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.