DAYS: AHAAAA! | promo (June 21, 2024)

[Liberty City]

 

 

 

[DRW50]

Is this the part where they use homophobia to make people feel sorry for Leo?

Ron never learns...and at a time of increasingly virulent homophobia in this country too. 

[Liberty City]

The "writer" continues to be beyond tonedeaf.

[AbcNbc247]

I sometimes think that, it's more him thinking that he's saying "F*ck you" to all these ignorant Middle America dumbasses. 

But I also think that it never even crossed his mind that LGBTQ+ fans would end up hating Leo.

[Liberty City]

Judging from his writing... I doubt it. He's always been tone deaf, and very cliché with his writing of the community he supposed hails from. It's so off-putting.

[j swift]

From Leo's session with Marlena, I don't think that homophobia is the topic with Diana. 

They were discussing that she taught him that he was unlovable in general, not specific to his sexuality.  From the actual episode, they talked about how Diana made him feel as if no one would ever love him, regardless of gender.  It was more about his caustic and selfish nature than his desire to sleep with men.

However, are they bending over backward to try to redeem him in order for him to fall in love with Mark? Of course, they are.  And if they're hoping this is Emmy-bate, then I would imagine that they would avoid any inferences to homophobia being the cause of his issues with self-acceptance. 

Edited June 22, 2024 by j swift

[DRW50]

I don't think he cares about any lgbt fan but himself - this is the man who wrote a story where a gay man faked hate crimes to keep a boyfriend. 

If this is meant as some kind of a message to Middle America, he should really show them by quitting...

And yes maybe this isn't meant to be about his being gay and the promo is just misleading. Either way, I will never feel sorry for a sexual harasser. It's especially offputting given the backstage climate of the show.

 

[janea4old]

This

[j swift]

I will cop to the fact that assumptions regarding the motives of RonC get under my skin because all we know about him is based on his caustic social media presence and his sexuality.  That's my pet peeve, and I understand that the sentiment is not widely shared.

However, soaps are built on the idea of people being reformed by love.  Leo is hardly the only example.  Kristen, EJ, and Stefan engaged in non-consensual sex.  Nicole stole a baby, and she murdered Deimos.  Sami faked that Austin was the father of her child. And, even Julie was a shoplifter.

I get the parallels to the backstage crimes, but I don't think that they are trying to justify anything by creating sympathy for Leo.  I am also well aware that most of us are just letting off steam, or having fun by hating on a fictional character.  But, I have to purge myself of the cringe I feel when every time Leo's possible redemption is discussed, it is frequently associated with the sexuality of the writer. 

Thanks for giving me a space to express my hot take.  I don't need to have it validated.  Nor can I be convinced to change it. 

Edited June 22, 2024 by j swift

[Paul Raven]

I guess one aspect is that Leo is the only long running gay character on the show and to many not a great representation.

[DRW50]

He's written homophobic storylines for 15 years, repeatedly involving men who sexually harass and assault other men. When it is such a long-running trait of his writing, it's difficult not to call his choices out. 

I do think they want us to feel sorry for Leo. Many fans did have the same complaints when it came to Sami, EJ, etc. The main difference is those characters had supporters. Leo has few, in spite of being a constant focus for year upon year. So the criticism stands out more.

Edited June 22, 2024 by DRW50

[j swift]

To be clear, I don't enjoy or endorse the writing of Leo's dialogue, humor, or many of his stories.  But, I don't blame the headwriter because they both happen to be gay.  It is that association that sparked my ire.

Because I don't think it is the duty of gay writers to only pen stories about upstanding gay men and women.  And, traditionally, DAYS has had more representations of a spectrum of sexually diverse characters than most soaps.  Many of which were created by this headwriter. 

OK, I promise I won't engage in this further because I respect that we all have different reactions.

Edited June 22, 2024 by j swift

[DRW50]

I suppose when we know a writer is gay and they write the stories they have written for such a long time, talking about his sexuality can be inevitable. Similar to all the criticism JFP received for being a woman and having so many misogynist stories. I think straight writers or writers we don't know the sexual orientation of also get criticism (I remember the show getting brickbats for the choice to have Will in what was presented as a hot sex scene with Gabi when he was written as gay by that point). I could try to be unbiased, but I guess I just can't very easily when I have so little respect for a writer. That's my own issue, of course.

[j swift]

Don't make me break my promise @DRW50 and I would never ask you to be unbiased.

I'm just writing as someone who you interact with a few times per week, to let you know that I am sensitive to those who always make a point to mention RonC's sexuality when they criticize Leo.  Obviously, none of us wish that he would've stayed closeted, but despite your examples, it is far less frequent that we question the motives of a less outspoken writer.  Like when people trash Joss on GH, they don't always assume that she shares the same values as the people who write the character. 

Creating sympathy feels like a necessary tool when a writer chooses to invest in a long term character.  Furthermore, I assume we agree that simply because a character is unpopular on social media, doesn't always translate to a production feeling that that character is not valuable to bringing in viewers.  So, the focus on Leo may be relative to the amount of engagement that the character receives, and not simply because he is gay. 

Edited June 22, 2024 by j swift

[AbcNbc247]

Guys, this has nothing to do with Leo or Ron being gay.

It has to do with the fact that Leo is a horrible character and a horrible human being but yet the storyline is always written as though fans are supposed to take his side. Sami and Nicole and all the bad things that they did was brought up in this thread, but the difference is they were never written as the one in the right, as the one who’s side that fans were supposed to take. Nothing was ever biased in favor of them in those storylines. 

And we’ve been hearing the excuses and the reasons from Leo for years now. Because he doesn’t have a great guy to love him, because he had a tough childhood, etc. But to that I say, so what. We all have pain, we all want to find that special someone. But do I think that that gives any one the excuse to be such a horrible person or to betray the people that love them and then just toss them away like garbage? Hell No. 

That obsession with Leo and that bias in favor of him (and bias against other characters) were probably the biggest reasons why the Dimitri storyline was so poorly written in the first place. Plus, you don’t give a character years worth of storyline when you only have the actor for 6 months. 

And it’s the same thing with Joss on GH. The way she treated Cam, the way GH treated Cam, was quite honestly one of the sickest things I’ve ever seen in my life. That storyline was worse than anything Ron’s ever written. And the fact that Joss got off scot free, for that and for leaving Britt to die for no reason other than the fact that she was horny, really made me angry. Still makes me angry actually. 

At this point, if we’re stuck with Leo, the only way to move forward is to take the bias out of the storyline, especially because writing a biased storyline never works, as we’ve seen so many times on Days over the last few years. Let things flow naturally, instead of shoving it down the fans’ throats. 

Edited June 22, 2024 by AbcNbc247