I'm not sure what I have to say about the state of gays on Soaps Operas. The good news is that Luke & Noah, after the stalwart Kiss Campaign and media blitz waged by Nuke Fans, are finally kissing more frequently on As the World Turns. The bad news is that the show keeps coming up with silly reasons for them not to make love.
To recap from where we left off: Noah married Iraqi refugee Ameera, to keep her in the country, which kept the boys from being able to be together. Eventually, Noah's psycho father escaped from prison (where he was serving time for the murder of Noah's mother and the attempted murder of Luke) and took Ameera hostage in New York City, where for some inexplicable reason she was to be handed over to mysterious people who wanted her, in return for him being smuggled out of the country to freedom. Ooookay.
Of course, Luke & Noah tracked them down. Noah had just managed to convince his father that he should let Ameera go when Luke arrived with the police and Colonel Mayer jumped into the river, drowning himself. No body was found, which in soap world means he'll pop back up in six months to a year.
With that behind them and Ameera officially giving Noah his freedom and leaving town (thank God!), the path was finally clear for the boys to be together... right?
Oh, you silly, silly person. Of course it wasn't! You see, Noah blamed Luke for showing up with the police just when dear old Dad was thinking about being a human being for a second or two. Noah needed 'a break' from Luke, which quickly became a break up.
All hope was lost, until Cyndi Lauper rolled into town for Oakdale Pride (daytime's first ever pride event, I might note) and managed to reunite Luke & Noah through the power of song. Don't you love it when gay friendly pop divas show up and do that?
Seriously, though, that was one of the better episodes that As the World Turns had done in a long while and Cyndi Lauper is completely awesome and a great ally to gays and lesbians. I wish the Nuke story was half as awesome as she is.
Anyway, Luke & Noah reunited at Cyndi's concert and Luke told Noah that he wanted that to be The Night for them. You know, THE night. But, Holy Plot Contrivance!, Noah stunned Luke with the news that he couldn't deflower him back at the farm as requested. Why? He'd joined the army and had to report for induction!
The show tried to spin it as Noah dealing with the loss of his father by doing the one thing his father always wanted him to do, but the whole thing was ridiculous from start to finish. Luke followed Noah and outed him as his boyfriend in front of some recruiters, but they turned a deaf ear, as did the head recruiter when Noah came out to him directly. He warned Noah that if he reported that, Noah may or may not be allowed to enlist and gave him a chance to take it back.
Noah decided not to sign the final papers and the story was wrapped up pretty quickly, thankfully, but it was a mess all the same. Their timely intention may have been to comment upon Don't Ask, Don't Tell and the way that gays are frequently allowed to serve during war time when they're needed but forced out the rest of the time, but the way they went about it was very haphazardly thrown together.
With all that behind them, Noah and Luke have gone back a few steps and returned to Not Having Sex because they're both living under Grandma Emma's roof on the farm and it's against her rules that unmarried people hook up in her house. (The show even had Luke & Noah comment on the fact that Luke's newly divorced cousin Jack was breaking the rules with his new girlfriend Janet while Emma was out of town, but then they're straight!)
I'd love it if Noah & Luke sat Emma down and pointed out that they're not ALLOWED to marry each other in Illinois, or better yet if they flew off to California or Massachusetts and came back and hung a marriage license on their bedroom door for all to see as they went at it on the other side! But I don't see that happening any time soon.
At least the characters are acknowledging the situation. It would be far worse if they were being presented as naturally chaste. A frustrated Luke recently pointed out to Noah that there is no real reason for them not to be having sex and asked "So why aren't we?" Noah's romantic response was that he wants it to be special, not just something that happens because they're alone on the farm for half an hour, blah blah blah. And I'm all for that. It SHOULD be special. But, more importantly, it should HAPPEN. And soon.
Making all of this worse is the fact that Luke's teen cousin Parker, played by a real life 15 year old, has become sexually active before Luke! Of course, Parker is having sex with a girl, so I guess that makes it moral and just fine to show on daytime. Never mind the fact that said Girl is his cousin by adoption (and played in real life by a 21 year old actress, which makes the whole situation even more uncomfortable to watch onscreen!).
In addition to (straight) Teen Sex, the show is of course also indulging in that time honored daytime tradition, Adultery, in this case between Luke's father Holden and Carly, the ex-wife of Holden's cousin Jack. Then there is Casey Hughes, who is Luke's age, and is having an affair with 40-something Emily Stewart, who also happens to have a child with Casey's father.
And, of course, several characters are being mysteriously poisoned by an unknown person.
So, let's put this in perspective:
~ Straight, underage teen sex between cousins- okay for daytime viewing.
~ Adultery between straight, former in-laws: okay for daytime viewing.
~ Straight Sex Between a 40 something woman and a young college student who is the brother of her son: okay for daytime viewing.
~ Attempted Murder: okay for daytime viewing
~ Two men deeply in love and completely faithful to each other consummating their nearly year old relationship: Keep dreaming!
Still, they are letting them kiss more (see below for the most recent example, borrowed from Superherofan's Nuke site) and they're not shying away from sex as a topic of conversation between them, at least, so all hope isn't completely lost. In recent weeks, though, Luke & Noah have mostly been involved in the acrimonious break up between Luke's parents. Considering the quality of their recent story lines, maybe it's a good thing to have them take a break for a bit from a story of their own, lest the writers have Noah join the circus and Luke come down with a special sort of amnesia that makes him think he's straight. Wait, I shouldn't be giving them ideas!
The other thing that should be noted is that while Van Hansis was once again deservedly nominated for a Best Younger Actor Daytime Emmy this year (the last year he was eligible for that category), he lost for the second year in a row. Van is one of the most talented actors in the medium and the fact that he has been passed over twice for an Emmy is incredibly sad.
Luke & Noah are still the only gays on daytime, though apparently the primetime spin off of General Hospital (oh-so-creatively entitled General Hospital: Night Shift); which airs on Soap Net, has introduced a gay doctor. Given their track record with the gay character of Lucas Jones, who came out around the same time as ATWT's Luke Snyder, and who stuck around only long enough to come out and be gay bashed before disappearing from the show, I don't know how much hope to hold out for this new character. Rumor has it, though, that he may make the transition to the daytime version of the show.
Meanwhile, just when you thought that the now defunct Passions had done quite enough in its nine year run, they managed to air daytime's first gay wedding. Of course, it didn't actually air on network TV, since Passions had moved to DirectTv after being cancelled last year by NBC. But it's still worth noting that the show that gave us the first African American lesbian character in daytime and the first Down Low storyline (though it turned out that Vincent was a hermaphrodite and Chad was sleeping with his female parts, not his male parts), ended with a milestone gay wedding between Norma & Edna, two middle aged lesbian characters, before going off the air.
When you read about such stories, you might almost think Passions broke some important ground, but of course the stories themselves were often completely unwatchable, so I don't really know just how much impact they had.
It will be interesting to see if other shows begin to incorporate gay characters any time soon. Luke & Noah have been together for close to a year now and have shared several kisses. The world hasn't ended and in fact the pairing has become one of the most popular on the show. Will they remain a one of a kind story, or will other shows try and capitalize on the popularity of the pairing for themselves? With daytime starved for ratings and any increased attention from viewers that they can get, they'd be stupid not to. But then, if you knew how many times the Powers that Be in daytime had demonstrated their stupidity in the last few years, you'd probably lose whatever slim hope you were holding on to.
