Racism and racial representation on soaps

[Aback]

 

Should we mention Latham's Ji Min (I was crazy about him) and lawyer Rafe?

[mikelyons]

20 episodes?!? They paid him to appear in one and a half episodes per month?? I would bet his guarantee was at least 2 episodes A WEEK and his episodic fee had to be nice due to his long career before stepping foot in Genoa City. Wow. Just wow. 

I loved Ji Min Kim, but they shipped him out.

Let us never forget David Chow. Was he meant to be of Asian descent or did LML have a three martini lunch when she created him?

[Khan]

 

OTOH, you'd have a white billionaire adopting a poor Black child, which only works when that child is Gary Coleman (and even then, the whole idea is questionable).

Edited June 2, 2020 by Khan

[mikelyons]

Fair enough! I concur. 

However, Eric Braeden and Bryton had great scenes together when Devon was introduced on Y&R. I would have loved for them to develop and explore their relationship, be it mentor/mentee, father figure, ally, friend, advisor...not shunt Devon off to the kitchenette for ten years.

[teplin]

The justly maligned Corinne Jacker run on AW had one plus, IMO -- the introduction of very strong black roles played by some pretty awesome actors (Morgan Freeman! Howard Rollins Jr.! Joe Morton! Robert Christian! Jackee Harry! Petronia Paley!). IIRC, they were pretty well integrated into the larger cast while maintaining their own agency and motivations as characters. Unfortunately, their storylines were not exactly gripping, and many of them were gone within a couple years. I have no idea what black viewers thought of them -- the soap press didn't seem eager to explore that angle. And I don't think AW ever had a big black audience.

[Faulkner]

That’s another point. A lot of Latham’s characters got axed when she left, but it seems that characters of color are almost always “last hired, first fired” when regimes change. And given that soaps have traditionally had a lot of EP/HW turnover, it’s hard for those characters to build any viewer traction. And they are viewed as interchangeable even when they have very different personalities. Meanwhile, we’ve had dozens of interchangeable dead-eyed white brunettes hogging the screen on GH for 20 years.

[Fevuh]

Kinda related to the topic - just don't have characters have an accent and lose them.  It's so stupid.  They did it with the Yack/Jack story on Y&R with the Latina.  Suddenly one day she had no Latina accent when it was so overdone before.  On B&B there were Zoey and the guy who was supposedly an Avant cousin or something...and their excuse was a "game" of who could lose their British accent for longer.  Just don't do accents on soaps.  It's so stupid.  The only ones I remember maintaining them was Uncle Stavros and Eleni on Guiding Light.  So many others fail miserably.  The Y&R one I mentioned was terrible...she literally had no accent one day. 

[Forever8]

When they brought on the Eleni recast after Melina left Eleni didn't have an accent anymore. 

[Faulkner]

Ironically GH has the most prominent black contingent these days, with the Ashfords (Curtis, Jordan, and T.J., the latter of whom I believe is recurring) and Trina. I think they still show Aunt Stella, Felix, Trina’s mom, and Epiphany, all recurring. Parry Shen, who is Chinese-American, still recurs as Brad.

 

Y&R has Lily, Devon, Nate, Amanda, and Elena. Lily is only one with a story, with Amanda sniffing around Billy. They also have the Rosaleses (Lola and Rey), Mal Young/Angelica McD leftovers who have been greatly diminished under Griffith/Morina. (Neither has been that well-received.)

 

DAYS has Abe and Lani, Eli, and Gabi and Rafe.

 

B&B pretty much only has Zoey, with Maya, Carter, and Justin popping up every blue moon.

[Aback]

 

You make a very valid point. I completely agree. Let me just add that I thought that Ji Min Kim could be the next Victor. How cool would that have been.

[DRW50]

 

I think by the late '90s it was forgotten. 

[All My Shadows]

Very few things will sting me the way Franklin and Ronald basically sucked anything of diverse substance out of OLTL in early 2010. There were so many interesting things going on at that time, not just racially, but in terms of representation and the potential to really explore different types of people. They had viable black characters in soaps' prime age range for drama (Layla, Greg, Rachel, Shaun, and even Destiny, which the actress was greeeeeeeeeen but she could have grown or gotten recast). Kyle and Oliver were decent gay characters in the beginning. I will forever weep for the wonderful story possibilities of Natalie/Jared fighting Jessica/Brody for custody of Jessica's kids, which would have touched on mental illness. Just some good stuff going on, and then...it was gone. The Fords, Stacy, "Hold the Diploma," etc. Ugh.

The ONE thing that came out of the foolishness that I really should not have found so damn funny but still makes me laugh so hard to this day when I think about it is when John Wesley Shipp, as the Fords' homoerotic dad, referred to a random Ford girlfriend as "broke azz." GOD it's so stupid, but I can't stop laughing.

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[Faulkner]

Ha. Ok that’s hilarious. LMAO! JWS’s delivery is so odd there.

[DRW50]

While we're talking about AMC, they went from trying to have a relatively integrated black cast to, by 1995/1996, having Derek as a degraded supporting character, Noah there to be generic eye candy for white housewives, and incredibly insulting character trashing for Taylor (going from layered character to a badly acted psycho). And then they got a voodoo priestess who joined from the Jamaica jaunt, until seemingly someone decided this wasn't the best idea, and she vanished. If the original plans to kill Belinda had gone through, AMC would have had no black cast, aside from degraded Derek, by 1997. And Belinda never really had much of a chance even after that. 

 

The Santos were heavily pushed, but the writing was a mess, especially the decision to make "Papa" into an out of control hatemonger and pervert, culminating in vile scenes where he forces his daughter to have a painful medical procedure to "prove" her virtue. As if someone realized this was all too much to come back from, he was then killed off, and we got cringey scenes where the family reminisced over how back in the old days, he'd stayed up all night to protect the local church. Embarrassing.

 

 

 

And the so-called soap press giddily went along with the idea that black and gay characters caused a ratings crash and the show was better off without them. 

[DRW50]

I also have to give a mention to ATWT for the absolutely atrocious treatment of the Denise storyline. What should have been a compelling baby swap storyline, on a show that was competent and more willing to not stack the deck, instead became the perfect, loving white wife and mother vs a black stripper and crack addict who sold her child. As if that wasn't enough, they had the character go around fighting with people for most of her first months on the show, complete with a terrible scene where she went after Camille for being "high yellow." I don't think the audience ever forgave Denise or gave her a chance after that introduction. 

Edited June 2, 2020 by DRW50