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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