When
pondering how the history of televised GLBT representation
would go, few believed daytime drama would play a large role.
But in 2000, ABC's All My Children
took a big leap forward when Erica Kane's daughter Bianca (Eden
Riegel) became the first core gay character on a daytime drama--and
one who was loved by millions of viewers.
At
the time, many in the industry commented on the limits that
would be put on the character, predicting that she would be
completely de-sexualized. They were right to some degree, but
All My Children did break some barriers, including
showing daytime's first on-screen same-sex kiss. Aside from
one chaste morning-after scene of Bianca in bed with her girlfriend,
however (and another when she and a friend pretended to be in
bed together to make someone jealous), AMC always stopped short
of showing overt scenes of lesbian sexuality beyond a kiss (and
usually a rather chaste one, at that).
But
in the summer of 2005, a few months after Bianca finally
departed All My Children, rumors
started circulating that two shows were taking a page from ABC
and writing gay stories involving core characters. One such
story has yet to start airing on General Hospital and
will feature a young man.
The
other involved a young African American woman coming out on
NBC's Passions, a newer soap considered by many to
be the ugly stepchild of the genre. Not only are the plot lines
usually completely outrageous (talking dolls, witches, animals
in love with humans, a Tsunami, etc.) but the acting and writing
tend to be on the weak side.
Passions's
lesbian storyline finally debuted last month, with the show's
usual lack of subtlety, as Simone (Cathy Jeneen Doe) returned
to the town of Harmony after a few-months absence with a secret:
she'd never really left town at all. The audience is given hints
that the reason was very big and quite scandalous, and eventually
the viewers and Simone's family learn that Simone had been staying
with another woman, Rae (Jossara Jinaro), with whom she has
fallen in love.
The
story unfolded fairly clumsily. The first rule of daytime
drama is slow-paced development, to allow the audience to see
the world through the character's eyes. Simone's coming out
to her mother Eve (Tracey Ross) was done off-camera, to be used
later on as plot filler for Eve's current criminal trial. An
opportunity to allow the audience to see this sensitive exchange
play out in real time was thrown away so that they could shock
the audience with material a few days later. Instead, the audience
is only shown the aftermath of the conversation, when Eve is
expressing support for her daughter--for what, we don't yet
know.
Fast
forward to the August 31st episode, when we see Simone at the
apartment of Rae, who is introduced to the audience for the
first time. More abstract conversation takes place, until it
becomes pretty clear Simone is more then friends with this woman.
Simone asks if she can stay at Rae's apartment, Rae says yes,
and then we see Simone lying in bed, as Rae enters the room
and sits on the edge of the bed with her feet safely planted
on the floor. As the scene progresses, Rae moves off the bed,
as if to leave Simone to get some rest.
But
this is where the show unexpectedly set new standards for same-sex
representation on soaps, with a daringly honest (if fairly tame
compared to most heterosexual sex scenes) depiction of lesbian
sexuality.
