Black Character Portrayals in Soaps Today

[JaneAusten]

Isn't Zoe Saldana's heritage the Dominican Republic? Her parents were from there? And some Dominicans are dark skinned and some lighter skinned? I don't think Dominicans use the term black or white because they consider themselves dominican.

I guess I have a question as to whats considered black then because isn't black is just the name for a skin color anywhere except it seems in the US where it seems to define any number of other things. Zoe Saldana is black based on her skin color but she certainly would not define herself as African American, maybe Domincan American.

[ReddFoxx]

The main problem is that black characters are not ever written that strong or with any sense of equality. You'd never see a black character really matched up as a strong adversary to a character like Victor Newman or Jack Abbott. That's been the issue for years, black characters are generally relegated to staying within the realm of storylines specifically written to involve black characters. I think the only instance of that trend being broken is with Dynasty, where Diahann Carroll played Dominique Devereaux and got to play out the adversarial type of role for a little while. There are a lot of black actors and actresses who could step into those sort of characters easily, but those parts just aren't written.

[JaneAusten]

Now that you mention it I think her mother is Cuban.

[frequentsoapfan]

That's my only problem with her too. Zoe is black, she's Afro-Dominicana.

[ChitHappens]

I believe you are correct. She is Cuban and Dominican.

[ChitHappens]

Precisely! There is no meat to the "stories" of black characters, and their absences off screen don't need to be explained because they have no effect on any of the real stories. The black actors and CK can take vacations and the writers never have to worry about exit stories for them because the characters are of no importance anyhow.

Another reason VR is not asked back to YR. She commands attention onscreen without trying. We can't have that!

[frequentsoapfan]

It seems like latinos only get a huge amount of airtime when they are white latinos or the writers write their characters without acknowledging their heritage. Take Maurice "My character is Cuban and Greek but I don't know how to play Greek so I play him as Italian and would never dare think of playing him as Latino like how he was raised, so people just assume my character is Italian" Benard as an example

[VirginiaHamilton]

She is and I'm actually referring to her racial classification. She isn't African American, but she is of African descent (as are many Black people - such as myself - whose enslaved ancestors where dragged over to non-US countries are).

[ChitHappens]

Maurcio Jose Morales better shut up!

[VirginiaHamilton]

This is what Zoe had to say about how she identifies as:

From what I'd read, Diahann Carroll's role was mere window-dressing and that she'd spent the majority of her time on the show begging to be accepted by her white kin.

[DRW50]

There's no attempt to treat black characters as anything beyond token status.

It's not even like the days when GL had Gilly as a supporting character, who was never given a huge role, but had her own thoughts and feelings and ambition and worked with the show's most complex characters.

Now you have someone like Destiny on OLTL, who existed solely to be degraded for white people, again and again and again.

[VirginiaHamilton]

I find it sad that she's fallen prey to the Special Negro/Negress syndrome (a.k.a.: the-lack-of-Black-roles-is-not-my-problem-anymore-since-I'm-on-top-now) since she used to be a lot more conscious/aware/willing to call Hollywood out on its racist/ethnic double standards - especially since history has proven that those who subscribe to it take it the hardest when the phone eventually stops ringing because Hollywood found a newer/younger Special Negro/Negress to play with.

[JaneAusten]

Im curious as to how folks felt about the recent resurgence of the Hubbards on AMC. It seemed initially like they were trying to move Frankie into a more prominent position on the show when Angie and Jessie were brought back and then it seemed to lose focus.

[Dr Neil Curtis]

Didn't Marisa already play a black character on Y&R.

If soaps had a black person working behind-the-scenes such as casting director, producers, writers things would be better with black characters and stories. I would love to see a black family on a soap powerful like the newmans, dimeras, kiriakises, abbotts,quartermaines etc.

[marceline]

Given the way the world is going, IMO it's not practical or fair to keep trying to figure out an actors ethnic makeup. Nobody should have to submit their heritage for approval. The problem is that the industry still employs a version of the paper bag test and that leaves a lot of good actors out in the cold while one or two get one role after another thrown at them.

As for soaps...sigh...I feel like this conversation has been had so many times that I'm just done having it. One of the many reasons soaps are dead is because they refused to evolve. Or more accurately they chose to devolve. I remember watching GL back in the 90s. The Grants and the Speakses were just as much a part of the canvas as everyone else. David and Kat had a front burner story. Both were complicated, layered characters from different worlds and yet both completely believable. Hampton Speaks (one of my favorite characters on any soap ever) and Billy Lewis had a friendship that feel absolutely real. And last I checked they all "talked white."

If you look at the current environment, does anyone think we would see a Monte Sharp, Nia Long or Vince Williams cast? Hell we wouldn't even get a Debbi Morgan or Darnell Williams and if by some miracle we did, you know what comes next, "Why do we have to look at these newbies? They need to concentrate on the CORE!!"

Soaps did this to themselves. They alienated minorities, they alienated women and they alienated anybody who interested in a story more complicated than triangles and pregnancy. How does anyone expect a halfway decent depiction of minorities when we can't even get a portrayal of a woman who takes the pill?

Plus when we do get a black character, he/she has to be everything. Good enough to be a role model but bad enough to get frontburner status; authentic (which is one hell of a moving target) but not a stereotype and whatever story that character is in has to be perfect because again, there's only ONE so no cheating, no lying, no committing a crime IOW, no doing anything that soap characters do. Look at Frankie Hubbard. He was the "perfect" black male character so he got to wander the halls of Pine Valley Hospital like the [!@#$%^&*] Phantom of the Opera and remain shackled to a poorly conceived character played by one of the most cardboard actresses ever seen.

I truly feel that there's just no hope for the genre anymore. The people who were willing to write diversity all left the genre. The people still in charge are just doubling down on the homogeneous ocean of skinny, white, rich characters we see now in the hope of not alienating the last few viewers left behind. The viewers and TPTB are now just a closed circle of bias and narrow-mindedness feeding each other as one show after another dies.

ETA: And let's not even get on the subject of interracial relationships because that opens a whole other bag of crazy.