Friday, April 24, 2009

Rafe Comes Out

Rafe Torres, the first LGBT character in the history of The Young and the Restless, officially came out today on the show. I really liked the casual way this was done, with no drama at all surrounding the character's sexuality.

It all started with Lily Winters listening to her friend Colleen Carlton's woes about her romantic life, or lack thereof. When Lily spotted Rafe, who was recently working on a custody case involving her family, across the room she quickly ascertained that Colleen found him attractive and then not so subtly arranged for the two to talk before she departed.

Rafe and Colleen shared a laugh over Lily's blatant matchmaking attempt and then Rafe casually said "Obviously she doesn't know I'm gay." Colleen barely batted an eye before saying that they should go out together sometime looking for guys.

Colleen ended up accompanying Rafe to his friend Adam Newman's birthday party, where I discovered that Rafe does indeed have family in town: his aunt is Victor Newman's housekeeper. After making small talk with the other guests for awhile, Colleen and Rafe invited Colleen's ex-stepmother and her husband (who is Colleen's ex boyfriend), Victoria & J.T., out to a bar with them.

Victoria promised to meet them there later, and while Rafe was at the bar getting a drink J.T. told Colleen that he seemed like a good guy and that it was nice to see her dating again. Colleen informed J.T. that she and Rafe were just friends and J.T. predicted that Rafe wouldn't be able to resist her once they got to know each other.

Colleen: Oh, I'm sure he will. You, on the other hand...

J.T.: What about me?

Colleen: Much more his type.

J.T.: Oh? (pauses to think) Oh!

J.T. was just as unfazed by Rafe's sexuality as Colleen had been, which was nice to see. Rafe departed shortly after that, but not before he & Colleen promised once again to go out looking for guys together sometime.

That was it for today. I'm hopeful that this is just the beginning of a decent story for Rafe and I'm completely fine with a slow build as long as it's going somewhere. One of my biggest problems with As the World Turns is that they move all the stories at warp speed. Soaps should be about crafting a story and telling it well over time.

Of course, at this point we have no idea what kind of story they're telling with Rafe. It would be all too easy for him to be nothing more than Colleen's gay best friend with no life of his own, and that would be pretty pointless.

I think there will be much more to the character than that, though. Rumors are flying that he'll end up involved with a main character who is secretly bisexual. That would be pretty awesome, since daytime usually seems to ignore bisexuality completely.

For now, it's great that the top rated soap in daytime has finally acknowledged that LGBT people exist and has done so in a way that makes Rafe's sexuality completely a non-issue for those around him.

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