General Hospital August 2014 Discussion

[Khan]

I wouldn't mind the hair so much if it didn't look as if he were paying homage to the cover of Barbra Streisand's "Wet" album.

[DRW50]

As long as gay characters are constantly written as jokes (GH) or PSAs (Bell soaps), or isolated, degraded (GH), or are just sort of there (like the gay characters on DAYS) I tend to agree with Khan.

The one time in recent years I thought a gay character on a soap was well-written (I liked Kyle and Fish but I thought they had bad writing which stripped them of most personality or purpose) was Reid on ATWT, and that was ruined by the odious dead gay trope.

[Vee]

That's a consequence of poor or variable writing. It has nothing to do with whather or not gay characters and their storylines can function on soap opera. They can like anyone else, and I thought Kyle and Fish did just fine for the most part, as has Will on DAYS in patches - but that's DAYS for you, not the gay couple.

[Khan]

Exactly, Carl!

[DRW50]

I think that's true sometimes, but if you look at someone like Lucas - a Spencer, the son of a prominent antihero/mob boss (I'm not going to say anything about being Bobbie's son as Bobbie hasn't been important to any showrunners in about 15 years), a young, handsome leading man - would he be getting this type of material if he were straight?

[Vee]

Considering they have a good fifty people on canvas, I'd say it's a distinct possibility. How much story does Dante have? The gays get short shrift, but honestly a lot of people on this overinflated show get short shrift.

[DRW50]

I agree that everyone has bad material, and limited material. It's just that I feel like because Lucas is gay, they feel more free to write dismissive material. I can't imagine Dante talking about how he gets a hard-on when he watches The Sopranos.

[slick jones]

Steven Carrington's boyfriend was Bart Fallmont on Dynasty.

Daytime truly has the worst writing for gay characters. Days Will and Sonny are boring, Y&R and B&B don't believe they're real, and GH' s cluster**ck of a gay storyline...nuff said. Reid on ATWT and Kish were all right, but their stories were cut short. You'd think gay showrunners could write a decent gay storyline. The dropping of pop culture in and out of conversations to seem relevant [Relevant in the 80's?] needs to go , too.

[Cheap21]

then she's an even dumber bitch bc she's taken him home to her bed to freeload off her dollars, knowing he's a lie

[Mr. Vixen]

Cheap you have no time for Carly and I live for it.

[Khan]

Moreover, what options are there for Lucas beyond hooking up with Felix OR with Brad? It isn't as if Port Charles (or any soap town) has a thriving "gay scene," for lack of a better word. That's what I'm saying in my statement up-thread: these shows are taking these token gay characters and plopping them down in the middle of these historically heterosexual, conservative communities and thus, virtually guaranteeing them little to no options in the way of romantic relationships -- which are, for better or worse, this genre's bread-and-butter. It'd be different if a soap town had a history of active, thriving LGBT communities, but it seems a bit disingenuous to me to assume Port Charles (or Salem, or Genoa City) has always had many, many gays, lesbians and bisexuals living there and we just never noticed them before.

[Vee]

Someone said this long ago, maybe years ago, and I didn't agree then, but I do now - I think the Kish crisis on OLTL pretty much put Ron and Frank off of trying to seriously feature most minority or GLBT characters again.

They lost not only Kish at that time, but also Rachel Gannon, Schuyler Joplin the drug addict, etc. A lot of "have nots" or non-white, non-hetero leads. From then on, every single African-American character featured on OLTL was a token in a low-tier storyline - Shaun, Destiny, Greg Evans, their parents. They were there to lend backup to the white folks, same as Shawn and Jordan on GH today, and even T.J. is just there to hold Molly's purse, really. They were very specifically islanded and kept in their place, and the impression I got from some voices in the know was that that was deliberate.

Likewise, when they did attempt another gay story and finally got it on the air at GH (unlike the Shane Morasco cyberbullying story on OLTL in 2011, where he was intended to come out as gay as an impetus for his bullying and that was scrapped by the network) it was nothing like their work with Kish - it's just the Evans family all over again. Talk-tos, backup for Sabrina and Britt and co., everybody's friend, everybody's buddy, on a couple of days a month as their plotlines move on in absentia.

This strategy, if it's what I think it is, is perhaps a political move that FV and RC maybe felt would best keep their larger status quo functioning and safe for the future, on both OLTL and GH. And maybe it did. But it's still pretty cynical and shitty.

Who says Port Charles is traditionally any of those things? Just because you don't see the GLBT folks living there? Well, in that case, why did we bother adding the Wards in the first place? After all, there were never so many black folks before, right? If you don't open up a (fictional) community beyond the cloistered view of it that existed thirty or forty years ago, you're not reflecting real life. And while these soaps may not be anywhere near perfect, they are not pretending there are no gays or blacks or whatever else in Port Charles. I think the way they handle their gay story is awful, but to pretend none of these minorities exist because they weren't there when Irna Phillips was still up and howling is beyond ridiculous. (And yes, I know Khan still has me on Ignore but I'm tired of this nonsense.)

[YRBB]

+1

[Cheap21]

I have no time for dumb bitches which unfortunately applies to any woman on this show over 40 with some dick attached to her hips.

Carly.....dumb bitch

Anna...idiot bitch

Tracy....stupid bitch

Alexis....moronic bitch

Olivia...retarded bitch

Congratulations ladies. You got a man and lost your mind. I guess Olivia technically doesnt have a man anymore, but she's definitely running acting like a damn fool.

[DRW50]

I think it's a little easier with GH than with some other soaps, because we saw Jon Hanley (?) in the 90's, we saw a few other gay recurring characters starting in the mid/late 90's. It's just that what we're seeing now makes no attempt to connect to that more sincere attempt at representation. It's just a grafted on knockoff of Eating Out.