On
July 8th, All My Children's lesbian teenager
Bianca will be raped by the show's current villian, Michael
Cambias--at least, this is the rumor (nicknamed "Voldemort"
on the Television Without Pity boards to mean "the storyline
that shall not be named") that has been swirling around
the internet for the last several weeks.
Now
that the rumor has been finally been confirmed by a number of
credible sources (although not the show itself), it has escalated
the debate among AMC fans about the show's motivation
behind this storyline and the message it's sending to viewers.
All
My Children made headlines in April 2003
for featuring the first lesbian kiss
on daytime television between Bianca (played by Eden Riegel)
and newcomer Lena (played by Olga Sosnovska). The couple has
spent most of the last two months apart, however, due to revelations
of Lena's earlier involvement with Michael and his plan to try
and bring down Bianca's mother Erica (played by Susan Lucci).
The
popularity of the Lena-Bianca relationship caught AMC
by surprise. Bianca and Lena are consistently among the top
soap couples in polls like Soap Opera Network's, and what was
originally only going to be a short storyline has turned into
a lengthy one. Bianca was always a popular character, but she
has become even more popular since this storyline developed,
winning awards like "Best Young Actress in a Drama Series"
in the Soap Opera Network's 2nd Annual Daytime awards.
Lena's
popularity with fans has grown by leaps and bounds since she
hooked up with Bianca, and she consistently beats out other
actresses to win "top soap actress" and "top
newcomer" in polls for magazines like Soap Opera Digest.
AMC's new head writer Megan McTavish has mentioned
in interviews that Lena is one of her favorite characters, and
Sosnovska was offered a contract by AMC shortly after
the kiss episode.
On
the surface, it appears that the upcoming rape storyline
just makes Bianca the latest victim of a fate that
has befallen heterosexual
soap characters for years (since there have been almost no lesbians
on daytime television). AMC seems to be setting up
the rape as Michael's revenge against Lena for testifying against
him in court, and as a way for Michael to hurt Erica.
In
the last few months, Michael has tried to rape both Bianca's
mother and her half-sister Kendall, so the writers are clearly
not singling Bianca out with this storyline. But the situation
is complicated by the fact that Bianca has spent the last three
years since she came out as a lesbian without a girlfriend,
and by the overly chaste portrayal of her relationship with
Lena in the last few months. Since the two women declared their
feelings for each other for the first time in April and shared
a kiss, they have not kissed again, and although they supposedly
spent the night together once, as well, this was only implied
via a morning-after scene.
Instead,
viewers have been subjected to two months of an endless cycle
of Bianca and Lena professing their love for each other, accusing
each other of lies and deception, and then making up again without
ever doing much more than gazing at each other longingly. Most
of the heterosexual couples on the series have had long, passionate
kissing or seduction scenes during this time, but there has
been nothing sexual between Bianca and Lena besides hand-holding
and a few flirtatious comments like "it's getting hot in
here."
Which
means if the rape storyline happens as expected,
it is sending the message that consensual, loving sex between
women is too taboo and controversial to show on daytime television,
but forced, violent heterosexual sex is acceptable. Een if it
were a heterosexual character that was raped instead of Bianca,
the show would be sending the same message, but given the fact
that Bianca and Lena are the only lesbian and bisexual characters
in daytime television, the impact is even worse.
Lesbian
and bisexual viewers have no other options besides the rape
if they want to see characters like them in daytime television.
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