then it seems like OLTL was already being told to phase them out.

I think this was one of those stories like Tina's return where someone wrote very leisurely because they assumed the story would go on for a long time, then the rug is yanked out.

[All My Shadows]

Can I call BS on this reoccurring claim that Kyle and Oliver not having familiar ties on the show makes it understandable that they were dropped? F'REAL!? I wish I had the time energy to parade pictures of the multitude of soap characters who came to their show with no ties whatsoever and became some of the longest-standing characters in the genre.

[DRW50]

It's an easy excuse to not invest in characters and to write them off if a story doesn't work. Some idea of gee whiz! now we can focus on the families. Isn't it funny that we never hear Rex or John called out for not being in a core family? And just look at those big successful characters like Sarah/Flash, Duke, River, Drew...

Using this whole "look, a core family" logic, Todd, Marco, Gabrielle, Max, Delilah, Clint, and Dorian, among others, never would have existed.

[Eric83]

I agree completely. Had OLTL been on CBS or NBC, they probably would have cut these people. But they are on ABC with Frons, who has his pets. I don't think Frons would have allowed Valentini to fire any of those people you mentioned (except for Langston, Markko, and Ford). It sucks that Kish had to go, but I am just sick of some people acting like this is as big as John and Marlena being cut from DAYS.

[Ann_SS]

This article by Michael Logan proves that he is ABC hatchet man. He is a nasty piece of work. I wish people would start telling him so in the comment section of his bog. He

Rachel was written off so having ties to a main soap family does not make it harder to write off a character. TPTB are always quick to blame minorities or supporting characters when their stories flop. The network may have tossed Fish and Kyle, but make no mistake Valenti happily tossed all the African American actors after them. As CarlD2 and I have pointed out numerous times, there are at least ten to fifteen characters who need to go before the supporting players including the beloved John, Todd, Rex, and Gigi.

I had a real problem with the writing for Kyle and Fish. As others have pointed out, Brett was the stronger actor and the change of his character made me lose interest instantly.

I agree that Internet is not a real gauge of how a story is playing out in the wider audience. However, the soap audience is far more diverse than it was in the past. The real problem is that the network and its advertisers are easily scared by a small number of homophobic people writing nasty letters. Mixed-ethnic romances also have similar reactions.