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EW: DAYS To Attempt Gay Storyline?


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It's tough to tell stories about gay couples in daytime. When it comes down to it, these shows are about romantic triangles and characters bouncing from one romance to the next over the course of several years. In that regard, the long-term story possibilities for a gay couple are very limited, unless you go the bi route, which is where AMC seems to be going. That allows for more long-term romantic conflict. I mean, where would AMC have gone with Bianca-Lena and OLTL with Kish beyond the initial falling in love? Kish's other huge problem too was that they weren't related to anyone on the canvass. I don't know what RC was thinking my creating a gay love story with fringe characters. Like I said, gay storylines are self-limiting enough, but to do one with two marginal characters with no familial connection to any of the characters was just stupid.

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BEST. COMMENT. EVER. (And I agree 110%, too.)

Considering that DAYS has a large gay following, I say, it's a long time coming (if, in fact, the rumors are true). OTOH...? I don't trust Dena Higley or her new co-head, Christopher Dunn, to write any story properly, much less a gay one. So, yeah, EPIC FAIL! in the works.

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Being related to anyone on the canvas is meaningless. On GH, Lucas was related to one of the show's most popular families, and he still vanished without a trace. If anything, having no ties can help, if the show is more willing to take a chance with your character.

OLTL had actually planned out a long story for Kyle and Fish that wasn't about their being in love, but it never played out because they were fired and then smeared in the soap press. Whether the story would have been good...probably not, but they were going to try.

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Come on, that was General Hospital, everyone vanishes if you don't have a direct link to the mob (i.e. sleeping with someone in the mob, having a baby with someone in then mob, being in the mob).

If Bianca wasn't Erica Kane's daughter, and instead say a Martin, I'm sure her ass would have been gone too. It's more about being in the right family or being closely related to what is popular, than having general family ties. Will has it all right now, and if they do go the Chad route, having him be bi would be the smartest choice. I honestly think Will is the only viable option right now, for anything lasting.

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Lucas was the only teen character in his group to just vanish. Characters who had less ties than he did, like Brook Lyn or Diego, still had some type of stories or were brought back. If he were straight he'd probably either still be on the show or at least have finished out a story.

One of the main reasons they made Bianca gay was because of Erica's reaction, and after that, Bianca's main story was in spite of her lesbianism, and about her family and the pain she went through (the rape and the baby switch). The last time a story had anything serious to do with Bianca being gay was somewhere around 2000 or 2001.

If they have a core character be gay and then go out of their way to avoid telling stories that have anything to do with his homosexuality, it's not worth it, IMO.

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That isn't true, Bianca has had numerous stories throughout her tenure that have dealt with her sexuality. And isn't it a good thing that her sexuality isn't all they focus on. She has had Lena, Zarf, Frankie, Maggie, Reese, her closeness with Babe, that one random chick, and now Marissa.

The writing may not have always been the best when it came to Bianca (AMC), Luke (ATWT), and Olivia(GL)...let alone even their straight counterparts...but I have always felt that those 3 were given ample amount of story and time when it came to their sexuality. And the one thing they have all benefited on was the fact that they were big parts of the canvas, whether history wise or family wise.

I'm not expecting some great romance or perfect story from DOOL, the show is having a hard enough time as it is with what they got now. But I think the story has potential...or at least I will once we figure out who it is

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The Lena story did manage to integrate Bianca's sexuality into the main plot, as did Frankie, but the rest were filler non-stories (Maggie) or weren't about Bianca and were all about the person she had feelings for (Reese, Zarf).

I'm not saying that family history is unimportant, I just don't think it means any type of surefire success for a gay storyline. Olivia was a very isolated character by the time she had the lesbian story, yet it still worked.

I'd love to see Will have a gay story, but not because he's a Brady/Roberts, more because I think the actor can pull it off and the audience cares about him.

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OLTL could have gone hundreds of places with Kyle and Oliver. All of the soaps could go hundreds of places with the dead-end straight couples they write for, too. There's more to relationships than making up and breaking up, and there's more to a person than their relationships. Romance is a huge part of soap opera, but there are tons of other parts.

But the problem is that TPTB seem to see a character's homosexuality or bisexuality or whatever as a gimmick that needs to be exploited as much as possible. It seems the general timeline is: character "realizes" he is gay, character fights it, other character beats it out of him, character accepts it, character comes out, faces some opposition, two characters get together....later, characters fight homophobia, etc etc etc etc. This can only be saved when the two actors have good chemistry (like BC and SE), but it mostly tanks. I mean jeez, Oliver was a police officer in one of the most violent soap towns on TV. There was no room for him anywhere? Screw the "no family ties" nonsense. They didn't have a problem creating an entire family for Ford and proceeding to center the entire show around them, did they? Oliver could have had a brother who came to town and knocked the Buchanan sisters up or whatever. The show didn't try to do anything for those guys.

It's bullsh!t. And DAYS is going to be under some serious scrutiny, so I hope they get their ish together and give us some good stuff. I've been watching on and off the last few weeks, and I'm liking the general feel of the show even though there are still those "DAYS things" that annoy me. I miss Lucas and Celeste.

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As much as I criticized the "Kish" story and still would criticize most of the writing, I do feel like OLTL tried to create a natural place for fish on the canvas - it was Kyle I don't think was that well integrated - and I think they would have told a lot of story for them if ABC had not intervened and gone on a minority purge. It's tough for me to compare that to any other degayings in daytime because that was one of the most brutal and personal purges I've seen on a soap.

I think DAYS will get a lot of praise as long as they make minimal effort. That's what happens with gay stories. Hell, Y&R's gay story got a lot of praise and patience early on and that was the biggest sh!t I've seen since Jodie Dallas turned into a little old Jewish man.

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Early Kyle/Oliver wasn't my cuppa, but the stuff post-wedding/pre-Sierra Rose were good with me, so good that I was very willing to just make some allowances for the over-the-top wedding stuff and the white-washing of Kyle's crimes and schemes. But again, that was less the writing and more Brett and Scott. I thought they were doing a good job by making a bond between Kyle and Roxy, and one of my little ideas was that Kyle would intervene with Rex/Roxy and call Rex out on being whiney and childish. I was also a huge fan of Kyle and Oliver living with Cris and Layla, but...well, we know how that all turned out.

The Y&R stuff might have been even more embarrassing than the ATWT stuff. At least ATWT went there and gave the people something, as hollow and shallow and weak as it was. People were throwing up these "Radam" banners and ready to get it all started, they had Muhney in the role and he was eating it all up, then....absolutely nothing. Hilarious and sad.

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