More Than Just a Kiss

My last post, at the beginning of July, was entitled 'You Call This a Love Story?' The question referred to Luke & Noah on As the World Turns. The answer, I'm glad to say, turns out to be yes, I call this a love story.

I was incredibly fed up with where things were headed with 'Nuke' (the requisite cutesy soap couple name that fans have given Noah & Luke) when I last blogged . You'll recall that the character of Noah had been added to the cast with much publicity as Luke's future love interest, only to hook up with Luke's friend Maddie instead. In spite of the stories in the press, we were seeing no indication that Noah was conflicted with his sexuality at all. He seemed to be written as completely straight.

It didn't get much better right after I blogged last, as Noah & Maddie were given a playful montage of scenes frolicking at a water park, set to Gwen Stefani's 'The Sweet Escape', which culminated with the two of them going to bed together for the first time. Luke, of course, had to walk in on them directly afterwards.

There were some slightly hopeful signs at that point, one being that the hook up happened not so much because of any passion Noah & Maddie had for each other but because Maddie had just been dumped by her imprisoned boyfriend Casey and Noah was reeling from an encounter with his father the Colonel, who'd informed him that he wouldn't pay for him to attend Northwestern unless Noah enlisted in the military and 'became a man' first. Another hopeful sign was the perplexed, unsatisfied looks on their faces after the sex and Maddie's post-coital question, "What was that?", which went unanswered when Luke walked in.

Not long after, Luke came out to Noah, who didn't seem to have a problem with Luke's sexuality but was confused by the fact that Luke was always avoiding him. Meanwhile, Maddie & Noah began to see each other, though Maddie confided in others that the relationship was more a rebound, a summer fling, than anything serious, and that things with Noah felt almost forced, somehow. Noah, of course, wasted no time in letting slip to his father during a phone call that he had a girlfriend.

Things finally started to pick up when Noah confronted Luke, wondering why he didn't like him. Luke confessed the truth: he did like Noah. In fact, he liked Noah. Yes, like that.

An excellent conversation followed in which Luke discussed some of the difficulties of being gay in a small town, such as the feeling of responsibility that comes with being the only out gay person most people know, the feeling that they're judging all gay people by what he says and does. He also mentioned how hard it is to meet someone when you're gay in a small town: Noah can meet a woman at work or in a park walking her dog, but it's much more difficult when you're gay and have no idea if the other person is or not. Or, as Luke put it, "What should I do, hand out a questionnaire to everyone I meet?"

I also liked that Luke responded to Noah's suggestion that he move somewhere else, where it was different, by pointing out that he shouldn't have to: his family is in Oakdale, it's where he wants to be.

Noah handled Luke's feelings for him very well and insisted that it didn't mean that they couldn't be friends, and Luke agreed to try. Interestingly, as soon as he knew about Luke's feelings for him, Noah seemed to shift his relationship with Maddie into high gear, pressing for her to go away with him on a romantic vacation, as if he were anxious to put himself out of the way of temptation.

Not long afterwards, Noah, Luke, & Maddie made a date to go for a late night swim at the famed Snyder Pond on Luke's Grandma Emma's farm. The pond has been the site of many romantic hook ups through the years, and it was about to play a role in another. At the last minute, Maddie was called away by a crisis involving her brother and his girlfriend, and Luke & Noah were left to swim alone.

The scenes leading up to the swim were excellent. Van Hansis played Luke's nervousness around a shirtless Noah very well, including sneaking a few lingering looks at the other man and then turning his head as soon as Noah looked his way. For the first time, the two had a bonding moment of their own as Noah shared something of what his early life had been like, with his mother dying when he was three and growing up with a strict military father.

After the swim, they returned to the farmhouse kitchen, where a playful tug of war over a towel lead to Noah falling into Luke. It looked something like this:
The moment was clearly charged with sexual tension and who knows what would have happened if Maddie hadn't picked that moment to arrive at the farm? Noah & Luke quickly separated and Noah made a speedy get away with Maddie in tow, leaving Luke confused as to what had just happened between them. He later confided in his brother Aaron that he was sure Noah had felt something, too, and that if that was the case, he wasn't just lying to himself and Luke, but to Maddie as well.

Noah, meanwhile, wasted no time in pressing Maddie to give up going away to college at Wesleyan, her lifelong dream, to stay in town and go to Oakdale University with him. Somewhat inexplicably, given her stated feelings about the rebound nature of the relationship, Maddie ended up agreeing and a skeptical Luke asked Noah if he'd asked Maddie to stay in town after their swim. Noah's slightly panicked response, "I'm not gay!" and Luke's quiet "I never said you were" spoke volumes.

And then came yesterday, the moment many soap fans have been waiting decades for. For the first time in daytime history, two men on a soap opera shared a romantic kiss. I doubted for well over a year that this would ever happen with the all too often sidelined Luke, even as I hoped they'd prove me wrong. After the amazing coming out story they did with Luke, I really wanted ATWT to be the first show to truly take it to the next level.

In yesterday's episode, Noah's father Colonel Mayer showed up in Oakdale to offer his son a bribe: a cash gift that aspiring filmmaker Noah can use use to make a film, provided he enlist and let the army make him a man first. Noah rejected the 'gift', but the Colonel was visibly surprised and delighted when Maddie showed up and Noah introduced her as his girlfriend. The Colonel pressed the two into joining him for lunch and ordered Noah to put on a tie first.

While they were waiting for Noah to arrive for lunch, the Colonel mentioned to Maddie that he'd thought Noah had made her up to please him. Maddie wondered why he thought Noah would have done that, though we viewers weren't feeling any such perplexity.

At the same time, back at the TV studio, Luke was helping a nervous Noah with the tie he'd been ordered to put on and Noah suddenly seemed swept up in the closeness between the two of them. Noticing the look Noah was giving him, Luke asked what was wrong. "Nothing," was Noah's response, just before he moved in for The Kiss.

And it wasn't just a quick peck on the lips, either. In fact, the two of them kissed, then pulled back and looked at each other, and then Noah moved in and kissed Luke again. And with that, a barrier was finally broken down, not only for the two characters, but in Daytime TV in general:
This is the medium where gay characters, if they exist at all, come and go in the blink of an eye, never having a real love story. This is the medium of Passions, where gay character Vincent turned out to be a cross dressing psycho who'd only seduced Chad to destroy his marriage as revenge on Chad and his wife.

As the World Turns is breaking new ground with this storyline and I really hope they'll keep up the momentum they've shown in recent weeks and move things forward with Luke & Noah like they would any other couple.

With Luke, the show offered us a character who, in the general scheme of things, accepted his sexuality fairly easily. Luke's issues were more about telling his parents and friends he was gay than accepting it himself. In Noah, they've given us a different sort of gay character, someone who is actually in denial about his own sexuality and struggling against his feelings.

The show does seem to be going all out to promote the story, even having a profile on Entertainment Tonight that previewed the kiss the day before it aired. Hopefully, the ratings will rise and Daytime as a whole will take note that telling well written, socially relevant stories, something beyond baby switches, back from the dead spouses, and 'Who's the Daddy?' stories, actually pays off.

At the same time I'm heaping praise on the Luke & Noah story, I should note that As the World Turns has seemed in recent months to take pride in destroying strong female characters, turning one woman into a high priced call girl for no logical reason at all while that character's sister became a drug addicted porn star. All this is happening while the show has slowly been eliminating anyone from the cast who isn't white. At this moment, there is only one non-white cast member on the show, African American police officer Dallas Griffin, who has been onscreen maybe five times in the last six months. It's no wonder that recently fired cast member Elena Goode (who played Luke's trouble making bi-racial cousin Jade) is said to have expressed a desire to join One Life to Live, where there is a more racially integrated cast including core African American and Latino characters.

So, yes, ATWT should be praised for not backing down on the Luke & Noah storyline (so far, anyway), but there is still a lot left to be desired before soaps are the socially relevant powerhouses they could be if someone had the courage to really change things up.

If you can, take the time to drop a line to support the Luke & Noah storyline. The homophobes are certainly going out of their way to protest Luke being on the show at all, let alone having a boyfriend, so any support helps ATWT, CBS, and Procter & Gamble (which produces the show) stand their ground.

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You Call This a Love Story?

It has been awhile since my last post. I was planning on writing a few weeks back, when the Daytime Emmys aired, but I ended up being too pissed off to do so.

As you know, Van Hansis was nominated as Best Younger Actor for his amazing portrayal of Luke Snyder on As the World Turns. Most people seemed to feel that Van and Jonathan Pelphrey of Guiding Light were the front runners for the award, so it was a real shock when the award was given to a very mediocre- and that's putting it kindly- actor from The Young and the Restless.

If Van had lost to someone with some talent- like Pelphrey or his own co-star Jesse Sofer, who was also nominated- it wouldn't have been quite as upsetting. But as it was, the whole thing was just like pouring salt in a wound.

I've never seen a better coming out storyline on daytime and I doubt I ever will again. Both Van and the storyline deserved to be rewarded, but I guess the Emmy panel favored mediocrity over a performance that actually had an impact on people's lives. Yet again, gay stories are patronized with a nomination and then passed over for something 'safer'. Of course, it wasn't so long ago that the story wouldn't have been on daytime at all, let alone have garnered Van Hansis a nomination. That doesn't make it any less of a travesty.

The worst part is, Van has been given nothing to do since last September, so there's little hope of him being nominated again next year at this rate. We can only hope things will pick up soon.

If all of that seems bitter, be glad I didn't write on Emmy night!

It's been about a month and a half since it finally seemed like Luke's love story was starting over on As the World Turns. I can't say that it has heated up all that much in the time since. A good love story on a soap should have a nice, slow build up, of course. One of the things I hate most about soaps today is their tendency to throw two people together and have them suddenly be each other's One True Love in the blink of an eye.

But so far, Luke & Noah's love story hasn't been on a nice slow simmer and it certainly hasn't boiled over too quickly. Instead, it's more like the pot is on the stove, but they've forgotten to turn on the burner.

Let's do a quick recap of where we left off. Luke had just started interning at WOAK, the local TV station, for the summer, and had finally become good friends with Maddie Coleman, fulfilling one of my own personal wishes, since Maddie always seemed like the perfect best friend for Luke.

Maddie & Luke ended up attending the Prom together as friends, although we as viewers only saw the traditional morning after breakfast, not the actual dance. Said breakfast included the first reappearance of Luke's former best friend/crush Kevin since last September, but I honestly wonder why the show even bothered to include him.

Don't get me wrong. I was excited to read that Kevin would be returning (though the initial reports were that he was going to be recurring all summer, and that doesn't seem to be the case after all) and I was hoping for some closure both for Luke and for those of us who'd been expecting something more between Luke & Kevin than what we were left with.

What we actually got, though, was a scene in the diner where Kevin & his annoying girlfriend Liv stopped by Luke & Maddie's table long enough for Kevin to awkwardly compliment Luke on his 'sweet ride' (his Grandmother Lucinda's limo) and Liv to let them know oh-so-subtly that Kevin had been a real sex machine post-prom, and that was it. Of course, his presence did allow Luke to stare a bit wistfully and Maddie to wonder aloud if he was still into Kevin, and that in turn lead to Luke saying that he's done with falling for straight guys and what he really wants is to have someone in his life.

I guess it's possible that Kevin's brief return, which inspired a cry of "That's it?!?" in many of us fans, might have been intended to soften the hearts of those out there who think it's bad enough that As the World Turns has included a gay character at all and hate the idea of him actually finding love. Perhaps they wanted to show those people just how lonely Luke is and how unfair it is that he doesn't have someone. The rest of us, of course, have been saying that for months without need of a reminder.

So, the prom and high school behind him, it was time for Luke to meet Noah at last. I was ready for a really good 'meet cute', that concept from so many romantic comedies where the couple destined to be together meets in an unusual, funny way. Soaps tend to adhere to this time tested plot device pretty closely.

Imagine my surprise, then, when ATWT gave the Meet Cute not to Luke & Noah, but to Noah & Maddie. See, Maddie had taped the whole of prom night with her cell phone to show to her imprisoned boyfriend Casey, in an effort to make him feel like he was there with her. The final bit she taped was her telling him how much she loved him, which she'd then sent to his cell phone. (Don't even get me started on why someone in prison would have access to his cell phone!) Only, whoops!, Maddie sent it to Noah's cell phone by mistake and when he met her he recognized her as the random woman who'd declared her love for him.

After Maddie explained the mistake, the two of them instantly bonded over their love of classic Hollywood films, before Luke came in and insulted Noah, whose work he'd been covering because Noah was late arriving in Oakdale.

So, Noah & Maddie meet cute and Noah & Luke meet... bitchy, I guess, at least on Luke's part.

Still, it was a start. Only it was followed by two whole weeks where we never even saw Luke & Noah onscreen. The show should have taken that time to show them working together, getting to know each other, but they didn't. Instead, the next time we saw the trio, Maddie & Noah were as chummy as could be and though Noah was trying to be friendly to Luke, Luke was still being a total jerk to him. That could have been another twist on the Meet Cute, I suppose, but instead it just came across as Noah being a nice guy and Luke being oddly mean spirited to someone he doesn't even know.

Which would be fine, if ATWT had then shown us some scenes where Luke begins to slowly change his mind about Noah as he gets to know him. Instead, they decided to focus on other (very boring and tired) storylines and then just have Luke fall for Noah all of a sudden, with no real build up. It happened when Luke dropped some of the videotapes he was carrying at the studio and Noah was helping him pick them up. Their hands touched and- Eureka!- Luke was in love.

Now, I did like the actual moment where their hands touched and Luke realized he'd fallen for Noah. It was a well done moment, especially since Luke thinks that Noah is straight and immediately afterwards had this perfect "Oh, God, not again!" look on his face that was both sweet and a little heartbreaking. What I don't like is the fact that As The World Turns didn't give us any build up to this moment at all.

Luke confessed his feelings to his cousin Jade afterwards and worried about having fallen for another straight guy, as he tried to offer both her and we poor viewers an explanation for his moment of Instant Love. After the debacle with Kevin, Luke explained, he had been hiding his feelings about Noah even from himself. Hence the being a total jerk to Noah most of the time.

I'll buy it, because it does at least make some sense plot wise, but I'm still not at all happy with the fact that they opted not to have any kind of a build up to Luke realizing his feelings.

In fact, I have to say that they've so far managed to make Luke a minor player in his own love story. We've seen Noah with Maddie far more than we've seen him with Luke, whom we still see only once a week most of the time if we're lucky.

Anyway, Luke decided to try and give his feelings a creative outlet. The three interns had been given the assignment of creating a summer project, a series to be broadcast over cell phones, with Maddie starring, Noah directing, and Luke writing. Luke is putting all of his feelings about falling for the wrong guy into his writing.

The show is taking the time, at least, to give us some idea of who Noah is as a character. We know that he comes from a military family, wants to be a director, and plans to attend Northwestern. We also know that he's got some mysterious issue with his father that makes him want to be far away from home.

So, of course, home is exactly where he ends up having to go. In this case, home is Branson, Missouri, where the the show has sent its younger actors for a rare location shoot. I won't bore you with the plot details of what is truly the most hideously bad story I've seen on ATWT yet, but suffice it to say that it involves Maddie, Noah, and Luke on the periphery of it, at least enough to get them all in Branson.

Luke, especially, was reluctant to go since he wants to spend as little time around his 'straight guy crush' as possible, but circumstances have dragged him into it, just as they've lead to Noah coming face to face with his disapproving father.

As the World Turns says it's committed to telling this story, and I hope they're not just blowing smoke yet again. But I have to say that I'm not liking the detour it's taking at the moment, which looks like it includes Maddie, upset and lonely after being dumped by the imprisoned Casey, and Noah, upset after a confrontation with his father, hooking up. Just in time, no doubt, for Luke to arrive and see them. That will play out in the next few episodes, it appears.

If that does happen, I hope that they'll at least give equal screen time to Luke & Noah when the times comes for them to be together romantically. Anything less would be an insulting cop out.

Meanwhile, some in the soap press have been raving about Maddie & Noah's chemistry together, which has many Luke & Noah fans worried that the show will take a detour and claim that it had to give the clamouring fans what they wanted. Since I see zero sexual or romantic chemistry between the two, I have to wonder if those doing the raving are trying to subvert the Luke & Noah storyline before it even really starts.

Let's just hope that Luke actually ends up playing a role in his own story, provided, of course, that it turns out to be the love story we were promised.

Van Hansis, I'm happy to say, wants Luke & Noah, or 'Nuke' as many fans have dubbed the pair, to be together as much as the rest of us. So many actors who play gay roles go out of their way to denigrated romantic scenes they may have to do in an effort to prove how straight they are (or, one suspects in many cases, how straight they're pretending to be), but Van is completely committed to playing Luke as a fully realized gay character. Here's part of an interview that he did with TV Guide Online that will give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

TVG: Luke has fallen in love with Noah, and it looks like ATWT is gearing up for daytime’s first real love story between two men. Is daytime ready for ‘Oakdale: Brokeback Mountain’?.

VH: Yes. It happens in real life, so why not in daytime? It’s funny, because people don’t ask that question when it comes to primetime TV. People assume [daytime is] a conservative medium — and personally, I don’t think it is. I read the fan message boards, and trust me: our fans are more than ready for this. Daytime underestimates its audience sometimes..


TVG: Hello —I completely agree! It’s important to note that the writers are always eager to tell these stories, but when you factor in the network suits, who feel the need to pee on the trees as it were, true greatness becomes impossible..

VH: It must be refreshing as a writer to write something new when you’re so used to penning baby-switch storylines! Luke is a character whom the audience roots for. Soap fans are very protective of their characters, and they want him to be happy – which, of course, includes falling in love..


TVG: Will Luke and Noah get physical on the show?.

VH: I don’t know yet..


TVG: Would you be angry if ATWT skirted the physical aspect of their relationship?.

VH: Yes, it would be unrealistic. If two people are in love, they just don’t walk around town holding hands. I would hope the writers include some physicality. If we’re going to go this far, we should do it right..

To put it bluntly, Van rocks.

Oh, by the way, don't even ask me about the 'down low' storyline on Passions and how it has progressed. It was just too insulting (and the show too painfully bad) for me to follow any longer. Sorry about that.

Sadly, that storyline and Luke's are now the only two glbt storylines playing out in daytime and there don't seem to be any more on the horizon.

A New Story for Luke, and Disturbing Passions

Its been over a month since my last post. Things in my own life have been busy and things in the world of Soaps have been dead, especially when it comes to gay characters.

Things may finally be starting to pick up on As the World Turns, though. Yesterday, Luke began his internship at the local TV station and made friends with Maddie Coleman. Luke has always been more or less isolated from the rest of the characters on the show who are his own age, with the exception of his cousin Jade, so it was really refreshing to see him finally spending time with one of them.

There was also the very first mention of Noah, Luke's potential love interest, who will be an intern at the station with them this summer. On top of that, Luke & Maddie ran into Kevin's girlfriend, Liv, who was full of talk about the upcoming Senior prom.

Luke had mentioned recently, during a conversation with Jade, that he and Kevin are 'sort of' friends again. Yesterday, the mention of Kevin getting fitted for his tux to take Liv to the prom brought a sad look to Luke's face, one that Maddie picked up on. Luke later admitted to Maddie that Kevin still can't really deal with him being gay.

Since Maddie's own boyfriend, Casey, is currently serving time in prison, she's dateless, too, and in the end the two decided to go to the Prom together.

Now, first of all, I'm glad to see Luke & Maddie as friends because they bring out the happy, playful side in each other that we haven't seen in either character for a long time. Secondly, if the show is actually going to show the Prom, that's a good sign, because Luke hasn't been a leading character in the last nine months and this would indicate that the show is ready to commit to giving him a story.

But most of all, I just feel sort of bitter about all the wasted potential. After a fantastic coming out storyline, ATWT had the chance to continue on and show what Luke's life was like as an out gay teen in high school. They also had the chance to build up to a prom storyline in which Luke went with another guy, even if they were just friends.

But Luke's senior year was wasted and you could be forgiven if you forgot for awhile that there even was a character named Luke on the show, because the writers sure did. The show had a popular gay character, played by an actor who'd become a fan favorite, so there was no excuse for them not to keep telling Luke's story. They had the chance to really break some ground and do something special, and they blew it. Typical.

So, now we just have to take what we can get as the show picks back up with Luke. I'm hoping for some good Prom scenes, some closure between Kevin & Luke, and I'm counting the days until the debut of Noah.

Meanwhile, I'm about ready to tear my hair out over Passions and their portrayal of Chad & Vincent. Violence continues to play a part in their affair, with Chad most recently choking Vincent before having sex so rough that the couple in the next room were shown commenting on how violent it sounded before dismissing it as 'passionate'. The encounter ended with Vincent going on and on about how much he loved how screwed up and angry Chad is, and Chad claiming that Vincent is 'making him' sleep with him, before pulling a gun on him.

The most disturbing part is that the victim of this rage and anger, Vincent, is being portrayed as loving it. This is upsetting on so many levels. The message seems to be, first of all, that a relationship between two men is all about sex, and second of all that gay men enjoy being victims.

Furthermore, Chad has been a character on this show for a long time and was always written as straight before this. Since Vincent is written as a character who just won't leave Chad alone, who keeps pushing him and threatening to expose his secret, I'm sure many are taking away the message that Chad is in fact being forced into gay sex with this gay man. The point should be that Chad wants to have sex with other men and can't deal with what that means about him, but it's not playing that way at all.

In short, this story is a disgrace. Why they feel the need to make violence such a part of this relationship between Chad & Vincent is beyond me, but it's sending all the wrong messages. They seem to feel they're pushing the envelope with suggestive talk, scenes of the two men in bed before and after, and loud sex noises heard by other characters in the next room, but it takes a lot more than that to tell a story.

It all brings to mind the expression 'Be careful what you wish for'. I knew this story wouldn't be good, since it's being written by James E. Reilly, but I honestly never expected it to be so troubling.

If there was more representation of gay characters in daytime, one twisted couple like Chad & Vincent wouldn't be so upsetting. There would be other things for viewers to compare it to, to see that it's not at all representational of gay life. But the fact is, Chad & Vincent are the first gay characters on daytime to be at all overtly sexual and it's being written as violent and destructive. What message does that send?

There's No Cure For Soap Fans

One thing you should know about a true soap fan: they never really give up on their shows, not for good. I can't count the number of times that I've felt like I did when I wrote my last post. It's a valid feeling, because the entire genre is in a sorry state, and you can't fault those who are tuning out for good.

But there's just something in a true soap fan that never really lets go, no matter how bad things get. Even if you tune out for months at a time, you know deep down that you're just waiting for things to get better, for the show to be something other than painful to watch again.

The great thing about soaps is that they go on. Day after day, week after week, year after year. They outlast meddling network executives and disastrous head writers and can rejuvenate themselves time and again, because the characters and the rich history are still there, waiting to be utilized.

A true soap fan knows this, and that's why they never really give up. It's also why, in spite of meaning everything I wrote the other day, I know that I'll be tuning into soaps for as long as they or I exist. They can get better, they can become meaningful entertainment again. Will they? Right now, it doesn't seem very likely, but the potential is there, waiting. We need a new generation of Douglas Marlands and Agnes Nixons to come along and for the networks to let them tell their stories.

That may never happen, but as long as there is a chance, soap fans will keep tuning in. If not tomorrow, then next week, or once a month, just to see how things are going with those familiar faces.

The End of the Line?

There isn't much to write about when it comes to glbt soap characters at the moment. On As the World Turns, Luke Snyder remains more or less in limbo. He's popped up a few times to lend an ear to his cousin Jade, but he's still got no storyline of his own. I doubt very much that he will until it's time for the debut of Noah, his future love interest, at the end of May.

On All My Children, lesbian character Bianca and transgendered character Zoe are both being written out later this month, exiting the show on the same day and leaving it with no remaining glbt characters.

Passions has become disturbing, as Vincent continues to blackmail and taunt Chad to the point where Chad actually began to beat his lover up, only to have it turn into a sexual situation. Yes, violence as foreplay! Just what we were missing!

To be honest, I'm feeling very detached from the entire genre. I've spoken before about how much I love it and how relevant I think it can be if done correctly, but the truth is that it's just a mess. It would be one thing if the genre remained entertaining while lacking relevance. Then it would be a guilty pleasure, at least. But there really isn't any pleasure here at this point, at least not for this lifelong viewer.

There isn't a show on the air right now that isn't insulting its viewers' intelligence or trying their patience. Even when they embark on stories that should be important, they do them badly or drop them mid-stream.

Soaps today have become a very bad parody of their former selves, and I'm just about ready to turn them off for good, even though I've been watching my entire life.

The networks and the people creating the storylines just don't seem to be willing to change, to try and fix this badly broken genre. Its been dying a slow death for over a decade now, and no one in the industry seems to grasp that all their 'solutions' are what is behind the condition to begin with.

Soaps should be about well crafted, multi-layered stories and multi-generational characters the audience builds relationships with. Instead, we get inane 'ratings stunt' stories that come and go quickly and often sacrifice characterization to ridiculous plots.

It's a genre stuck in the past in the worst ways (the characters are mostly white and straight, with some token minorities who often don't have much if anything to do) and stuck all too much in the Entertainment industry's idea of the present in other ways (anyone over 45 quickly begins to vanish or become a prop to younger characters, and no 'potentially offensive' topical stories touching on things like the war or anything to do with any social issue is ever really explored).

Oddly enough, the best soap in the old tradition of soaps that is on the air right now is a prime time soap, Brothers & Sisters. It's a show that centers around a multi-generational cast, with some actual diversity (gay brother Kevin has a love life that is explored just as fully onscreen as his straight siblings' love lives are), and they're not afraid to be topical and political.

I wish daytime soaps could still be like that, but at this point, I don't think it's going to happen. There comes a point when the quality of life outweighs the quantity. I wouldn't want to linger on to 100 years old if I had to spend the last 15 or 20 years of it bedridden and on life support. Daytime soaps aren't going to die out next month, but the quality of their lives makes me think it would be kinder to pull the plug now and save us all the suffering.

I'm still going to keep an eye out, especially on Luke's summer romance, but it's going to take something really special to win me back at this point.

Which means, I guess, that I'll have to find a new topic to blog about!

At Long Last, Love?

I just got home from a pretty tedious day at work and was feeling kind of gloomy when I got online and saw the news that at long last, As The World Turns is officially giving Luke Snyder a love interest. Finally! Things have been so bleak on the soap front lately that I've actually been wanting to just stop watching altogether. Soaps today increasingly seem to exist to insult the intelligence and try the patience of their few remaining viewers. But, maybe there is still hope.

It remains to be seen how well the story is done, but this will still be Daytime TV's first gay teen couple and that's pretty exciting. Plus, finally, Van Hansis will have something to do as Luke!

Actor Jake Silberman has been cast in the role of Noah, Luke's love interest, and will debut on May 31st. That's still two looooong months away, but at least the role has finally been cast!

Jake attended the Glaad Awards last night with co-stars Van Hansis and Jennifer Landon (who plays Gwen Munson), and I've included a picture of them below. Jake is on the left and Van is on the right. Luke & Noah will make a cute couple, so let's hope they get a really great, fully developed storyline this summer and become Daytime's first gay supercouple!

An Emmy Nomination for Van and Continued Lack of Real Story for Luke

I hope everyone is having a good Saturday. I also hope everyone who can is planning to join a march or some other demonstration between now and Tuesday, which is of course the fourth anniversary of the beginning of this whole travesty in Iraq.

Well, this week the Daytime Emmy nominations were announced and I'm really happy to report that Van Hansis received a nod for Best Younger Actor for playing Luke on As the World Turns. The Best Younger Actor/Actress awards are for those who are under 25 years old. If he were nominated again next year, it would have to be as a Supporting or Lead Actor since Van turned 25 last September. Of course, to be nominated next year, he'd have to be given something to do this year!

I'm really glad that Van was nominated. He has done such an amazing job bringing Luke to life and making the viewers care about this character. It's largely due to his performance that there's even a chance Luke might eventually have a boyfriend on the show, since it would have been all too easy for the show to ditch the character (as we've seen with numerous other gay characters, most lately Lucas on General Hospital) if Van hadn't succeeded in making the audience care the way he has.

The coming out storyline was incredible and Van did a beautiful job that deserves both the nomination and the award itself.

Even when Van is relegated to the background of a scene, he's completely in character as Luke. For instance, at the big New Year's Eve party, Van provided nothing more than scenery in the background, but there was a moment where Casey Hughes, a good looking character Luke's own age, walked by him and Luke checked him out as he passed. It was subtle and exactly how Luke would have acted. There's no way that was in the script.

So, congratulations to Van for a well deserved nomination. Hopefully by the time the Emmys air in June, Luke will be involved in a new storyline on the show.

There was a lot of buzz about a story that started this past week, but I'm far from pleased with what we've seen so far. First of all, it's clearly going to be another mini-story that wraps up in a few episodes, rather than an actual storyline. And secondly, it's not even really about Luke, it's about propping up another character.

Back when Luke had those great scenes with his grandmother Lucinda, in which they talked about how school is going for him this year, he mentioned that his essay had been nominated for the Devilibus Award but that he wasn't sure that the teacher who'd be making the final decision liked him much.

Well, this week we found out that the award, which Luke was apparently expected to win by everyone who'd read his essay, was given to another student. Luke played the matter down to his mother, but his cousin Brad overheard their conversation.

Now, you'll remember that Brad made some off the cuff homophobic comments when he first came to town a couple of months ago. At the beginning of this new episode, Luke and Brad were carrying some boxes for Lily and Brad complimented Luke on being able to manage the heavy boxes, since 'guys like you' aren't into that sort of thing.

Luke really let Brad have it, which was nice to see. Luke has always been a bit too understanding about other people's negative reactions to his sexuality, in my view. This time, he wasn't putting up with it for a second and made it clear that he didn't give a damn what Brad thought about him or about anything else.

Of course, the scene was played up to make Brad look misunderstood. He'd just meant that Luke was into 'school and books' instead of manual labor. Which is ridiculous, by the way, because Luke helps out on his Grandma Emma's farm all the time and Brad must know that. Luke is also a star on the basketball team. The idea that Brad sees him as being completely bookish isn't believable, yet it wasn't played like a cover. We're supposed to think "Poor Brad, he didn't mean it that way!" Please.

At any rate, once Brad found out that Luke lost the award, he questioned his cousin and found out that Mr. Ledoux, the teacher who'd been in charge of deciding who won the Devilibus Award, had decided that the award should be given not just to the best essay, but to the person who best represented the school, which of course wouldn't be an openly gay student.

If this story had truly been about Luke, we would have seen Luke and Mr. Ledoux playing out the scene in which Luke found out he'd lost and his teacher told him why. Instead, we hear it all second hand because the story was really about propping up the character of Brad and showing that, hey, he might make inappropriate comments, but really, he's just a stand up guy deep down!

Please. The character is disgusting and annoying (and badly acted; ATWT has one of the most talented casts in daytime, so it is beyond me why they went and hired Austin Peck, the wooden 'actor' recently fired by Days of Our Lives after years of 'acting' by taking his shirt off to distract from his painful lack of talent) and they're trying to use Luke's popularity to make the audience like him.

So, instead of seeing Luke dealing with the homophobia of this teacher and the loss of an award which really meant something to him, we get a couple of Luke & Brad scenes and then it becomes all about Brad luring this teacher down to the TV studio (where Brad's become a co-host of Oakdale Now, a local talk show) on the pretense of winning a Teacher of the Year award and getting him to confess that he'd given the essay award to someone else because Luke was gay.

After months of not seeing Luke doing anything but standing in the background at party scenes, it's nice to be seeing him more regularly. But Van Hansis is incredibly talented and they're completely wasting him by not giving Luke a real story of his own! I would much rather have seen Luke finding out he'd lost the award, and why. Those scenes would have been excellent, I'm sure.

What's more, not every story about Luke has to be about him being gay, and I don't think Passanante grasps that. That doesn't mean that they forget the character is gay, of course, but just that the stories don't have to all revolve around people's reactions to his sexuality. Other teens on the show have dealt recently with issues like gambling addiction and sexual abuse, things which had nothing to do with the characters being straight. They dealt with these things while being in relationships, too.

There is still no casting announcement on Luke's potential boyfriend, the storyline which was supposed to begin this Spring, according to what Jean Passanante told AfterElton.com.

While the show received several acting nominations this week, it should be noted that there were no nominations for the writing, and is it any wonder? Get it together, ATWT.

Meanwhile, I should note that over on All My Children the other week, J.R. Chandler was somewhat redeemed after the fact when he had an epiphany about how wrong it was of him to leave Zoe lying beaten in the cemetery. It was too little too late, in my view. Those disgusting scenes turned me off the character of J.R. completely, and off of the show, too. I didn't tune in at all this past week.

I did see that Zoe was beginning the process of becoming a woman, which included a pretty realistic consultation with a doctor and the realization that this is going to be a drawn out process with very real risks, and not something that can happen overnight. She also met with a support group of other transgendered people, played by actors who are transgendered in real life, which I thought was a nice touch.

I may try and follow this storyline a bit more now that the hideous Headwriter of the show, Megan McTavish, has been fired. This is the woman who decided that it would be a cool idea to undo Erica's abortion, destroying a television milestone in the process. Now that she's been shown the door, the show may be easier to watch. It depends, of course, on who they hire to replace her. I'm hoping for someone with some fresh, bold ideas who will also respect and utilize the history of the show in a productive way.

That's always the hope, of course. The reality is that daytime writing has become so stale because these shows keep recycling writers. Get fired from one show, and another scoops you up. Hell, you can be fired from the same show multiple times! This was McTavish's THIRD time as Headwriter of AMC.

I guess we won't see much advancement in ratings and story quality until networks are willing to hire new writers and- even more importantly- to let those writer's tell their stories without interference.

Great Scenes on ATWT, Stunt Kissing on Passions

As I wrote in my last post, As the World Turns is in serious need of some fresh talent in the Headwriter's chair. The show is seriously boring these days, and where has Luke been for the last six months? It's truly become Must-Fast-Forward-TV

But just when I'm seriously starting to despair, along come a few great scenes that remind me of why I love the character of Luke so much and of all the potential that exists with him. Last month, it was the scenes between Luke & his grandmother, Lucinda, in one episode that kept hope alive. Things have more or less been quiet since then, though, and I was beginning to get restless again.

But then today they really hit it out of the park, if you'll forgive the baseball metaphor, with some fantastic scenes between Luke and his father Holden. During the coming out storyline, the scenes between Jon Hensley as Holden and Van Hansis as Luke were some of the best I'd ever seen, and these two continue to have something special onscreen as father & son when they're given something to do.

In today's show, Holden & Luke were working together to fix Emma's tractor (Emma being Luke's other grandmother) and the conversation turned to spring break. Luke had been looking forward to the Senior spring break trip to Florida since he was a freshman, so when he told Holden that he wasn't going it came as something of a shock to him. When pressed for a reason why, Luke finally admited that he's tired of pretending to be having a good time when he's not. Not surprisingly, Holden's first worry was that Luke isn't being accepted by his friends at school.

Luke assured his father that his friends are okay with him, and those that aren't, well, it's their loss, not Luke's. Holden couldn't see what the problem was, then, and Luke finally came out with it:

Luke: No, look, I'm not trying to cut you out, dad. It's just -- spring break. Okay? It's all about hooking up. I mean, it's already started. Everyone's -- everyone's checking everybody else out. Figuring out who is going to get with who. And I don't have anyone. The idea of spending a week in Florida while everybody else is hooking up is not exactly my idea of a good time.

Holden: I get it. It's okay. You don't want to go.

Luke: No dad, I do want to go, it's just --

Holden: Luke, I get it. I just don't want you to think that you can't talk to me about what you're going through.

Luke: Did you talk to your parents about your sex life?

Holden: No.

Luke: No.

Holden: No, not exactly. But the point is, I don't want you to think that I'm second-guessing your choices. This is not easy. It's a small town.....

The balance between Holden trying to reach out to his son and let him know that he was okay with talking about these things, and Luke feeling the natural embarrassment that any teenager would have in talking about sex with a parent was beautifully done. The interaction between father and son was at once both awkward and touching.

Luke went on to admit that there was another gay guy in his high school, but that he wasn't Luke's type, which is an interesting point to make. I think too many people still tend to assume that two single gay guys would of course be together (especially in the soap world, where there tends to only be two gay characters at the most!). The scene reminded me very much of my own high school experience, in fact, because the only openly gay guy in my school (I wasn't nearly as brave as Luke, I was still in the closet) wasn't someone that I found attractive at all. Somehow, that made me even more lonely than I would have been if I'd thought I was the only gay guy around.

Holden tried to make his son see that there was no hurry to find love:

Holden: No, look, I just don't want you to think that you have anything to prove to yourself. You're young. I mean, you may not even be ready for a relationship yet.

Luke: Were you ready when you were my age? You were already with mom. And from what I've heard, she wasn't your first. Dad, I'm just like you. I want the same thing. I do know what I'm missing.

Van Hansis delivered that last line perfectly. He conveyed Luke's sense of loneliness, something that most gay teens have to deal with whether they're out or not, so believably that it made my heart ache for Luke. Pointing out that Luke is just like Holden, or like any other straight person, was important, too. He wants someone in his life just like everyone else, and hopefully these scenes opened the eyes of those who think that the coming out story is all there is to tell with a gay character.

Luke is a character that the audience really came to root for while he was coming out, and that's very important when it comes to any character on a soap. The audience is ready to root for Luke to find love, too, and if they weren't before today, I can't help but feeling that Van must have convinced them in these scenes, when he made Luke's loneliness and his longing for someone to love so tangible.

Holden continued to try and get across that Luke could talk to him about how he was feeling, reaching out in a way that too many fathers seem unable to do with gay sons. In fact, it seemed that Luke was the one who was most uncomfortable with the conversation, mostly because he assumed that the very idea of him being with a guy would make his father uncomfortable, no matter how accepting he was in theory of Luke being gay.

Holden: You know, I raised you to be the best that you can be, and you are. I just had to admit that I never expected you to want to spend the rest of your life with a man.

Luke: Let me get a date first, okay?

Holden: What I'm trying to say here is, -- you know, when you get the opportunity -- you know, you're a terrific person and anyone would be proud to know you -- what? Why are you laughing?

Luke: I'm laughing at you. I am laughing at you, dad.

Holden: What for?

Luke: Because I'm making you feel so damned uncomfortable.

Holden: No, I'm not uncomfortable. I'm just trying to find my way here.

Luke: Well, it's okay. It's okay. There's no hurry.

Holden: That's exactly what I'm trying to say here. There's no hurry. And I would be saying the same thing if you were trying to hook up with a girlfriend.

Luke: No, you wouldn't.

Holden: I would. I would. And Luke, I get it. I know what you're going through. I know the feelings. I know the desires. And I'm your father. I want what's best for you. I want what's best for all my kids.

Luke: Okay, dad. Whatever you say.

Holden: It's true.

Luke: And it doesn't make you feel uncomfortable? You know, thinking about me and another guy?

Holden: One, I don't think about it. It's not my business. And two, I would have just as hard a time if your sisters were with some boy. Maybe even harder. They could get pregnant. And all the rest of that stuff.

It was so incredibly refreshing to see a scene like this, where it is taken for granted that a gay teenager is just like any other teenager, hoping to find someone to be with. Even better, to see a parent dealing with the reality that their child is even thinking about having sex, while trying to show acceptance of their child's sexuality at the same time. It's a difficult balancing act, and I loved that As the World Turns didn't shy away from this topic and didn't write Holden as being completely confident in what he was doing. He was well meaning but awkward, as probably even the most understanding father would be. This whole situation is as new to Holden as it is to Luke, after all, and that was underscored later in the episode when he confided in his sister Meg:

Holden: It's just -- I don't know. Luke's life isn't exactly carefree right now. And I can't help him fix it. I don't even know what to say.

Meg: Did you guys have a fight?

Holden: No, no. It was nothing like that. We were just outside, we were working on the tractor, talking. I asked him about spring break. And he said that he wasn't going with the rest of his class.

Meg: Why not?

Holden: Because it's all about hooking up. Having someone special. And he doesn't.

Meg: So, it will happen.

Holden: That's what I tried to tell him.

Meg: So, what's the problem?

Holden: Well, the problem is, it was a disaster. I couldn't find the right words. I was starting to have this conversation with my son, I didn't know what to say. But there he was, taking it all in stride.

Meg: He was taking it all in stride because he knows it's unfamiliar territory for you. And he forgives you for it. He loves you, Holden.

All of these scenes were just so beautifully done today. Once again, they showed what potential this show has, potential they're usually wasting. These scenes especially stand out amid the wasteland of everything else going on right now. Which writer, I wonder, is responsible for writing these Luke scenes? Can we make that person head writer for the show and send Passanante packing, please? We need someone who can bring the depth and meaning of these scenes to the show as a whole, or there won't be a show much longer!

After months and months of doing nothing with Luke, it really seems like they're starting to build up to Luke finding someone. Why else would there suddenly be conversations about his lack of a love life? The scene with Jade might have been a throw away reference, but there can be no doubt after today that they're starting to head in that direction. But will they actually get there? And if they do, how long do we have to wait? And, while we're waiting, can we please have more scenes like today's?

All sorts of rumors are flying online about Luke's future boyfriend, but no casting announcement has been made yet. Given that the show tapes about a month in advance, that means we've still got awhile to wait before that story gets under way.

Now that I've talked about the good, I'll mention the bad. I'm talking, of course, about Passions. It's very sad that a show that knows it has been canceled, a show that has nothing left to lose, still isn't brave enough to actually show two male lovers kissing.

I cringed this week as I watched the sex scenes between Chad & Vincent, with the worst stunt kissing I've ever seen. By that I mean, the scene clearly called for the two men to kiss, so they pretended like they did. Very obviously pretended. We never saw their mouths actually come into contact and it was clear that they were just moving their heads together in a way that would make it look from behind or from the side like they were kissing. They can't show a real kiss, but they will show Chad reaching for the condoms on the bed side table and let us hear Vincent's voice saying "Oh, yeah, give it to me?"

What they hell kind of message is that, then? Kissing is too intimate, but that's not? Why, because that's sex and kissing is love? Reilly seems determined to show, one way or another, that two men can have sex but not love.

So, we have All My Children, which only shows a completely non-sexual man to man kiss through the viewer of a cell phone, and we have Passions which is supposedly telling a cutting edge story about two men on the down low, and they back away and give us some very obvious stunt kissing.

How pathetic! Daytime is still in the stone age when it comes to this. Prime time is making pretty steady leaps forward in showing gay men kissing as naturally as straight couples do (as any fan of Brothers & Sisters can tell you), but even though Daytime seems relatively fine with lesbian kisses, they act like showing two men locking lips will bring about the Apocalypse.

Well, it still leaves room for Luke to be the first. But will CBS and As the World Turns have any more guts than the other two networks and soaps? Or will Luke and this future boyfriend we're anticipating so much just hug a lot and maybe hold hands once in awhile?

Outlook Grim

Well, things still aren't looking up much since the last post.

In Tuesday's episode of Passions, Chad's secret lover was finally revealed. Just as I'd predicted at the beginning of the month, it was Vincent, the African American tabloid reporter. Like I said at the time, though, Reilly's writing is so awful that it was blatantly obvious who the mystery lover would be.

Anyway, Chad received a DVD from his scorned lover today that showed the two of them in bed together (no kiss, but two shirtless men rolling around in bed together is a first of its own on daytime, I suppose, and it did look like Vincent moved in for a kiss and Chad pulled away, which could be in character for him). Vincent feels that Chad is in love with him and lying to himself about it, so he's planning on showing Chad's wife the proof of their affair so she'll set him free and Chad will come back to him.

Which makes the kind of sense that doesn't, but that's Reilly for you. And of course, they waited to make the big reveal AFTER Chad had dumped Vincent, so that there was no risk of us seeing them having any kind of intimate scene together, beyond today's brief DVD view.

We'll have to see where this story goes, but my expectations remain very low.

Meanwhile, over on As The World Turns, there still hasn't been any development with the Luke storyline. He was on last Friday's episode, but just to lend an ear to his cousin Jade. They did briefly talk about how he's never had anyone in his life, romantically speaking. Hopefully that's foreshadowing something to come soon, but when Jade told him that he'd meet someone he said "Not in high school." Since he's still in high school on the show through next June, I really hope he's wrong about that!

Luke hasn't had a story of his own since the beginning of September, which means it's already been six long months. To make him- and us- wait at least another three is ridiculous. The powers that be told AfterElton.Com that Luke would be getting a boyfriend this spring, but it's almost March and there has been no announcement on the casting of this potential boyfriend. Unless they plan to get Luke involved with someone already on the show, it looks like the wait will continue.

It's incredibly irritating when you think about the fact that all of the straight characters in Luke's age group were quickly given love interests. The head writer, Jean Passanante, explains away Luke's lack of story by saying that these things are cyclical and that characters move back and forth from the front burner to the back burner. Yeah, they should, but guess what? They don't. Once upon a time, soaps knew how to balance their characters so they could tell several stories involving multiple characters all at once. They'd have A stories and B stories happening simultaneously and characters really did spend time on both burners. But that's just not true any longer.

Passanante is full of it if she really thinks we'll buy that cyclical excuse. I've been watching ATWT regularly since July of 2005 and not once have the characters of Paul, Emily, Dusty, Meg, Katie, Will, Gwen, Jack, Carly (until recently when the actress left for maternity leave), Casey or Maddie been on the back burner during that time. Not once. They move from one story (or relationship) straight into the next. The end result is that we quickly get sick of seeing these sames characters day after day after day while other characters, like Luke and anyone who's been with the show for more than a decade, languish on the sidelines with no story of their own.

It's ridiculous and it's a big part of what is killing soaps today. So, Passanante can try and sell her 'cyclical' line as soon as she backburners Paul or Emily for six months to give Luke a storyline.

As the World Turns is in dire need of a new blood in the writing department, folks. I fear a change could eliminate any possibility for a positive Luke storyline, but then again, what has Passanante done for the character since he came out? Nothing. And while she's been doing nothing, the quality of the show has gone vastly downhill. It's a very boring show at the moment, which is a pity because they have an incredibly strong cast.

Now for All My Children. Remember my last post, when I was sickened by J.R.'s reaction to finding a badly beaten Zoe in the cemetery? I figured the show would try and play it off as J.R. not realizing that Zoe was beaten but just thinking she was drunk.

Well, I was wrong. They didn't try and play it off, instead they wrote J.R. as fully aware of what he'd done and completely unapologetic about it. Which, in my opinion, makes the character of J.R. completely irredeemable.

Bianca found Zoe in the cemetery the morning after, luckily still alive, and got her to a hospital, where Derek, the Chief of Police, dismissed the attack as 'just' a hate crime, since Zoe was wearing a dress at the time of the attack, and refused to take seriously the idea that Zoe had been attacked by the serial killer.

This lead to a pretty good scene between Derek, who is African American, and Bianca:

Bianca: "Some random beating"? Derek, how can you possibly be so blasé about this? I -- I mean, you must know what it feels like to be targeted because of who you are? Your nephew, Terrence, was viciously attacked because of the color of his skin. Why are you not jumping at the chance to fight this kind of discrimination?

Derek: I will always fight against discrimination, but I was born black. My ancestors were born black. Zoe chose to put on a dress and flaunt her sexual issues to the world.

Bianca: I did not choose to be gay any more than you chose to be black any more than Zoe chose to be transgendered.

Derek: Well, in both cases, you can choose not to show everybody.

Bianca: Oh, I see. So you're saying that Zoe should pass as a big, butch guy, and I should pass as straight, and the law shouldn't be expected to protect people from going out into the world as themselves?

Derek: No, of course not.

Bianca: Zoe has been hiding who she is for her whole life. She's finally starting to embrace it. Yes, yes, she was wearing a dress last night, because that's what feels right to her.

Derek: Well, your rock star friend should've known that putting on a dress and strolling through a cemetery late at night was going to make --

Bianca: Was going to what -- provoke a beating?

Derek: No -- make her a target.

Bianca: Are you saying she asked for it? Did I ask to be raped?

Derek: I will look into Zoe's attack.

What I especially liked about this scene is that it tackled a very real view that does exist among many African Americans today, that glbt rights shouldn't be equated with the African American civil rights movement because they didn't 'choose' to be black like we 'chose' to be gay or transgendered.

It also touched upon the belief that somehow victims of hate crimes are 'asking for it' simply by being who they are, which is different from 'the norm'. There seem to be far too many people who are of the opinion that it's fine to be 'different' in private, but that if you 'flaunt' your lifestyle in public, you're fair game. Sadly, many of them are in positions of power when it comes to investigating or prosecuting hate crimes, and I thought this scene touched on all of that very nicely.

Once Bianca found out that J.R. had found Zoe the night before and done nothing to help her, she rushed off to confront him. Oddly enough, no one mentioned anything about J.R. being in trouble with the authorities for his failure to act. Isn't failing to call for help or report a crime in and of itself a crime? I'm not sure of the legalities here, but it seems to me that the police wouldn't just look the other way in that situation. Yet, of course, they did because this is a soap opera and no one but Bianca seems to think J.R. did anything that bad!

Both J.R. and his father Adam were true to form when Bianca showed up to confront J.R. over his actions. Both, assuming the attack was a hate crime, blame Zoe.

J.R.: Zoe was drunk, and if she hit on some straight guy looking like that, got herself pounded, it's not my fault.

Adam: A man has to learn to take care of himself, especially if he's wearing lipstick.

Bianca: She was lying on the ground bleeding, and you ditched her.

Adam: Why do you care so much about Zoe?

Bianca: This isn't about me, ok?

Adam: Zoe got herself into this mess.

Bianca: Are you saying that she was asking for it? Are you actually going to say that to me? You know, whatever you think of Zoe, Babe really cared about her.

J.R.: That doesn't mean that I have to save the guy if he does something stupid.

It really sickens me to hear this. I'm glad that Bianca is outraged and went to confront the asshole on this, but is that it? Is that how it stands? On the one hand, I'm glad AMC is showing the kind of attitudes that exist, but I really think they took it a step too far here with this situation.

I can't help but think of Andrew Athos, the 72 year old man who was beaten to death last week because he was gay, and of countless others who have been attacked and killed for being different. By letting J.R. get away with what he said and did with no further repercussions than an angry visit from Bianca, it feels like they're validating his point of view, which is that Zoe was asking for it.

This is coming from a leading character on the show that viewers are supposed to care about and root for, even though he's written as a troubled bad boy.

I really am disturbed by this. I think it's an insult to the victims of actual hate crimes. Perhaps AMC thinks it's okay since Zoe wasn't really a hate crime victim, but if they do they're sorely mistaken. J.R.'s actions and statements after the fact came from his belief that the crime had been a result of Zoe's transgendered status.

I'm interested in following Zoe's story, but I honestly don't know that I can after this. I'm hoping against hope that more will come of J.R.'s actions, but I feel physically disgusted by what I saw on this show last week and it's hard to get beyond that and keep tuning in.

Disgusted

Today was an upsetting day in the world of glbt soap characters. First off, Luke hasn't been seen since his wonderful scenes with Lucinda last week, though rumor has it he'll be back onscreen at the end of this week.

More awful, though, is what's going on All My Children and Passions.

I'll start with Passions. I haven't actually followed the show closely since the reveal that Chad was sleeping with another man. Knowing Reilly's writing style, I knew there would be no reason to tune in every day between then and February 27th, the day they reveal who the other man is, because there'd be no plot development in the weeks between.

Now, though, one of the show's two lesbian characters has been murdered. You may recall me noting last year that Passions had daytime's first African American lesbian character from a core family, Simone Russell. I also noted Reilly had written it so that Simone realized she was a lesbian only after the show's resident bad guy, Alistair Crane, hired another woman to 'turn her' into one.

In spite of that, Simone and this other woman, Rae, fell in love. I don't think they've had much to do since then, though, and now Rae has been murdered. Typical that they'd kill off one half of the only lesbian couple in town rather than one half of the several straight couples.

The show has been showing how grief stricken and distraught Simone is by this, which is what I'd hope for in this situation. But they've also used to it reiterate Chad's feelings about same sex couples. He broke up with his lover (yet again, this will continue forever with Reilly writing) over the phone with a hint of what was to come later in the episode:

Look, what we had was amazing but I'm not gay. I love Whitney. That's the only love I know, love between a man and a woman.

Now, Reilly is writing about a character 'on the down low', i.e. someone who has sex with other men but feels he's completely straight. Okay, fine. But it got a lot worse later. Chad happens to be married to Whitney, who is Simone's sister and who was trying to comfort her nearly suicidal sibling over the death of her partner.

Chad just didn't get it.

Whitney: Simone is completely beside herself over losing Rae, and I want to help her. I just -- I don't know how. Thank you for being here.

Chad: Yeah, well, I don't think there's anything either of us can do for her. I mean, it's hard losing someone you're close to.

Whitney: "Close to"? Chad, they were deeply in love.

Chad: Yeah, I don't think I'd call what they had love, Whitney.

Whitney: Well, what exactly would you call it? I mean, they adored each other. Of course they were in love. Simone's whole world is devastated because Rae is gone.

Chad: No, baby, I get that Simone is sad, ok, but couples of the same sex can't be in love with each other.

Whitney: Since when did you become so homophobic, Chad?

Chad: I'm not, baby. I'm just saying that they call them same-sex couples for a reason. It's all about sex. They can't be in love with each other.

Whitney: Wow, I, uh -- I guess I just can't believe what I'm hearing right now.

Chad: Well, baby, maybe I'm not being clear. Ok, I do think a man or a woman can love having sex with another man or woman. They just can't be in love with each other.

Whitney: Chad, you are so wrong. All you have to do is look at Simone and see that that she just lost her life, not someone that just needs to go bar-hopping find a new partner. If you ask me, Simone and Rae are a perfect example of a couple of the same sex loving each other very deeply. How can you see things differently?

Chad: Because -- never mind. (Thinking to himself) You wouldn't understand. If I loved the guy I was having sex with, that would make me gay, and I'm not. I just like being with a man.

Okay, so I get that we're supposed to be seeing Chad's conflict here. I really do. And it's valid for his character to feel this way. He's invested in denying to himself that anything can exist between two men but meaningless sex.

I just wish they'd found a better way to tell this part of story. It's really upsetting to see a character saying that someone who has just lost their partner couldn't have been in love with that person, but rather must have just loved the sex! It's insulting and even if we later see Chad accept his sexuality and admit he's in love with another man (I won't hold my breath), it still won't change the fact that those views were right there along side Simone grieving. Too many people out there already believe that being gay is just about sex.

I'm glad that they have Whitney presenting the counter point and are showing that Simone is truly grieving and was in love with Rae. But it's still frustrating to hear such things given a voice when so many people out there actually believe it to be true. It's a shame that Reilly cannot write with any subtly because it would have been nice to see Chad struggling to deal with how he felt without the heavy handed dialogue and the sacrificing of Rae to get to it. It would have been nice to see Chad express his feelings about same sex love in a context that didn't involve one partner grieving for another. How much better would it have been if it was Rae's death and Simone's reaction to it that opened Chad's eyes for the first time, really made him see that such love was real? Or, better yet, if just seeing the two women interact, without death involved, opened his eyes?

But, that's not Reilly's style.

If I had any confidence that this storyline might actually go to a place that would open people's eyes to the fact that love betweens same sex couples is just as real and valid as love between opposite sex couples, I wouldn't feel quite as irritated by this. But on Passions, there's nothing to be confident about. Hope for the best, but expect the worst with Reilly.

Now on to All My Children, where one of the very few non-straight characters on daytime met with violence this week. If I never see another glbt character beaten, it will be too soon! Granted, the actual assault had nothing to do with the character's glbt status, but what happened afterwards very much did.

I'm talking about All My Children's Zoe. In today's episode, she was viciously attacked in a graveyard after inadvertently stumbling across the local serial killer. Zoe returned to the cemetery after the funeral of her friend Babe, the killer's latest victim (who isn't actually dead, but that's another story and not a very good one either), to say a private good bye. The only problem was, the killer was there as well and Zoe was severely beaten and left for dead.

Now, that was incredibly painful to watch in and of itself, and as I said, it had nothing to do with Zoe being transgendered. It could have been any character who'd stumbled into the wrong place at the wrong time.

But what happened next made me so sick to my stomach that I had to turn off the TV.

Babe's grieving 'widower' J.R. came back to the cemetery to sob on a bench next to the graves (it was a double funeral, actually, for his wife and his mother, yikes!) and Zoe managed to grab on to his ankle to make her presence known as she lay battered in the bushes next to the bench.

After J.R. realized that it was Zoe laying on the ground, her face bloodied and bruised, barely able to speak, he had this to say to her:

J.R.: What? What is your problem? Huh? What the hell? What, did you get loaded, huh? What, did some -- some bad man hurt your feelings at the bar, big girl? Did you come on to the wrong guy? You kept playing him until he found out you were a she-male? What do you expect, you're not a woman, you freak! You don't have the right equipment. And no amount of booze will ever change that. You just had to bring your gender-bending game into Pine Valley, right? You couldn't just leave us alone.... Pathetic. You don't belong here... You tell me why a freak show like you should be able to walk this earth when so many people, so many good people, have already died. Answer me!

He concluded with this, before walking off and leaving her without help:

Want to know who you look like? The same sick, ugly, drunken trash you are.

I really couldn't believe what I was hearing. They wrote and played the scene as if J.R. was mistakenly thinking that Zoe was just drunk, especially since his final comment was 'Sleep it off', but how could he have not noticed she'd been beaten? Are we really supposed to buy that? And making it sound as though she'd deserved to be beaten if she'd been hitting on a guy in a bar! Oh my God.

Never mind that Zoe is into women, not men. J.R.'s assumptions are well within character. But the fact that he seemed to feel what had happened to her was justified.... ! Of course, if you read/listen closely, they seem to want us to think that he believes she got drunk after being rejected. But, let me tell you, watching the scene, that's not how it played. There's no way he couldn't have seen the visible marks of the beating, and the words seem to say he feels it justified.

It literally made me sick to my stomach. To see this person lying there, beaten, and hear those words spoken to her face brought to mind the far too many real life victims of hate crimes. If there were any depth to this storyline, it would be one thing. But there's not. They're clearly excusing J.R.'s actions because he was grieving his wife and mother. But there is no excuse. Were I a regular viewer of the show with any past liking for the character, it would have been destroyed by this disgusting scene.

It was just too much. J.R. and other characters have voiced disgust at Zoe in the past that has worked within the storyline to show the lack of acceptance she faces, but to see someone turn their back on a beaten person and have them assume that she deserved it because she's transgendered just goes way past the line of what is acceptable. It was just disturbing on so many levels, especially since they clearly are going to let J.R. off the hook with the whole 'I thought she was drunk' thing.

This wasn't a story about a hate crime, so why did they feel it necessary to include this dialogue from a leading character? And where do they go from here with this character that I'd sooner see dead than ever root for after what he said?

Things like this make me wonder why I even bother with soap operas, as much as I love the genre, or rather love what the genre could be in the right hands.