Saturday, August 19, 2006

The Saga Continues

So, it's been about a month and a half since we last checked in on the gay soap character front, and Luke Snyder, As The World Turns' gay teen character, in particular. Any soap fan knows that a month and a half on a soap can be filled with more action and drama than most real people's whole lives.

First up, let's all give a sarcastic thanks to General Hospital for truly going the traditional route with their gay character, shall we? They don't need to be modern or groud breaking over at GH, the classic route is good enough for them, damn it! They introduced a gay storyline just long enough to have the character come out and then get bashed, and then? Crickets began chirping.

Lucas Jones was seen so rarely in recent months that his portrayer, Ben Hogestyn, who'd never been elevated beyond recurring status, just signed a contract to play a (presumably straight) character over on Bold & the Beautiful. No word yet if GH will even bother recasting Lucas, but if I were you I wouldn't place any bets on the character ever being mentioned again.

Some good news, though, over on All My Children. The pioneering character of Bianca Montgomery (who, as I explained in my Gaytime TV post, was daytime's first gay character from a core family) is returning to the show this October, reportedly for a long term stay. The character hasn't been on the show regularly since 2005.

On the off chance you were wondering, no new gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters have been introduced in daytime since last we checked in.

With those updates noted, lets turn our attention back to Luke Snyder on As the World Turns. This storyline continues to impress me, even with some detours that do distract from the core of the story, which is Luke's sexuality.

When we last looked in on Luke, his mother had fallen into a coma after a tumble down the stairs and his biological father was pretending to accept him while secretly scheming to send him to a 'Scared Straight' camp and drive a wedge between Luke and his much more accepting father, Holden.

Well, Lily is still in that pesky coma (and Martha Byrne, her portrayer, is still on maternity leave), but last week was a big one for Luke. For weeks, Damian continued to manipulate Luke to keep him from reconnecting with his father and it worked right up until doctors performed a c-section on Lily to bring her and Holden's new baby son into the world.

The birth of the new baby brought Luke closer to his family than ever and he was on the verge of returning home when he found out 'by accident' that Damian was dying. Damian 'reluctantly' admitted that he'd just wanted to spend his last days getting to know his son and urged Luke to return to Malta with him.

Luke didn't want to leave his family, especially with his mother's life still hanging in the balance, but Damian was all alone in the world. How could he deny his last request? Van Hansis, Luke's portrayer, did an amazing job conveying both Luke's reluctance to leave and his belief that it was the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, as Luke's father, grandmother Lucinda, and cousin Lucy, all worked to prove that Damian wasn't really dying, the audience learned that a shady Mafioso type was forcing Damian to bring his son to Malta.

Now, none of this really has much to do with Luke being gay, so many people felt (and justifiably so) that the story had gone off track. I'd argue, though, that it continues to be a ground breaking daytime story. Why? Luke is still front and center. He hasn't vanished like Lucas Jones or all the other gay characters before him. He's not just hanging out to give advice to female friends.

A major storyline is revolving around him, and that's something you haven't seen for gay characters before now, with the exception of Bianca Montgomery. Not only is Luke front and center, but he's been made into a character that the audience truly cares about and roots for. A lot of that has to do with the vulnerability that Van Hansis brings to the role. You can't watch him as Luke without wanting to protect him from the bad guys. You just want this kid to find happiness and love. And that's what classic soap characters are all about, really. You're supposed to watch them week after week, year after year, and root for them. As the World Turns hasn't just created a gay character in Luke, they've created a classic soap character in the best sense of the term.

Luke hasn't forgotten that he's gay. He finally brought himself to tell his best friend/ secret crush Kevin that he "wasn't interested in girls" after Kevin asked him to go on a double date with Kevin & his girlfriend and a friend of hers. Unfortunately, Kevin took Luke's confession to mean that Luke preferred women over high school girls and Luke allowed himself to be talked into going on the date.

How many gay teens out there have felt forced into going on dates with the opposite sex, either to prove something to themselves or to their friends? This was an incredibly believable scenario that played out just like you'd imagine. Luke wanted to spend time with Kevin, but his crush wanted alone time with his own girlfriend and Luke was left alone with the other girl, who was coming on strong, and a bottle of Vodka.

Feeling frustrated and upset, Luke ended up ditching the girl and hitting the bottle, leading to an angry confrontation with Kevin that left Luke feeling more alone than ever and played a part in his decision to leave town with Damian.

Last week, things with Damian came to a sudden conclusion and the show once again shined while putting Luke's sexuality front and center. Damian, it turned out, needed Luke to sign some papers waiving his inheritance so that Damian could use it to pay off his own enemies. This all came out at the airport when Holden and his cousin Jack, who is a cop, showed up to stop Damian and his shady friend from leaving the country.

It all ended with a bit of gun play at the airport, followed by a phenomenal confrontation between Damian and Luke. I'm going to quote a few of my favorite lines from the episode, but I really cannot do them the justice they deserve. Just writing them on the screen doesn't convey the hurt, anger, and sadness that Van Hansis brought to the table as Luke in these scenes.

Luke finally realized the extent of Damian's lies: not only was his biological father not dying, he also didn't accept Luke being gay. This came out when an angry Damian lashed out at Holden, telling him that he wanted to get Luke away to undo the damage Holden had done, and that if he'd have raised Luke, the boy would have turned out to be a 'true man'.

After hearing this, Luke confronted Damian himself, using bitter sarcasm as he asked his biological father what he meant by a 'son to be proud of':

Luke: Because you accept me as is, right? So then it would have been cool for me to bring guys home, hang out, maybe even get into a long term relationship?

Damian: Or discover that's not how you want to live.

Luke: And start to like girls? Maybe date, get married, have kids, the right way?

Damian: Luke, you should have children.

Luke: And maybe I will. In case you didn't know, Damian, science has caught up to freaks like me.

As Damian prattled on about it taking a young man a long time to find out who he is, a light bulb went off in Luke's head and he realized that Damian was sounding an awful lot like Ross Kreeger, the director of the 'conversion' camp for gay teens. Putting two and two together, Luke realized that Damian had been behind the plan to send him to the camp, not Lily.

Damian admitted as much, and tried to tell Luke that he felt the camp was what his son needed. Luke summed up the camp's methods:

Luke: Deprogramming in a resort setting. Enjoy the Olympic sized pool while a staff of trained professionals messes with your head, tries to unscrew something that wasn't screwed up to begin with!

The airport confrontation ended with Luke signing over his inheritance to Damian and telling him that he's always been a Snyder and that's all he'll ever want to be. And so ends the Damian chapter of our story, at least for now. The show left it open for a Damian return somewhere down the road, and if that happens, I'd like to see Damian struggling to accept Luke. One thing was made clear through both the writing and the acting of the character by Paolo Seganti: Damian does love his son. He truly believed that he was trying to help Luke (other than that whole inheritance thing, of course, which he just viewed as an unfortunate necessity). I'd like to see Damian return someday, hopefully when Luke is in a relationship, and see him deal with the reality of who his son is.

Luke being gay was a big factor in the story when Damian first arrived, and it turned out to be a big factor in the story at the end, but the main body of the story revolved around Damian lying and manipulating Luke to keep him away from Holden and the Snyder family.

But, that's okay. As I said, Luke was front and center in the story, and that alone is a step forward. And of course, not EVERY story about Luke has to be about him being gay. However, we still have a long way to go. Now that Damian is out of the picture, it's time for the story to focus back on Luke himself. He still hasn't come out to very many people, and in particular he needs to come out to Kevin. Rumor has it that this is coming in the next few weeks, and I for one am sitting on the edge of my seat in true soap fan fashion!

No matter what happens with Luke outing himself to Kevin, the next step is a relationship for Luke. They don't necessarily have to rush into this right away (although it should be noted that they didn't hesitate to rush the straight teens on the show into relationships in the past year), but they need to begin to build up to it. If they're going to keep the momentum of this storyline going, it can't end with Luke coming out. They're not shying away from Luke being gay, and they're not sidelining him as a character, so dare we hope that they actually will take the next step? Will Luke find love?