As The World Turns Discussion Thread

[titan1978]

It is crazy.  I have never really watched B&B, but from the boards I know there have been so many sets of teens and young adults introduced over the last 20 years, and none of the major players are gay?

 

And when they do go there, with a trans character, they sideline them pretty quickly after telling the initial story.  And Y&R blinked on making Adam bi or fluid, which could have lead to many years of actually interesting storylines and twists.

 

For me, Luke and Noah had exactly one hot moment, the early scene with the towel and almost kiss while shirtless and wet.  And they lived on that one moment for me while I waited and hoped that something else close to that would happen again, then finally gave up.

[FrenchBug82]

We are not going to agree at all, it seems, on OLTL gay characters because the Luke/Fish was poorly received pretty widely because of how extremely preachy it was. I am gay and even I felt talked down to. It had the subtlety of a hammer on a nail. 
And to be clear we are discussing the characters themselves - the mere fact of featuring them was 1) good 2) daring, I suppose, although a gay wedding in the late 2000s was not as gutsy or adventurous as it would have been in the 80s or 90s.

But let's not redefine as adventurous just writing in a gay character, at least not in the context of this discussion. We are trying to determine what makes a character type and storylines for a LGBT character conservative in nature vs "adventurous". 
We all agree a show writing a LGBT character deserves credit and was usually a pretty adventurous endeavor in itself.

The fact OLTL gave it several go over its history is to its credit.

 

B&B never having featured a gay character is certainly ridiculous. 
However I will defend them on the transgender character by pointing out that they sideline EVERY character not from the core six after a heavy storyline or two so it wasn't specific to her. They actually used her and kept her and Rick married pretty long by the show's standard. But the fact Bell brings in new characters and actors to make a splash and then quickly loses interest is a pattern that has happened three dozen times in the past twenty years, regardless of gender or sexuality.

 

As for Y&R, yes. Absolutely. Adam's bi- or pan-sexuality has been dropped altogether - despite the fact Muhney was eager to go there (even if it was probably because he would have liked the attention). It made sort of sense at first because they wanted Sharon to be the endgame but it has been a lost opportunity not to nod at it further since.

Where YR  deserves credit is that Greg Rikaart is still the only openly gay actor to have come out during his run and continued to be featured (both on YR and DOOL). And they brought back Thom Bierdz as an openly gay man as well (story was horrible and so is he as an actor but still credit where credit is due).

In the end AMC's Bianca is still the only LGBT soap character that I consider to have been well-rounded enough with several girlfriends/wives, non-lesbian related storylines, well-woven into the cast, sympathetic but also real. And even she had to endure some atrocious writing (the rape is still a sore point for all of us I think).
Will and Luke got saddled with "soulmates" almost right away and never had a chance to spread their wings into full realized characters.
 

Will's first kiss (not with Sonny) was also strangely aggressive and there was a weird tiptoeing around Will suggesting a threesome with Paul one time.
But it is true that soaps have been reluctant to show gay intimacy. We are above "Matt only hugs his boyfriends" on MP but there are ways to go.

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[DramatistDreamer]

I'm all out of kudos to give to a genre that, in 2021 still can't bring itself to push past the idea that the mythical Midwestern house will catch the vapors if she sees anything that wouldn't get past a 1940 censor.

I mean, soaps are still afraid to have a black man in bed with a white woman onscreen?

[FrenchBug82]

You would be surprised.
Y&R was long traumatized by the vicious reaction to the Victoria/Neil pairing in the late 1990s. Kristoff St John (RIP) has talked quite a bit of the impact it had on making the show very skittish about trying anything similar (which rejoins what I was saying about producers being easily spooked by audience reaction, even when they misunderstand the reason for it).
And lo and behold the trial balloon they had with Ashley/Neil in 2018, while it yielded a less intense reaction, STILL got YR a lot of hate mail.

So. Yeah. Watch the news if you don't think there is still not a LOT more of that around. Enough to spook producers who don't feel like they can afford to lose any further part of their fanbase.

That said, I am surprised that of all the things producers tried to revive soaps, most have tried superficial changes like changing sets or pacing of stories and not one has thought to become unabashedly "progressive" on the kind of stories they tell. I bet that would secure a really strong audience, even if it doesn't completely overlap with the current one.
"Generations" was a smart idea and while it failed for various reasons, in a landscape that has fewer of those kinds of shows - and knowing how popular the Tyler Perry crappy soaps are - I think the hunger of a show with bolder tone and representation could definitely sustain at least one soap full-time.

Edited February 7, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[EllenP]

It is amazing how rude you are to old and new members of this board. Goddamn no wonder people told me to stay away from here.

[prefab1]

I think that as fans, we sometimes dwell on the parts of the show that disappointed us and don't give enough credit for the things a show gets right. Case in point: in this whole thread on gay representation in ATWT, I haven't yet seen anyone mention Reid Oliver, who is by far the most interesting gay character I've seen on American soaps. And his relationship with Luke was also the most compelling one I've seen on a US soap, proving to me that Luke (who I'd always found pretty vanilla and whiny, like his mom) could work really well if paired with a character he had actual chemistry with. 

 

Of course, the less said about what the show did to Reid in ATWT's final week on the air, the better...

[titan1978]

I also thought Reid was a breath of fresh air, and reinvigorated Luke by having someone challenge him in new ways.  He was a great character.

 

I thought Paul was on DAYS too, because he brought unabashed sex appeal into the gay storyline, and had chemistry with almost the whole show.

[FrenchBug82]

I actually think we were including Reid in our conversations about Luke because his ultimate fate was because of what we discuss which is TPTB's assumption that people were rooting for Luke-Noah instead.

I will be blunt about Paul: I didn't see it but I know he was popular. However the whole dating Sonny and then Will in such proximity felt very incestuous to me. It was inevitable in a cast with few gay characters but I didn't enjoy it.
But I agree: they tried. And the fact they landed back on Will/Sonny and didn't even have anything for them to do once they got back together also highlights what we are talking about. That producers' assumption about "supercoupling" gay characters limits their ability to fly their wings as full-fledged character.
It is not a LGBT specific thing (see Days Hope) but the truth is when you have two, at most three openly LGBT characters on a soap, producers can't break that paradigm and are not willing to invest enough in the characters to expand their universe.

[AbcNbc247]

Well, DAYS is sort of the incest soap. Look at Tripp. All of his potential pairings are his step cousins lol So I didn't have a problem with how much Will loved his Uncle Paul

 

IMO, Will/Sonny and Will/Paul were actually pretty similar to Luke/Noah and Luke/Reid. Will/Paul was the better, stronger pairing similar to the way that Luke/Reid were, but in both cases it was the ship (Wilson, Nuke) that ultimately did them in. That fanbase that wanted their first supercouples back together. 

 

And isn't it also true that Jean Passanante actually didn't like the character of Reid?

[KMan101]

 

It was all done for shock value.

[FrenchBug82]

I think in both cases it is what the writers/producers THOUGHT the audience wanted rather than what the fanbase wanted.

And my ickiness with the Paul couplings is even stupider than this: it is not the "Uncle" part; it is the fact he slept with both Will and Sonny. I know it doesn't make it incestuous but I am thinking of how I would feel sleeping with two ex-husbands and it feels... weird.

But OF COURSE I have that issue with the fact everybody has slept with everybody else in those towns. It is just that back-to-back made it weird for me because as a gay man I guess I identify with their choices more.
 

[DramatistDreamer]

 

As a Black woman, I am not going to speak to the supposed skittishness of white viewers. I'm merely stating the ridiculousness of this assumption. By that assumption, Bridgerton should be racking up the threats. Only in daytime do people assume that nothing changes. Except ratings, of course.

[victoria foxton]

 

Reid was an amazing character. A strong unapologetic gay man. Along the lines of Gale Harold's Queer As Folk Brian Kinney. The off the charts chemistry. Shared between Princess Luke and Reid was a sight to behold. Luke grew much more as a person with Reid. Then he ever did with bland Noah. Reid was the best thing to happened to ATWT. In it's last days. He was a fluke. That was foolishly killed off at the end.

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Edited February 7, 2021 by victoria foxton

[FrenchBug82]

OK I hate to be placed in a position to contest this because 1) I agree with you; things can change AND soaps are a good place to force the change even by being a bit ahead of the viewership 2) It shouldn't matter. The bigots can go to Hell. I don't think it should matter that there are some vocal racists when producers create stories and I think there would be MORE to gain in viewers watching than to lose. As often, black women are very underestimated as a powerful audience. Catering to them could give a powerful boost to ratings that more than balances out the white Karens who would decide to go pout. 

BUT the comparison with Bridgerton is very misplaced because the audience for a Netflix or primetime show is not the same audience as for a daytime soap.
Soap producers are targeting the very narrow demographic slice that is still watching soap and it is a very different audience, more conservative on average.
Yes, I agree that they are being TOO cautious by being overly scared of losing even part of that audience because they feel they can't afford to lose any at this stage BUT while it is callous, it is not ridiculous. It is a penny-pinching overly cautious short-sighted logic but it is not an absurd one.

It is just tht soap producers are not known to have a great record thinking beyond the next couple of months when it comes to the interest of their show. And sometimes protecting the next couple of months hurts long-term - like, and we go back to agreeing, in this case.
 

I wasn't obsessed with Reid but one thing you said that rings very true to me is that Reid was the rare gay character who entered the scene - gay. 
For narrative purposes, especially when a character is a legacy character, I understand why soaps are fond of coming out stories but it does feel having LGBT characters who are not troubled, struggled, guilty or rejected is a nice change of pace.

Edited February 7, 2021 by FrenchBug82

[allmc2008]

Fixed.