Interracial relationships in soaps

[DeeeDee]

Good. In a nutshell.

[ReddFoxx]

Honestly, the problem is soaps do not know how to write for characters of color, most of the them have all the minorities segregated and far away from the rest of the main characters. People of color are not front burner material for writers and producers.

[marceline]

They way they played AM/Gilly is the reason I stopped watching GL.

[Paul Raven]

The trouble with exploring interracial relationships is that soaps don't have enough people of color in the first place.If the only black woman on the show starts dating a white guy,does it send out a misguided message?

That's why the blacks on soaps tend to be pretty bland-if the only black guy was a villian,there would be complaints.

A few months back in a save Y&R thread,I proposed having Gil the policeman involved with Olivia and giving him a daughter,as well as bringing back Nate and actually writing for Devon and Roxanne.Bingo! Two generations of characters and heaps of possibilities.

There is no excuse for the lack of minorities on soaps today.

[Eric83]

Seriously. It sucks these days to watch actresses like Tika Sumpter, Daphnee Duplaix, and Shannon Kane sit on the backburner with no real story. These ladies are/were better than half the female cast. Yet they get nothing.

I would actually like to see maybe an Asian character with another race, or maybe even a Muslim (Arabian/East Indian woman) and have her deal with internal conflict on her religion, while having a relationship with an American man (who doesn't know she's Muslim)

But who am I kidding, that is WAY too progressive for daytime.

[Eric83]

I have seen people complain about stuff like that with Destiny on OLTL. When they were clearly looking like a Destiny/Matthew pairing were going to happen people said that TPTB thought a black man wasn't good enough for her, now that she has a black boyfriend people are saying that TPTB msut think Destiny isn't good enough for a white guy. TPTB are damned if they do or damned if they don't. But it's their own damn fault for never seriously trying to incorporate blacks into story. They just section them off into a little corner, and then they are always fist to go when it's budget cut time.

Soaps are stuck 50 years in the past, which sucks because they used to be the most daring and socially relevant programs on tv.

[DeeeDee]

It reflects the audience.

Every time there's a dialogue about race & ethnicity in Daytime certain viewers will turn themselves into logical pretzels to defend Daytime's blatant bigotry & racism.

It's always coincidences. Never what it is.

40 years removed from Ellen Holly breaking serious ground Daytime has arguably regressed further than when she debuted.

And that is sad.

[DeeeDee]

Not to mention beautiful too.

Yet AMC treats Brittany Allen like she's Helen Of Troy.

[DeeeDee]

No they aren't.

Me & Vee discussed our feelings about Des story at length here several months ago.

OLTL was NEVER going to pair Des & Matthew even if they recast with a more skilled actress (of a similar type of course).

So instead they stick her in a throwaway pairing with an rudderless dayplayer.

A pairing that will allow her to keep her position as a Sassy Sapphire In Training ready to wait on Matthew hand & foot while OLTL can act like it was being progressive.

There was a period in the late 80's to mid 90's where Minority characters did pretty well (as Carl pointed out) but Daytime put the brakes on that right away.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Hell, we never see an Asian or Jew on one of these shows. We get the occasional African American or Latino, but TPTB act as if other minorities don't even exist.

Didn't OLTL start off with a Jewish family, too? Now we hardly even know Nora is supposed to be Jewish...

[DeeeDee]

She's about as Jewish as Princess Vespa now.

[Eric83]

Yes. The Woleks, right?

And the only time I have seen Nora's religion brought up since I started watching in 08, was some throwaway line Matthew made about celebrating Hanukkah with his mom, and at Bo/Nora's wedding when she asked where the rabbi was.

[Cheap21]

How many Asians are there even on daytime today? Sucks that all I can think of is Kelly on GH who only shows up when someone is pregnant. The closest we got is Crishell on AMC, but her character isnt intended to be Asian

[Eric83]

That couple was horribly developed and written. A year into the marriage he is already sniffing after Beth, and she Mel gets pregnant. Then they SORAS their kid from infancy to 16 years old in a matter of weeks.

I liked Mel/Rick, I just wish they could have been written better.

Chrishell is Asian? What country does she/her family come from?

The last Asian I can think of is Ji Min from Y&R, and that chick from Sunset Beach that lasted like 5 months.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

No, the Wolek's were Polish-American Catholic.

I think it was the Siegel's.

I remember being shocked when like a decade ago we actually saw Nora celebrating Hanukkah and lighting her Menorah. That would never happen now.