A Soapy Jumble

Well, months have passed and we've recently learned that Erica Kane and Viki Lord will not, in fact, be living on. All My Children went out with a cliffhanger ending last September and One Life to Live filmed its own reported cliffhanger ending just days before the news broke that Prospect Park was 'suspending' their efforts to move the soaps online.

That's life, I suppose, though it's a big let down for the those who loved these shows. It's especially sad that both shows will have departed the airwaves with no real resolution for the characters that fans have followed for so many years.

I've come to accept that daytime soaps are ceasing to exist. I think we're already seeing the medium move online in many original soaps, and while it would have been wonderful to see a soap make the transition from TV to the Internet, just as so many years ago Guiding Light made the move from radio to television, it doesn't seem like it's going to happen, at least not right now.

This will leave us with a grand total of four soaps on the air, one of which is the soap I grew up watching, Days of Our Lives. I wrote way back in April that Days was going to be doing a gay storyline at long last, with legacy character Will Horton.

In the months since then, the show has introduced another openly gay legacy character (albeit one who had never been onscreen before) in the person of Sonny Kiriakis. Sonny is played by Freddie Smith, who most recently played a gay character on 90210.

Since coming to Salem, Sonny has faced coming out to his Great Uncle, the powerful business titan Victor Kiriakis, who was surprisingly okay with it. Sonny had come out to his parents, Justin and Adrienne, before coming to Salem and they, too, are supportive.

Once in town, Sonny quickly became friends with the other college aged characters, including Will, but faced some prejudice from Will's good friend T. The cause of T's gay panic was a picture of him and Sonny together, taken before T knew that Sonny was gay, which showed up online and referred to them as having a 'bromance'.

For a few weeks T hung around making homophobic remarks to Sonny's face and muttering threateningly to himself about making Sonny pay, but it seems that particular aspect of the story has now been dropped, which is a relief.

While all of this was going on, fans were left to wonder if the show, which had just changed head writers, was going to drop the Will aspect of the story altogether. While there had definitely been hints that Will was secretly gay (he put off sleeping with his girlfriend, Gabby, as long as he could and hasn't slept with her again since their first time), the show hadn't committed to anything they couldn't easily undo.

Recently, though, actor Chandler Massey has been able to confirm that his character will indeed be coming out of the closet. The show is still staying mum on whether or not Will & Sonny will end up becoming more than friends, though.

All of this is certainly something to look forward to, but the history of gay storylines on the soaps isn't exactly littered with success stories! Call me a glutton for punishment, though, because I'm once more along for the ride.

All of this makes me miss the days when Luke Snyder was coming out on As The World Turns and there was still so much potential ahead for great story telling! The coming out story was so well done and things looked really promising when Noah first showed up. Then, of course, the boys were paired in one stupid story after another, most of which had an end goal of keeping them from ever having sex.

Speaking of Luke, Van Hansis recently had guest starring roles on episodes of Psych and Nikita. He was fantastic in both parts, playing a bloodthirsty victim of the insurance industry in one (below) and a Russian agent in the other (below).
It was so incredible to see Van on my TV screen again! It had been far too long. I thought he was especially good in Nikita, where he not only got to use an accent but also had an incredible scene where a single tear rolled down his cheek and completely killed me. I'd somehow forgotten just how talented Van was. Hopefully these were the first of many roles to come.

Erica Kane and Viki Lord Will Live On!

Back in April, I started a post with the words "It must be a very sad day to be Agnes Nixon." Today I am thrilled to say that I could write the exact opposite about the creator of One Life to Live and All My Children.

Every time a soap is cancelled, false rumors fly that the show will be saved by some other network or by a cable station. Back when Guiding Light was cancelled, there was even talk that the soap which had been the first to transition from radio to television could be the first to make the transition to being a web soap.

Sadly for GL fans, that didn't happen. It turns out, though, that the thinking behind that particular rumor wasn't so far fetched. It was announced today that All My Children and One Life to Live, the two iconic daytime soaps cancelled simultaneously by ABC back in April, will both be making the leap to airing online.

While all the details haven't yet been announced, it seems that a production company called Prospect Park has purchased the right to air both shows online for 'more than a decade'. ABC said, in part:

"Prospect Park will produce and deliver the two long-running programs to consumers via online formats and additional emerging platforms including Internet enabled television sets. Under the terms of the arrangement, the programs will continue to be delivered with the same quality and in the same format and length."

For nearly three months, fans of both shows have been bracing themselves for the loss of these two television icons, and now they've been given an amazing gift. Questions remain, of course, and I'm sure there are also many older fans who aren't Internet savvy for whom this news doesn't offer much in the way of consolation. But overall, this is great news not only for fans of these shows but for the medium in general.

A whole slew of online soaps have sprung up over the last few years, many starring current and former network soap stars. In fact, one of the best soap news sites out there, We Love The Soaps, has a whole news section on Indie Soaps and has even presented the Indie Soap Awards for the last two years.

It will be very interesting to see how these two classic shows fit into this modern medium. I'd be lying if I said that my very first thought, once I'd stopped cheering, was to wonder if airing without network interference will finally open the doors to more important story telling.

Both shows have already broken ground in telling LGBT stories, but imagine how much better they could have been without a nervous network butting in! I can't help but feeling that if this had happened a couple of years ago, we'd still be enjoying Kish as daytime's first gay dads on One Life to Live.

In fact, if I were headwriter Ron Carlivati, the first thing I'd do when Prospect Park took over would be to get them to rehire Scott Evans and Brett Claywell as Oliver Fish and Kyle Lewis!

Speaking of which, Carlivati had announced that after OLTL wrapped he'd be joining the writing team at General Hospital. While that would have been great news for GH, I'm hoping that he'll be staying put at OLTL now that it will live on!

A Sad Day

It must be a very sad day to be Agnes Nixon. The iconic daytime scribe who penned some of the most socially relevant stories in the history of the medium just saw her two remaining creations killed off at the same time.

I'm talking, of course, about One Life to Live and All My Children, which were both cancelled by ABC today. They will be replaced by a talk show revolving around cooking and a weight loss competition.

Though neither soap has LGBT characters onscreen at the moment, they were both leading soaps when it came to telling those stories over the years. All My Children broke real ground when they became the first soap to give us a gay character from a core family, Erica Kane's daughter Bianca, who came out of the closet back in 2000.

One Life to Live gave us the first teen gay character on daytime back in 1993 when future movie star Ryan Philippe played gay teen Billy Douglas. More recently, of course, that show gave us the amazing pairing of Kyle and Fish, which included the first real onscreen love scene between two men, including showing them in bed together afterward. In fact, that particular scene was better than anything I'd ever seen on primetime on any network. The two men also became parents, but were written off just when the show could have broken even more ground by giving us a story about the first gay dads raising a child on daytime.

Those were far from the only LGBT characters or socially relevant stories that these two shows told over the years, though they were certainly right up there with the best. All My Children was the show that gave us television's first legal abortion back in the 1970's and dealt with the very controversial issue of the Vietnam War in real time.

One Life to Live was the fist soap that had African American characters in major storylines in the late 1960's, including the controversial story of Carla Gray, a light skinned African American woman who passed herself off as Italian in order to get ahead in a racist society. A decade later they gave us the explosive Karen Wolek storyline, about a housewife with low self esteem who was secretly moonlighting as a prostitute. It made actress Judith Light a household name.

These were both greatly important shows not just to daytime TV but to television itself, mostly because of the driving force of Agnes Nixon, a woman who knew that you could tell great stories that were also meaningful and socially relevant. Sadly, her successors in the soap world largely forgot this lesson and all these cancellations we've been seeing in recent years is largely the result of that.

The simultaneous loss of these two particular soaps is in fact the worst blow that daytime TV has ever been dealt. If you had been able to fool yourself up to now that daytime soaps were not a dying breed, you certainly can't deny it any longer. There will soon be a grand total of four soaps remaining on the air.

All My Children will take its final bow in September and we'll have One Life to Live on our screens until January. With nine months remaining and nothing left to lose from those who blamed gay characters for driving down the ratings, can we hope to see a final return from Kish? It may not be likely, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

This is truly a sad day for any soap fan, even those like me who have become disenchanted by the direction the medium has taken writing wise. A lot of television history and a lot of talented actors are about to be thrown out for what sound to me like two very short lived TV shows that no one will even remember a decade from now.

Historic Nuptials

I'm not feeling very well, so this will be a lot briefer than I'd like, but I wanted to write about the historic wedding today on All My Children. I still haven't fully caught up on the Rianca storyline, but I of course tuned in for the first LGBT wedding in daytime between two major characters.

I was pleased, overall. The ceremony was like countless other romantic soap weddings over the years, which was just what I was hoping for: an LGBT wedding treated like any other wedding between two people in love.

I was disappointed that they chose to shift constantly back and forth during the vows to another storyline, often having the vows as a voice over during the action of the other story. When soap couples, especially popular ones, finally tie the knot, they are usually the main focus!

Still, it was another groundbreaking milestone for All My Children to add to its very long history of being a trail blazing soap opera.

I hope this is just the first of many such weddings in the years to come on daytime TV.

Wedding Bells

There's another LGBT daytime milestone coming up in the near future: the wedding of All My Children's Bianca & Reese on February 16th! This doesn't give me much time to catch up on the whole Rianca storyline, but I think I'm up for the challenge.

This will be the first wedding between two major LGBT characters in daytime history, although technically the dreadful (not to mention homophobic & transphobic) soap Passions beat them to the punch with daytime's first ever gay wedding at the very end of the show. Minor characters Norma & Edna shared a commitment ceremony as the show ended its run on DirecTV, nearly a year after being cancelled by NBC.

This is completely different, though, because Bianca & Reese are not only major characters on the show, they've been engaged for awhile and also share a child. This is pretty groundbreaking stuff.

I'm not thrilled, however, with the news that Eden Riegel, who plays Bianca, will be leaving All My Children shortly. Tamara Braun's Reese will be remaining with the show, which doesn't really bode well for the newlyweds.

Still, the wedding itself will be a huge milestone, one that I hope we'll see repeated between many other LGBT characters in the future.

More on Nuke and an Update on Rianca

Now that several hours have passed and I'm a tad more calm about today's ground breaking episode of As the World Turns, I thought I'd share a couple of pictures from today's show. As usual, these come from Superherofan.


Kissing in Old Town, before heading back to Luke's room.


After their shower, both looking very happy.



Luke's smile says it all, doesn't it?


Also, it has occurred to me that I've been neglecting Daytime's only other LGBT couple, All My Children's Bianca & Reese. They're certainly farther along in their relationship than Luke & Noah, given that they're engaged to be married and the parents of a new baby daughter. Heck, they've even been shown in bed together at least once!

I haven't intended to ignore them, but I've not been watching All My Children and my intention to keep up with Rianca (the couple's requisite fan given cutesy name combination) on YouTube hasn't quite worked out. I really need to catch up!

In the meantime, though, here is a great interview that the actresses behind the couple- Eden Riegel and Tamara Braun- did with Out Magazine. Among other things they discuss As the World Turn's Nuke kissing ban from earlier this year and the lack of a similar ban on AMC.

Out: As you know, earlier this year As The World Turns reportedly banned its gay super couple, Luke and Noah from kissing due to pressure from certain political and religious groups. Will Rianca swap a lot of spit on-screen?
ER: There is plenty of kissing, I promise!
TB: There is no lack of affection here.
ER: It’s a demonstrative [love]. Having played Bianca for a long time, I will say this is the most demonstrative relationship she’s been in because Binks is in a committed romance for once. So, there’s no holding back in the physical realm. We’ve never been told to hold back. ABC is allowing us to trust our instincts.
TB: These characters are in love, and people in love show affection. Eden told me in the past each time she had to kiss someone in scene it was a big deal, which I wasn’t aware of. When she told me that, every time there was a kiss it was a big event.
ER: It had to be scripted, and it had to be cleared. It was a different time.
TB: I was shocked. I don’t know if I could have played Reese back then with those restrictions.

I love that they're talking about LGBT kisses having once been an event but now being no big deal. It's actually true on the only two soaps that feature gay characters. Luke & Noah have been kissing regularly for months now and Bianca & Reese apparently have as well. Now if we can only get love scenes to become as common!

I really do need to catch up on this story, especially since I happen to love both of these actresses. Eden won me over with her online series, Imaginary Bitches (which, if you haven't watched it yet, you should! It's so funny!) and Tamara was really fantastic earlier this year when she was on Days of Our Lives.

I wish other soaps would follow the example set by All My Children and As the World Turns and start introducing more gay characters. One Life to Live is so amazing right now, easily the best written soap on TV, and I'd love to see them introduce some gay characters and make up for that awful storyline a few years ago (when the show was being written by different people) where a closeted gay man was killing people to keep his secret!

Days of Our Lives has never had a major gay character and I don't think The Bold and the Beautiful (which is set in the fashion world!!) or The Young and the Restless have, either. I'm not completely positive about Guiding Light, but I think they fall into the same category. General Hospital, of course, had a character named Lucas come out right around the same time as Luke on As The World Turns, but he basically came out, got gay bashed, and disappeared from the show.

It's time for these shows to get with it and start telling new stories rather than the same old tired ones recycled over and over again!

Elections, Gay Characters, and Pink

I'm relieved that the election is over. Whether you think Obama being elected is the best thing ever, the worst thing ever, or somewhere in between, it's nice to be done with all the campaigning, all the rhetoric and all the hypotheticals and just get on with things.

When I say 'get on with things' I don't mean forget about politics and bury your head back in the sand. I cringe when I hear people say that they can 'stop paying attention for the next four years'. That's just so disturbing to me, to think that so many people feel that all that's required of them is tuning in for a few months (or weeks) every four years and then going to the polls.

What I mean, though, is that we can now focus on what the new President and the Congress do, instead of what they say they're going to do if and when we elect them to office.

The anti-gay measures that passed in California, Arizona, Arkansas, and Florida were a sad reality check for many who were rejoicing in the results of the Presidential election, or at least they should have been. Those of us in the LGBT community still have a long hard fight ahead of us, but my spirits have been raised by the strong protests being held against the passing of Prop 8 in California. No one is giving up. Equality should be a given for everyone, but having to fight for it makes it all the more precious. If you can, join the fight tomorrow.

Well, in the world of LGBT Soap characters, All My Children is once again breaking ground. Since the character of Bianca returned to the show last month, she's been joined by her partner Reese and received Daytime TV's first same-sex marriage proposal. Since the two are raising Bianca's child and have just had a child of their own together, they're also daytime's first same-sex parents!

All of this is pretty exciting in a medium where there are exactly four gay characters and Luke & Noah have been together for over a year without consummating their relationship, let alone talking about marriage or children.

Speaking of As the World Turns' signature gay couple, things have gotten pretty rocky for them again. Luke's campaign against Kevin turned nasty when Kevin's friends posted homophobic videos about Luke online and generally ran a smear campaign against him based on his sexuality. This brought up unresolved feelings in Luke about how Kevin treated him after he came out to him in high school and when it became clear that Luke wasn't going to win the election, he gave a supporter the go-ahead to stuff the ballot boxes.

It's sort of refreshing, in one sense, to see Luke doing something that makes him less than perfect. He has a tendency to be too good to be true a lot of the time, which is often a danger with Soap writing.

Things went from bad to worse when Kevin questioned the results and Noah wouldn't lie to the Dean for Luke, getting him expelled from Oakdale University as a result. This, to me, seemed to be more than a little hypocritical on Noah's part, given that Luke lied for Noah (to the U.S. GOVERNMENT, mind you!) for months during the whole Ameera mess. At least the show had another character call Noah on this very fact, not that it seemed to make any difference to him.

The expulsion from school, the strain on his relationship with Noah over it, and the loss to Kevin in the election have sent Luke over the edge and he's started drinking again for the first time since before he came out. Given that Luke only has one kidney and tends to drink to excess when he's depressed, this is not a good thing for the character, though it's having the effect of increased air time for the guys and gives Van Hansis something new to play.

I wouldn't mind that Noah & Luke had hit turbulence again (that is, after all, a staple for soap couples) if they'd actually managed to make love between their last break up and this one. When you've been together over a year and have broken up more times that you've actually had sex with each other, that's not a good sign!

Oh, by the way, one of my favorite musical artists, Pink, has a new CD out called Funhouse. It really doesn't have any overtly political songs on it, like her last CD, the amazing I'm Not Dead did, but I think it's a really strong album. It's more along the lines of the work she did on M!ssundaztood, the CD that made me fall in love with her music to begin with. It's not quite on that level, of course (I don't think she'll ever match the raw emotion of that album again), but it's close. She writes songs that are so rooted in her own personal life that you almost feel like you're intruding on her heartache (or anger, joy, etc.) at times.

So, check out the new CD if you can, it's definitely worth it! I've been listening almost non-stop since I bought it.

That's about all for now.

Luke Takes on Stereotypes; The Kiss that Wasn't

I meant to write yesterday, since theoretically I have more time to do so on Sundays, but it didn't end up happening. The upside of writing today is that there were some fantastic Luke scenes on today's As the World Turns that I can write about now.

After his involvement last week in the storyline about his younger sister's eating disorder, Luke had scenes today that tackled gay stereotypes from well meaning individuals and finally touched on what Luke's life at school is like.

They were exactly the type of quiet, conversational scenes that this show can do so well when it tries. They began with Luke in a diner, saying good bye to his basketball teammates before he was joined by his grandmother.

The conversation turned to how Luke's teammates had taken the news that he was gay:

Luke: Well, the good thing is that the team knows and everybody's cool with it.

Lucinda: Oh, you were afraid that they wouldn't be?

Luke: Oh, hell yeah. I was more afraid of telling the guys on the team than anybody at school. But, as long as I work hard, and act the same way on the court as I always did, they treat me just the same.

Lucinda: I think that says a lot for you and a lot for them. High school is not the most tolerant place.

Luke: Yeah, well, I mean, I still get some looks. But, mostly it's from people that I wouldn't want to be friends with anyways. So I think, yeah, for the most part, I'm pretty much comfortable with everybody.

Luke then confessed that he was a bit uncomfortable with the fact that one well meaning teacher had made certain assumptions about him:

Luke: She tried to get me to join the drama club. Because I'm so sensitive and she can tell that I have talent.

Lucinda: Oh, dear.

Luke: Yeah, yeah. Just because I'm gay, I've got to be artistic, right? It's like, in the by-laws or something.

Lucinda: Oh, people, darling, people and assumptions. Oh --

Luke: Yeah, I just wish they wouldn't do it.

And then came my favorite part, where Lucinda herself demonstrated that even the most loving, supportive people can unwittingly make assumptions.

Lucinda: Maybe you should have.

Luke: Are you kidding me? I can't act. I hate it when we even have to like, read aloud in lit class.

Lucinda: Oh, you don't have to do that, you can do something else. You can be a stage manager. You can work on sets. You can --

Luke: Why?

Lucinda: Well, that's so you would -- you would have your sports friends, and then you, also on the other hand, you have --

Luke: Oh, now, you're doing it, too.

Lucinda: What?

Luke: You think that, you know, I have a much better chance of meeting a nice boy like me if I get involved with one of the plays. But, for all you know -- for all you know, there could be more gay guys involved in sports than in the drama club, and the show choir combined.

Lucinda: Touche. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely -- I'm stereotyping -- honey, I don't want you to do anything you don't want to do. All I want is for you to be happy.

In a genre where, sadly enough, the only storylines gay characters ever seem to have is coming out and getting gay bashed, these scenes really stand out. I'm really proud that ATWT took the time to include scenes that establish the fact that gay people come in many different varieties, with interests just as varied as those of straight people. There are tons of gays and lesbians in the sports world, though of course most of them remain closeted. And they do so precisely because of assumptions like this, the idea that sports are part of the straight world.

Just this weekend, former NBA player John Amaechi came out of the closet, joining the small but growing ranks of professional athletes who feel they can only come out once they've retired. Hopefully one day soon we'll see pro athletes come out while still playing and help break down the doors for the many other gay and lesbian athletes out there.

So, bravo to As the World Turn's for today's scenes with Luke. They were made all the better, of course, by the talent of the two actors involved. Elizabeth Hubbard as Lucinda is always amazing, and it says a lot about the talent of Van Hansis that he can not only hold his own in his scenes with her, but give back in a way that creates real magic between the two of them. I love when those two get to have scenes together.

I was especially glad to finally get a glimpse into how things are going for Luke at school. I still feel this was a great storyline opportunity that they passed by, of course. We should have been able to see Luke at school, see him dealing with his teammates and teachers. But with Luke's increased presence in the last few weeks and these wonderful scenes today, it feels like things are starting to look up.

The coming out storyline is over, and Luke himself is happier than ever, as he told Lucinda today:

You know what? I am happy. I mean, yeah, things could be better, but compared to last year, when I was walking around and hiding, just terrified of who I was. Well, compared to that, I'm on top of the world.

What remains, then, is to move forward and let Luke find a love interest. Relationships are the largest part of what soaps are about, after all.

Meanwhile, the much talked about (in certain online enclaves, at least) kiss between Zoe and J.R. Chandler took place last Thursday on All My Children. If you can say it took place at all, that is. Remember way back in the early 90's when Melrose Place did that slow motion lean in between gay character Matt and another man, only to cut away to straight Billy's shocked face as he saw what we couldn't?

This was sort of like that. In a way, I'm relieved. As I said before the kiss aired, I want daytime's first kiss between two men to be between two characters who are attracted to each other. In this case, Zoe is a transgendered woman who is attracted to other women and J.R. is a straight male who has demonstrated on several occasions the disgust he feels for Zoe. So, I wasn't thrilled to see people talking about this first 'gay kiss', because it wasn't a gay kiss in any sense of the word.

As it turned out, it was barely even a kiss in any sense of the word, either!

First let me note that just a few episodes earlier in the week, the show had lesbian characters Bianca and Maggie kissing. They broke down that barrier ages ago on AMC and have kept it down. Watching that, I expected the show to have no problems showing two male actors kissing.

The set up was convoluted, of course. Babe & J.R. are about to embark upon a custody battle over their young son and J.R. has a cell phone photo that he took of Babe & Zoe sharing a bed (they're best friends, nothing sexual involved). To combat this photo, Babe & Zoe set J.R. up. While he and Babe were in the middle of a 'discussion' over the coming custody battle, Zoe knocked on the door and when J.R. opened it, she kissed him and Babe snapped a cell phone photo of her own.

We viewers saw Zoe move in for the kiss, but then the scene shifted to Babe raising her cell phone and snapping a picture. We did see a small, black and white image of the kiss, through the cell phone, but that was it. The scene then cut back to J.R. pushing Zoe away and voicing his disgust, etc, etc.

So, much ado about nothing. I was both disappointed that the show didn't have the courage to actually show this kiss and glad that the first real man to man kiss can still be between two characters that are attracted to each other. I'm hoping one of them will be Luke on As The World Turns.

Still, I do give All My Children credit for the Zoe storyline in general. It was especially interesting last week to see the reaction of Bianca's mother, Erica Kane, to the news that there was an attraction between Bianca & Zoe. At first, Erica was horrified that her daughter was interested in a 'transgender lesbian rock star murder suspect', but once she met Zoe, who is still clearly physically a man at this point, Erica was thrilled:

Erica: Bianca is attracted to a man.

Bianca: Oh, my God -- stop, right there. Stop, Mom, or else, I -- I can't be responsible for --

Erica: No, no, honey, I just want you to stop and ask yourself, what does this mean? Because -- well, this -- this man who's been standing here talking to me, kissing me -- I mean, this is a man. And despite all your protests, you are drawn to him.

Bianca: If she starts to say that this means I'm not gay --

Erica: Bianca, you've misunderstood. I completely support your -- your exploring with Zoe.

Bianca: Mom, why don't you just say what you really want? You want Zoe to turn back into Zarf, and you want him to turn me straight.

Erica: Bianca, please, I know you're a lesbian. I know you're gay. Ok? I accept that. But I was just thinking that there are plenty of people who happily go both ways. Look, when you go out with -- with her -- I mean, no one would know that she's a lesbian. All they're going to see is this successful musician out with a gorgeous young -- woman.

Since Erica wasn't exactly accepting of Bianca when she first came out, I thought this was completely within character for her to be so excited at the idea that her daughter might be less of a lesbian than she'd thought. I think it does speak to a feeling many parents must have deep down, even after they've accepted their children's sexual identities, that something could change. Society so ingrains in us the idea that to be normal is to be straight that it can be hard for many people to break away from that idea.

I loved the fact that as soon as Erica spoke the above words, Zoe came out of the bedroom dressed in women's clothing en route to her plan to set J.R. up with Babe. It made it perfectly clear that no matter what Erica may have hoped, Bianca is who she is and that's not changing.

A friend pointed out this week that I should be more specific as to how I'm using the term 'trans' since it can mean more than one thing. With regards to Zoe and to the previously mentioned Azure C on The City, I'm referring to transgendered characters. Azure C was the first on daytime, but was post-op when she debuted. Zoe is the first pre-op transgendered character on daytime.

This same friend pointed out that General Hospital had the first transvestite character on daytime years ago, back in the days when Luke & Laura were on the run. I wasn't aware of this particular milestone, but there was a hit man who was after them and who dressed in drag. There was debate over whether or not this character was in drag just to get to them, or whether he was actually a transvestite, but this character also hit on Luke.

Well, that's all I have time for tonight. I swear, one of these days I'm going to do a post that isn't just about soaps.

Checking In

Well, I've more or less abandoned the post I was working on. The longer it took me to finish it, the less I thought it worth posting at all.

I will be posting about something other than gay soap opera characters on this blog, for those who are wondering. I have many interests outside of this particular topic. With that said, this post is going to be about... gay soap characters.

So, things do seem to be looking up a bit for Luke on As The World Turns. He still doesn't have his own storyline, but for the first time since last fall, he's at least getting involved in other storylines. On Friday's episode, Luke seemed to put the pieces together and realize that his younger sister, Faith, is developing an eating disorder. It was great to see Luke in scenes with his sisters and to see Van Hansis have something to do besides stand in the background. It looks like his involvement will continue into next week, at least, and as I posted the other day, he should have a love interest of his own by spring!

Meanwhile, I haven't commented yet on All My Children's groundbreaking new character. Zarf is a male rock star who has accepted the fact that he is a woman trapped in a man's body. She is now going by the name Zoe and finding varying degrees of acceptance and rejection all over town. While daytime has had a trans character before (the defunct soap The City had the honor of daytime's first trans character, Azure C), this is the first pre-op trans character and really a far more groundbreaking storyline in that sense.

I'm not a usual AMC follower, but I have started taping it recently to see how they're doing both with the Zoe storyline and with the newly returned character of Bianca, daytime's first lesbian character from a core family.

Now, I came late to this storyline, so I don't have all the facts at my fingertips just yet, but from what I have seen so far, Zoe seems to have found true acceptance from Babe, a leading character on the show, while also finding it in varying degrees from other female characters like Colby (a teenage character who this last week said she was "totally down with the whole trans thing"). Some of the male characters seem to be trying to remember to say Zoe instead of Zarf and she instead of he, though only one, Joshua, seems truly comfortable with it. Others, most notably Adam Chandler, refer to Zoe with disgust as 'It', 'that deviant', 'that freak', etc, etc, and Adam and his son J.R. seem intent on using Babe's friendship with Zoe as grounds for her being an unfit mother to J.R. and Babe's son.

It doesn't help that there is a serial killer knocking off the women of Pine Valley and Zoe is a leading suspect, of course. When I first tuned into this story, Zoe was in a prison cell. But there seemed to be quite a bit of animosity towards her from male characters who believed she was guilty, and yet a lot of their feelings were expressed in ways that seemed based on her being a person who is preparing to undergo gender reassignment, as if that makes her such a freak that of course being a serial killer of women would only be one step away!

Another twist to this story is that Zoe is in love with Bianca, the show's lesbian character. Since transgendered people aren't necessarily gay or lesbian, I think the show is making a strong point with the fact that even though Zoe was born in the body of man, she's attracted to women. Many would assume that because Zarf 'wants to be a woman', he's attracted to other men. I think the show is making a strong point here that that's not necessarily the case and that gender and sexuality are two separate issues.

Bianca recently returned to Pine Valley after her lover, Maggie, cheated on her. Maggie has returned as well to win Bianca back and there was an interesting confrontation this last week between Maggie and Zoe in which the character of Maggie demonstrated that bias can exist even within the glbt community, especially towards people who are transgendered.

Maggie: Bianca couldn't love you. I know all about you. Zarf, Zoe, gay, straight -- whatever. The media is very clear about your disorder.

Zoe: It's not a disorder.

Maggie: Ok, well, I'm a med student, and it's in my psych manual. Gender dysphoria.

I waited for Zoe to point out that not so long ago being gay or lesbian was considered to be a mental disorder according to those same textbooks, but she didn't. Still, I thought it was a good scene that demonstrated that prejudice does exist within the glbt community just as it does anywhere else. I think in general, the show is doing a good job of not backing down showing the sort of prejudice that comes from all sides for transgendered people.

It will be interesting to see where this storyline goes, if the show has the guts to stick with it. There is a lot of hype that in the coming week, AMC will feature daytime's first man on man kiss, between Zoe and J.R. Chandler. I take issue with this. First of all, though played by a male actor, the character of Zoe is essentially a female. Second of all, J.R. Chandler is a straight male character. Thirdly, Zoe is in love with Bianca and J.R. is married to Babe. So, whatever the circumstances behind this kiss, I don't accept it as daytime's first gay kiss, though I guess it will be the first time two men kiss on screen. Groundbreaking in its own way, but still not quite what I'm looking forward to, which is two male characters who are attracted to each other kissing.

I forced myself to record Passions on Friday for the big reveal that the character Chad is sleeping with another man. Before I get into that, I should note that James E. Reilly was fired as Head Writer of Days of Our Lives last year and in the months since the show has turned around so completely that I'd honestly forgotten (blocked out?) just how bad Reilly truly is. The slow moving plot lines filled with the same dialogue repeated by the same characters day after day after day, the constant use of flashbacks as filler, the nonsensical motivations and plot devices that litter the canvas. It's literally painful to watch, especially when you see some of the actors and actresses really trying to do the best they can with what little they've been given. I'm so glad that era is over for Days of Our Lives.

As much as I detest Reilly and what he's done to the genre of Soap Operas, I still wouldn't have wished Passions canceled outright, unless it was going to be replaced by a new soap. Sadly, it is being replaced by a fourth hour of the Today show and Days will become NBC's only soap. It really is a sad state of affairs for fans of the genre. But, as I've said, until soaps are willing to tell stories that really have some meaning, stories that are new and not the same old crap again and again, the genre is on life support and may flatline at any moment.

We need to see stories that are based, first of all, on characters and not plots. On a soap, we live with these characters on a daily basis for decades and that's what we like. We know when a character is being sacrificed for a plot, made to act in a way that character would never act. We also want to see stories about all sorts of characters, not just the 20-something straight, white characters that make up 99% of the stories we see today. Soaps have multi-generational casts for a reason, but these days any character over 45 is barely used. Gay characters barely exist, and if you're not a white character, your chances of having a storyline are vastly diminished on most soaps.

This is a genre locked into a different age and ratings are reflecting that. It doesn't have to be that way. Soaps need to get real and start telling stories that have an impact. And networks need to let them do so, which is a big part of the problem. Networks don't want to take any risks in daytime and frequently shoot down any innovative storyline that gets proposed.

It's a sad state of affairs. Soaps could still compete in a major way if given a chance to be bold and topical. Why not write storylines about the war in Iraq instead of yet another baby switch? It worked beautifully for AMC during the Vietnam era. Why not write a storyline about gay marriage instead of yet another heterosexual love triangle?

There are so many possibilities for this genre, but if they keep going down this road, there won't be any daytime soaps left on the air.

With that digression out of the way, let's get back to Chad. In Friday's episode, Chad discussed his affair with Jared, who apparently knows about it (but not, presumably, about the gender of Chad's lover), and informed him that it was just sex, that he loves his wife. Shortly afterward, Chad received a phone call from the mystery lover. Chad reminded him that it was over, but apparently Mystery Lover was laying on the dirty talk because before you could say "Closet Case", Chad was turned on and agreeing to meet 'one last time'.

The big 'reveal' came as Chad arrived at a sleazy motel with a box of condoms and a bottle of booze and waited on the bed, knocking back a drink and taking off his shirt. When the door opened and Chad greeted his lover with "Better late than never", we viewers saw a clearly male body from the neck down wearing gloves so that no skin at all was shown.

My reaction: eh. I wasn't impressed. If they manage to tell a storyline about Chad actually struggling with his sexuality, I will be shocked. Plus, when Reilly is writing you can see every twist coming a mile away because the man has no subtlety. Case in point: on Days of Our Lives, he wrote a storyline in which Hope & Bo's toddler son, Zach, was hit by a car and killed. This would have been a shocking twist if he hadn't had Hope suddenly start talking dramatically about how she'd never be able to go on if she lost a child, etc, etc, about three weeks before the accident. Yes, he's that bad of a writer.

So, I think I already know who the mystery lover must be. Earlier in the episode, Chad came to the rescue of Ethan, who was being confronted by a tabloid reporter. After the reporter, a handsome African American man, left them alone, Chad told Ethan not to worry, that he'd take care of it by 'giving him something else to chew on'. Ethan responded: "What are you going to do, throw him a bone?" I don't need to wait until February 27th, when mystery lover is revealed, to know where Reilly is headed with dialogue like that. Plus, Reilly seems to be intent on telling a 'down low' storyline, so I'm sure in his mind both characters have to African American men. As far as I'm aware, Chad is the only African American male cast member other than his father-in-law and I don't think Reilly would go there.

I want to like this storyline, I want it to be well done. But I know from experience that Reilly doesn't work that way. When finally forced to tell storylines on Days that were more realistic, he came up with stories that should have been decent, stories about the aftermath of losing a leg, about post-partum depression, about the loss of a child. And yet, they turned out to be just as badly written and unbelievable as the most outlandish storylines he'd ever done. I have a feeling this Chad storyline on Passions will go much the same way.