Getting My Gay Soap Fix

Since the news broke that One Life to Live was ditching Kish, I haven't watched a single episode of an American soap. I fully intend to watch the remaining episodes of the Kish and Nuke storylines, and the shows are beginning to fill up my Tivo in a way that will demand action sooner rather than later.

The truth is, though, that I just haven't had the slightest desire to press the play button so far. I'm so incredibly disgusted with the people who are running daytime (into the ground), and I just can't bring myself to care enough at the moment to tune in.

I've always been a fan of the soap genre, though, and that will never change. In the future, I'll just be seeking them out from somewhere other than network TV. Lately I've been getting my fix from outside the United States, in fact.

There's nothing new in that, of course. I've written before about my love of Christian and Olli on the German soap Verbotene Liebe. I'm not sure if I ever wrote about the fact that I was a huge fan of the gay storyline that the British soap Hollyoaks did a few years ago, with John Paul McQueen and Craig Dean (dubbed McDean by their fans). It was a very well told story.

After the guys broke up and Craig left town, there was John Paul and Kieron, the hot gay priest who (eventually) gave up his collar to be with John Paul, only to then die tragically, in scenes that were very painful to watch, just in time for John Paul and Craig to reunite and ride off into the sunset together (yay for a McDean reunion, boo for killing off Kieron instead of keeping him around and giving him a new love interest!)

I've seen gay stories on other British soaps (Eastenders, Emmerdale, and Coronation Street) but so far nothing else had even come close to McDean.

That is, until Aaron Livesy's story began on Emmerdale. Now, I'm not saying that Aaron's story surpasses McDean, so if you're one of the very vocal fans of that pairing, don't place a price on my head or anything. I'm just saying that it's the only story so far that has the potential to come close.

Emmerdale, unlike the other British soaps I mentioned above, doesn't take place in a city but rather in a small rural village. There have been other LGBT characters on the show in the past, and there has even been a gay wedding in the village, but I don't think they've ever done anything as powerful as the story they're telling right now with Aaron.

The character of Aaron is a rather thuggish 18 year old mechanic who lives in the village with his mother's ex-boyfriend, local veterinarian Paddy. He's had a troubled past and has a strained relationship with his mother and an absent father. In spite of his demeanor and his tendency to lash out at people, Aaron of course has a big heart that he keeps hidden away. Last December, Aaron got caught up in a moment and nearly kissed his best friend Adam, who isn't gay (sadly enough, since they'd make a really cute couple!). Aaron denied that he was gay, and even insisted that he'd never tried to kiss his friend, and to prove it he began dating Adam's sister, Holly. (Aaron is on the left, below, Adam is on the right, with Holly in the center)


Things quieted down for a few months, but after Holly broke up with Aaron, he began trying to get up the nerve to go to a gay bar in a nearby town. Eventually, he managed to go inside very briefly, but it didn't go over very well. Aaron seemed disgusted by the men around him, and when the one guy he did seem interested in asked him to play a game of pool, Aaron ran out of the pub and beat up some innocent garbage cans nearby.

In the meantime, Paddy had become worried that all of Aaron's mood swings and secrecy meant that he was either using or dealing drugs.

Last week, Paddy confronted Aaron with his suspicions. In the end, he realized that he was wrong, but also figured out that Aaron was gay. Paddy tried to be supportive, but Aaron lashed out and beat Paddy up.

I was liking the story a lot up to this point, but the scenes that really blew me away and made me a huge fan were when Aaron returned to the house and broke down in tears over what he'd done to the only person who really cared about him. Danny Miller, the actor who plays Aaron, was beyond amazing in these scenes, and I think he's easily one of the most talented people I've ever seen working in soaps.
After apologizing to Paddy, Aaron explained that he hated gay people and didn't want to be one, that he'd been fighting it. Paddy told Aaron that he himself had only been in love three times and that he'd had his heart broken each time, but even so he'd never deny himself the chance to be in love again, and that's what Aaron was proposing, a life without love.

Aaron said that he'd rather live a lonely life than a queer one, but Paddy got him to open up about the first guy he'd ever loved and tried to get him to open up about his feelings for Adam, but at that point Aaron shut the conversation down and decided to leave.

I'm doing these scenes no justice, by the way. They're incredibly heart wrenching and my eyes teared up more than once. You can watch them online starting here or you can watch Aaron's whole story, going all the way back to last July, here.

This week, Aaron came home but he told Paddy that he'd sorted things out and that he just was never going to be with a guy.

Clearly, Aaron is troubled and has a long way to go, but this story has been incredibly well written and acted so far, and I can't wait to see what happens next!

One of the most amusing things about all of this, by the way, is that Aaron's co-worker at the garage, Ryan, is played by actor James Sutton, who used to play John Paul McQueen on Hollyoaks! I guess the American equivalent would be if Van Hansis and Scott Evans ended up on the same soap together.