Racism and racial representation on soaps

[Khan]

 

True dat.

[Darn]

Who the hell is Sarge?

[janea4old]

On Y&R, he was Jack's physical therapist, played by Darnell Williams (Jesse AMC).

[GLATWT88]

Bring back Generations. It's

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 time 

[Darn]

 

Ah thank you. That was like...his legal name? I hate it. I completely missed his and Debbi Morgan's time on the show. I love them but I don't regret it, I knew it would be a flop when they recast her as Devon's mother and named her Harmony. Nope. No thank you.

 

But I also envisioned Dru's return story involving amnesia and her living a full life with a second family and how that would integrate with her family in GC. It would takes months before either of her children came face to face with her (the first person to see her would actually be Phyllis because...well I love them together and of course Phyllis wouldn't tell anybody, she's a terrible person).

[janea4old]

 

It was later revealed that Sarge's real name was Augustus Wilder, and that he was the uncle of Lamon Archey's character Mason Wilder.

Edited June 11, 2020 by janea4old

[Khan]

Augustus, Moses....  MAB stayed giving her African-American creations the slaviest of slave names.

[SFK]

Has VR guest-starred on any of the OWN series? Rather than be wasted on Y&R, she should be a series regular on one of those shows, she's certainly as capable as/more soapily equipped than Robin Givens. VR could play a Dru-type, in the vein of so many soap stars afforded the same opportunity in daytime (soap hopping playing essentially the same character with a new name and set of circumstances). If we still had at least 10 soaps on the air, maybe VR would have had this chance by now (assuming someone in daytime with a spine stood up for the "uncastable").

 

And then there was "sassy" full-figured Sofia, and I wish somebody would look me dead in my face and tell me that had nothing to do with Oprah in The Color Purple.

[janea4old]

On June 17, 2020 in USA, (Tues June 16 Canada), they are going to air Episode #6164, Olivia and Malcolm's wedding. (Original US airdate Fri. July 11, 1997).

 

The soapcentral recap doesn't say much so I looked more into it. I found a few different recaps on "rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs", an informal discussion newsgroup, later absorbed by googlegroups.

The first recap I found , posted in 1997, is here:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs/uozG4TnxBrE/NN51AnRDQfIJ

And that doesn't say much about the wedding either, and then I saw that this thread was exactly the same wording as the soapcentral recap for that date, so maybe it was the source.  

 

More digging produced more info. More info is in a separate 1997 thread, where someone asked specific questions about the wedding and replies were made and discussed here:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs/-ycSa98VXSw/6vcvKrBat4cJ

(that thread discusses the wedding episode, and also the reception which was in following episode).

The wedding party has Dru as matron of honor, Neil as best man, Lily as flower girl, and little Nate in a tux.  Mamie wasn't there. There were no other family members present. They didn't mention the bride and groom's parents.

 

 I found several other threads about the wedding where it was mentioned that all the guests were white except for Julia who is Nate's nanny. Comments were made about the wedding seemed so small and the show seemed so cheap. And they wondered if the show was saving up for Victor and Diane's upcoming wedding. And racism was discussed.

 

This 1997 thread is quite an interesting read:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/rec.arts.tv.soaps.cbs/0sPETfGmfRk/MbHiFqMyDgcJ

[Khan]

 

Not to mention YoHarmony, who I SWEAR was MAB's salute to Fontaine.

[GLATWT88]

Seems like a lot of the complaints are similar to those we have now, except both budgets and diversity have gotten much worse. When I was reading the comment about the wedding looking cheap and not hiring extras, i was like just wait a few years and you'll hope you had the quality of that 1997 wedding. Also, read an interesting comment of the pairing being forced because there aren't enough AA cardmembers and the show being unwilling to have an interracial pairing. 

[Darn]

 

Thanks for sharing those links.

 

I've always been curious about how Malcolm and Olivia's relationship developed and how their marriage became so acrimonious. They spent so much time spitting venom over Nate (yet now the acts like Malcolm wasn't even his father).

[VanessaReardon]

Has Michelle Stafford commented? You never know when koo koo VR will go off. 

[janea4old]

I was curious about a couple of characters that appear in 1997 in various episodes.

 

Phyllis' babysitter for Daniel and/or her housekeeper to whom Phyllis confided her frustrations.
The character's name was named "Joani Darza".

The actress playing Joani was Marita De Leon.

http://www.maritadeleon.com/about.html

 

 

Olivia employed a nurse/nanny for little Nate, and that character was named "Julia" (I don't know if the show gave her a last name?).

The actress playing Julia was Pamella D'Pella. She has a Y&R acting reel here:

 

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[NothinButAttitude]

 

Can the new daughter be played by Davetta Sherwood aka the Superior (and REAL, IMO) Lily? 

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