Black Character Portrayals in Soaps Today

[Cheap21]

This is what that mess would be like today:

Steve Burton in as nuMalcolm, CKLily's real father. Im sure she'd be happy about that.

[DeeeDee]

Keesha #1 (Wanda Acuna)

Keesha #2 (Jennifer Gatti)

[marceline]

It boggles my mind how this genre managed to incinerate the love I had for it. I watched soaps for more than 30 years. My first soap was Search for Tomorrow. I was home with the chickenpox and ended up watching an episode during what I now realize was sweeps week. My second soap was AMC because it came on after SFT went off. One of my favorite memories was a block party on my street where a bunch of our neighbors were over. My dad and a lot of the other men, most of whom were autoworkers, were sitting in the backyard, drinking beer and talking about VICTOR NEWMAN. My parents used to talk about Y&R at the dinner table.

But now there's just nothing left for me to give a damn about. My viewership wasn't good enough for them a few years ago but now that there's only four left suddenly the SOS crowd want me (and Oprah) to help keep these shows alive. Well to them I say, kiss my shapely black ass.

[DeeeDee]

LONG story.

[frequentsoapfan]

Must SBu make it into every convo about Y&R? JFP hasn't even uttered hi name yet every two minutes he's coming to Y&R.

Wanda was prettier too

[SFK]

They never acknowledged her race and yet again people were quick to defend the recasting decision saying that Keesha was an "exotic" character and the actress' actual race made little bearing. To give you some background, Wanda Acuna was the first Keesha, and Jennifer Gatti (aka the first Dinah on GL!) was the second.

[SFK]

*My bad, didn't see the subsequent posts, didn't mean to repeat.

[frequentsoapfan]

With a name like Keesha I expect the character to be black.

[Cheap21]

There's white girls named Keesha

[VirginiaHamilton]

Oh, where do I begin with that brand of fuckery...

Not only is there no way in hell that Vangie would've lost to Natalie if she were white, OLTL would've had zero problem in promoting the sh!t out of her as a lead heroine as they did with Blair/Messica/Natalie/Kelly/Marty. The fact that this accomplished woman was forced to verbally scrap with and play second fiddle to that gutter trash over a man that wasn't worthy of her was what drove me away from that show for a while.

[VirginiaHamilton]

OLTL sure was consistent when it came to throwing their Black/non-Anglo Latino characters under the bus to prop their white ones - the aforementioned Vangie, RJ, Keri, and Antonio (not to mention Adriana and Cristian) being proof of this.

[Cheap21]

She would have lost to her regardless of if she was white bc the show was intent on pushing Natalie with John. Marty was an accomlished educated professional who had overcome alot in her life, yet she too ended up losing to Natalie and got a far worse deal, with ending up turning into a psycho and shamefully dismissed bc John dropped her for Natalie and she wasnt black

[VirginiaHamilton]

Perhaps, I'm biased over my love for the Debbi Morgan/Darnell Williams powerhouse, but I honestly believe that they were a major reason why Angie/Jesse's last years were (relatively) decent because of their being able to rise above the mediocre material.

I only wish that I could say the same about Cornelius Smith, Jr., as his natural talent wasn't enough to overcome the half-assed attention that they did pay his character. The same can be said for Shannon Kane, whose character was largely wasted on AMC.

[Cheap21]

Shannon Kane was only on for a handful of episodes in AMC's last year and in that year they did more with Natalia than they did with Frankie. It was a shame

[VirginiaHamilton]

What you said, though I'll add the fact that none of the males that they paired/teased her with was deserving of her time. Not a single one.