Racism and racial representation on soaps

[GLATWT88]

When I first started watching BB, I remember there being a Latino family. The Ramirez family was soon phased out and then I remember thinking for a few years after they were out that there wasn't any non-white characters (at least regular characters) until Maya was introduced. Did the BB have a fully integrated black family before the Avants? 

Edited June 2, 2020 by GLATWT88

[titan1978]

I will probably regret this, but my GL watching on YouTube pretty much will end with Curlee’s tenure.  What becomes of David and Gilly?

 

GH- not enough was done with Simone, and they wasted Taggert.  We have a show that often lacks characters with core ties to the hospital, and diversity, and they just keep on ignoring Tommy Hardy.

 

And the poor Ward family.  I thought they were a good attempt by GH under Labine.  Once Rosalind Cash passes away, it just ripped the core right out, then Labine left and Guza took care of the rest.

[Franko]

This might be a results may vary trope (since so many of the performers were genuinely talented), but how about how the town token would inevitably end up singing at funerals? Didn't Timothy D. Stickney say he deliberately sang badly in an OLTL episode to avoid that fate?

Edited June 2, 2020 by Franko

[Faulkner]

They’d haul the Avants out to sing at holidays with the Forresters on B&B. You wouldn’t see them for literally months before. 
 

A few soaps in the ‘90s tried to capture “an emerging demographic” with Latino families (the Vegas on OLTL, the Santoses on AMC, also the Santoses on GL). They didn’t have problems pairing them with white partners, and they could also feel comfortable pairing them with black partners (which we see with Gabi on DAYS now and saw with Antonio and Cristian on OLTL).

Y&R also replaced Latino Diego Serrano with Greg Vaughan as Diego. 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Faulkner

[ghfan89]

Florencia Lozano said when Jill Farren Phelps took over One Life to Live, she told her to dye her hair blonde and wanted Tea to stop speaking Spanish... even though the character was hispanic.

 

JFP also dismantled the Gannons (Hank/RJ/Rachel) on the same show.

 

JFP also put a stop to the Gilly and Alan-Michael romance on Guiding Light years earlier,

 

Then she put a stop to the Taggert as Sonny's step-brother and Gia as his sister story on GH. Gives Sonny a blonde, blue eyed sister instead.

 

I'm just saying. There's a pattern.

Edited June 2, 2020 by ghfan89

[Forever8]

I remember hearing that Victoria Rowell called  Dru and Neil's apartment "The Kitchenette" on  Y&R 

 

Also years ago I remember finding out that there is a high population of residents of Persian descent living in Los Angeles. Imagine a new family on B&B owning their own fashion house that specializes in fashion and interior décor such as silk pillows, couches, and handbags that actually succeeds against Forrester Creations for once. 

 

 

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by Forever8

[Faulkner]

Oof. Gilly. Just so sad. In short, she almost commits incest with her own father.

 

David just became more and more a bland forgettable character with each subsequent recast. At least the role gave Terrell Tilford the opportunity to meet his wife of 20 years, I guess?

 

GH just never really had a sustained interest in black characters. Maybe they felt they didn’t fit into the James Bond/action adventure/fantasy world they’d devised in the ‘80s. Labine grounded the show, but as soon as she left, Keesha was persona non grata with Gangster Jason and Justus was completely and systematically destroyed with his betrayal of Luke and Laura. (And later just killed off like it was nothing, both a victim of GH’s neglect of black characters and the erasure of the Quartermaines.)

Edited June 2, 2020 by Faulkner

[soapfan770]

 

The Grant family was dismantled in 1996. Instead we a had a trashy triangle between Marcus/Dahlia/Sugar Hill and later the Bourdreau’s came on with not much to do.

 

Gilly got engaged to Alan’s deviant lawyer Sid Dickerson but she broke it off after seeing Sid’s true colors as he attacked witnesses on the stand and got Alan off the hook for aiding and abetting Brent Lawerence. She then met and developed feelings with Griffith Williams, a man who had a past with her mother Vivian. Just as Gilly and Griffith were about sleep together, Vivian rushed in to reveal that Griffith was Gilly’s father! A disgusted Gilly left town to find herself.

 

David ended up being recast a couple times, had a brief marriage and brief relationships with Bridget and Vicky Spaulding and was on and off until 2000/2001 or so. Charles Grant would occasionally still pop up as the head of Cedars through the mid-00’s. 
 

 

[Faulkner]

Kevin Mambo and Sharon Leal (and of course Taye Diggs) were all attractive and super talented. But they were ultimately shunted off to their little corner of the show, aside from a few friendships with other characters.

[mikelyons]

When you write it out, it only makes me despise JFP that much more. JFP was a walking dumpster fire for soaps. I loved Tea & Taggert.

This trope!

Livia sang at Mona's funeral (AMC), even though I don't think that was ever established prior to that.

Y&R loved shoving black folks into a music industry storyline. Sally-Sing-a-Long (aka Ana), Devon, Justine (played by the fantastic Michelle Thomas), Tre...that's all I can think of right now. To be fair to Y&R, they've always had a weird fetish with the music industry/people singing on the show from Lorie and Lance to JT and Brittany. It always feels forced, especially when everyone knows one song, "Bless the Beasts and Children".

With regard to Devon, daytime's first black billionaire (?), the last thing a real billionaire with $2 billion would invest in would be the music industry. Oh, and the way Devon Y&R let Devon be hoodwinked out of his inheritance was disgusting. 

[Faulkner]

Devon’s treatment has been appalling from the jump. From his early afterschool special stories to the WTF out-of-nowhere banging of the woman he had up to then thought was his aunt, to his almost entirely offscreen relationship with Tatyana Ali’s Roxanne that went on for YEARS, to his muddled genealogy, to his chaste flirtations with various white characters (Abby, Chloe, Victoria), to the useless plot point of his billion-dollar inheritance, he’s been a disaster as a character. It’s a testament to Bryton and his popular pairing with Mishael Morgan that he’s viable at all.

Edited June 2, 2020 by Faulkner

[GLATWT88]

Do any of the 4 remaining soaps even have a black or other minority family on the canvas currently? I'm trying to think of what I've seen the past few weeks and I can't think of any. 

[mikelyons]

When Devon was first introduced via the community center, he had wonderful scenes with Victor. Had Victor adopted Devon, that may have been a quite dynamic storyline, especially if Devon was interested in Lily and the Winters' were split over their relationship. 

[soapfan770]

I was looking at old episode counts it is a testament that Bryton has survived so long as Devon. I mean Bryton was a contract player who only appeared in a total of 20 episodes in 2010, he was almost a goner.

[kalbir]

I had forgotten about the Diego race change recasting. The Keesha race change recasting was worse though.

 

Y&R recently had a South Asian character, Ravi, but he was basically Raj from Big Bang Theory without the accent.

Edited June 2, 2020 by kalbir