One Life to Live OLTL: The Prospect Park Era (old production thread)

[Khan]

Neither did I.

[Khan]

You're right, it is. And I'm not proud of conforming to that double standard, let me tell you.

[cassadine1991]

these fan-fic writers were better, these were the stories I was talking about

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7228552/1/Mistake

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7157772/1/A-Scar-in-the-Making

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7166180/1/Only-Time-Can-Heal-and-Tell

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8135115/1/Goodbye

i know... i hate that double standard, I think it's mostly a US thing, or a network thing, because in Canada and other countries and in primetime, there are teens in gay/lesbian love stories

[Khan]

But here's the thing: if I were an EP or HW faced with this dilemma -- meaning, if I had two actors, such as Mick Hazen and Meredith Hagner, or Kelley Missal and Lenny Platt, who had off-the-charts chemistry, but who also had a major discrepancy in ages, where one was underaged and the other not -- I could not, in good conscience, go along with pairing them on-screen just because they look "hot" together. Yes, I know they're just actors playing fictional characters, acting out fictional love scenes. Yes, I know their characters' ages probably aren't the same as their portrayers. Yes, I know that you could get around all that and so much more simply by keeping things as chaste as possible. I get all that. Nevertheless, I have to take into account as well the actors' comfort level and willingness to play such material. Can a 26-year-old actor handle being intimate on-screen with a 17-year-old actress (and vice-versa)? Can one say the same if the ages were reversed, and the actor were the one who was underaged?

[cassadine1991]

I think it should be a gradual thing until both actors are comfortable with it

[cassadine1991]

Why not make Jack a bisexual character, it will be more flexible.. They can pair him with a girl and a guy.. The best of both worlds

[Winchester91]

Why is it that every up-and-coming younger legacy teen boy character of any show is always slated by the fans to be the next gay role? Morgan (GH), Fen (Y&R), Spike (AMC) Shane/Jack..etc. Why not just see where it goes? Not everyone is going to be a Will Horton success story.

[Vee]

The age thing is tricky.

It's been done so many times, though, that it also can't be discounted - Luke and Laura only being #1 with a bullet. There's so many cases just like that. Saying it should be dismissed just because is not only naive, it's historically proven wrong in many huge, huge cases with huge, huge couples which - whether or not one of us liked them all - were hugely successful and an incredible boon for their shows. But it should be handled carefully.

[EricMontreal22]

Winchester, I agree it can be annoying, but I think there are a few factors. One obvious one is simply that the soaps are still so "straight" (I mean characters being straight, not necesarily the POV or "gaze".) This is despite all the gay audience members, writers--even actors of course. When it comes to young characters, gay issues are such a big issue right now for teens--and something a lot more younger teens are being open about, that it makes sense there (and you wouldn't have to deal with a random new character with no connection to the show being gay or an old character discovering they were gay)--bafter saying that I just have to say please no cyber bullying stories any writers reading this. It's something that--for good or bad--does create drama. Even when it's attempted, it's rarely done well, etc, etc, etc...

(I was reading a book of essays on soaps from the late 80s and one woman wrote--and I think she had a point--that it would be too hard to make a gay or lesbian character and fully integrate them simply because one guiding motivation of any major soap character with longevity (unless they become a tentpole character) is the possibility that they can pair up with numerous other characters. This was one reason too why other minorities often had so much trouble being integrated into the canvas back when interacial romances were still seen as pretty taboo. All of that is changing (although the fact that in the past10 maybe even more years, with ratings falling, network soaps have gotten MORE conservative this has been a problem--I hope the online soaps are more progressive in this respect--I'd be more interested in being more modern in that respect rather than in terms of language or nudity).

[cassadine1991]

Who says it has to be EXACTLY like Will Horton

[cassadine1991]

That's what I'm talking about, it's more than just seeing an actor you think is hot kissing having love scenes with someone of the same-sex..

I think it would be awesome if the current cast posed for the No H8 Campaign

[EricMontreal22]

I would be ok with that.

In a way soaps are a lot like the old Hollywood "women's pictures" (as they were negatively called) or even some of the other melodramas. Often they were written or directed by gay men (and while women weren't often involved in those roles in Hollywood back then--or sadly now even--they were often based on novels and stories by women), and even more so the gay (including lesbian) audience members could relate to them--honestly and campily--by giving them a gay reading. Soaps have thrived on this from a lot of their audience for decades. And I think it's dishonest to not try to move away from it more so.

If it's done right, I think it can work on soaps. A lot of women, and more and more with younger generations--like the romance of gay male love stories as much as straight ones (Hell the crappy sounding NUMBER one title on the New York Times bestseller last week according to Ent Weekly's chart was JR Ward's "Lover at Last" which I had to look up but is apparently the tenth, or something, book in an insanely popular romance novel series of vampire stories that in this volume is a full on gay romance--and I can tell you it's mainly bought by women. (Hell even back in the late 90s when I was a teen before you could download tv shows, I was on some forum and a middle aged housewife posted as well, devoted to the then brand new UK original Queer as Folk--she was getting tapes as they aired from the UK and converting them to NTSC format and saw we lived in the same city so offered to make me copies--I went to pick them up at her house, and she wanted to talk over coffee all about the show. My point was at 16 it was amazing to see this gay tv show--her focus was ALL about, like asoap fan, who shoul dbe with who, etc, etc).

I sound like I think these shows should be gay heavy, and I don't at all. But I do think it's a valid and fair point that it should be one of the elements of the show--and not just done as a lame random coming out story.

[cassadine1991]

I completely agree...

[KMan101]

I think soaps desperately need to be more diverse in so many ways. It really has been, for at least the last 10-15 years, that soaps have pretty much taken steps backwards. I hope the online versions fix this.

I shouldn't be watching a soap and counting tokens and remarking how 'shocked' I am that a soap is showing two men making out and in the shower together. Know what I mean? It's really sad.

[DRW50]

The saddest part is that other than independent movies, you aren't going to find much better anywhere else.

(sorry I'm not going to count serial killers/psychopaths where we're supposed to leer at them, like The Following or any Ryan Murphy garbage)