Crypto-gays and same-sex couplings that should have happened

[Faulkner]

The Davis girls are such snoozes. If they want to prop Sam, they could easily create a stronger bond (or romantic rivalry) with her gay brother. But I suppose Molly and Kristina also exist to prop Alexis, who feels like a lost character.

[GLATWT88]

When I started watching GL, I thought Shayne Lewis (Marty West) was gay. I just assumed it, like oh there's a gay character 

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 I wasn't fully aware that gay characters were actually not common on soaps at all until watching for a few more weeks. Then at one point I thought the character was coming out, because there was something about baseball and feeling pressure from Josh to do well...and I was like ohhh bitch, he's going to come out. Wrong. As I started to get to know the characters and stories better, I realized he was interested in Marina and was not gay. 

[All My Shadows]

I really, really hated what they did with Maddie in all of that. Once the Nuke Train left the station, it was "Phuck Maddie and her feelings," while the alternative could have been really deep and juicy (with a recast Noah). I really got excited when this press photo came out, because it just seemed so obvious that they were going to see this thing through.

 

But yes, you're right, even if they'd gone with a full-blown triangle, something else would have been screwed up.

 

I'm completely on my own with this, I know, but I so loved those weirdo twins who became obsessed with Luke and Noah later, and the guy twin, Zac, attempted to seduce Noah. It was all so ridiculous, and they were such weird characters, but Luke and Noah were so BORING, and the Z twins brought a little humor. I was totally ready for them to be fleshed out as real characters. So, naturally, they became homicidal rapists and kidnappers.
 

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Edited July 11, 2020 by All My Shadows

[Soapsuds]

I had forgotten how hot Zac was. I liked Maddie but the writing and acting by Jake was horrible. Noah was Jake. His reunion with Alan was so dull. He pretty much said nothing and it's obvious he didn't want to be there. Agim started flirting with him to loosen him up to no avail. He even left the chat earlier.

[Franko]

Adam and Jeff would have been interesting.

[Soapsuds]

And they were cousins. Considering what we know about Gordon now...Dynasty should've made Adam gay and thus his resentment towards Steven.

[OzFrog]

 

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[JellicleCat]

 

That's unfair criticism. He made it clear that he had a prior engagement and had to leave because of that. It's not his fault the technical difficulties meant that the chat was prolonged.

[Faulkner]

The Harding Lemay WLS interview where he spoke about his intention to make the character of Michael Randolph gay on Another World and how it was nixed (likely by P&G). He mentioned just how scared producers/networks were to do anything because of how they underestimated what audiences would accept. Irna Phillips had warned him that Southern audiences would be horrified by a black character and a white character having lunch, and he went ahead and wrote a scene like that, which aired without incident. Just reminded me of how many good, boundary-pushing stories we may have missed out on unnecessarily. (That’s not to say audiences haven’t flipped out about IR or gay relationships, à la Neil/Victoria on Y&R.)

https://www.welovesoaps.net/2009/07/harding-lemay-interview-part-one.html?m=1

[Queen]

Definitely Adrian Bellani's Miguel and Mark Wystrach's Fox on Passions.

 

I thought David A. Gregory's Ford on One Life to Live shared more chemistry with his brothers any of his love interests.

[Skin]

There are several that have already been mentioned here. I think the most notables ones that I saw: 

 

• (All My Children) Babe and Bianca - This one felt pretty obvious and honestly would have written itself. I have to believe that there was resistance to this because (1) Bianca was already signed, sealed and delivered to Maggie at the time, and BAM was so huge (2) Babe just had too much on her plate to justify four or five love interests vying for her at any one point in time and lastly (3) Eden was already half-way out the door and wasn't willing to re-sign her contract for an additional length of time. Babe at one point was seen to be Bianca's best and closest friend, and they were so incredibly intimate together that I would have completely bought Bianca being in love with Babe at some point during the Baby-Swap story. It also helps explain and contextualize how Bianca was able to forgive Babe so quickly post switch. Later on the writers did this by having a re-casted Bianca fall in love with Babe's twin Marissa, but at that point no one cared. It could have also been that AMC just didn't want to do gay storylines. The way they treated BAM was dirty. Even through out mid 2004 they still had Maggie in go nowhere relationships with Jamie and Jonathan, while still having Bianca at arms length in a "will she or won't she phase" until McTavish just said screw it, and had them run off together to Paris in 2005.

 

• (Days of Our Lives) EJ and Will - EJ was always written as canonically straight and at some point they basically just pinged him back and forth between Nicole and Sami for story purposes. However I honestly believe that the EJ and Will dailies that the writers saw are what inspired the eventual storyline in 2014 with EJ cheating on Sami with Abigail. It's a similar set-up that kind of writes itself. Personally I would have been interested in seeing this this story. At least in part with Will having to confront his attraction to his mothers boyfriend/suitor, and sabotaging their relationship similar to what Sami did with Austin and Carrie. Honestly the way Massey played it I am positive he wanted to explore this as well. The idea of Will sabotaging Sami's relationship with EJ because he wants EJ is so patently Sami territory that I think it would have been great to watch.  

 

• (General Hospital) Nikolas and Lucky - It's often stated that Stephen Martines and Jacob Young had palpable sexual chemistry. They would have never have done this it's incest and they would have never have had a legacy character even entertain the thought, but something should have been done to reinterpret what was being shown on screen. I think we were supposed to see Lucky as being "off" due to brain washing and cheating on LIz but the vibe was always there while the characters were in the role. No wonder they were quick to recast both actors as Lucky and Nikolas.

 

• (One Life To Live) Any of the Ford Brothers with a Male Character - I'm surprised Ron never went here but it surprised me that none of the Ford Brothers had any experiences that were less than hetero-normative. He had three male characters (Ford, James and Nate), who were pretty much interchangeable with very bland love interests: Langston/Jessica/Tess, Starr and Danielle. It would have been interesting to see at least some variety. That being said it looks like OLTL didn't want anything LGBTQ outside of some vague B-plot with Dorian and the way they completely rushed Kish out of town as soon as possible. 

Edited July 12, 2020 by Skin

[Franko]

DOOL could only go so far with David and Valerie in the '70s, but suppose they went for the double whammy and paired Mike and Danny? 

[AbcNbc247]

Imagine if it had been Will in the shower with EJ instead of Abigail? Everybody, myself included, would have gone crazy.

[titan1978]

Did one of those Ford brothers do porn, or have pornographic past?  I think another interesting idea to explore is the gay-for-pay thing in porn.  Especially if they had characters with economic issues and we saw a full picture of that playing out, trying to keep it a secret, people finding out, etc.  You know, the kinds of risky but interesting character based material soaps used to do.

 

I also forgot about EJ and Will.  And yes, there was chemistry, and it did seem like CM was into playing the subtext of it.  As a matter of fact, it reminds me of how good I used to find him as Will.

And I bet they would have gotten enough attention that they had more viewers, not less once all was said and done.

[AbcNbc247]

Yeah, the youngest one was blackmailed into doing a porno. I forget what he was being blackmailed about though.

 

As for Will and EJ, it would have created some controversy but it would have been daring and groundbreaking and also something that soap viewers hadn't seen before. Doing something new, IMO, is always good for soaps.