THE SOAP OPERA, that quintessentially American genre, has been a fixture of popular culture since the early days of radio. As such, the soaps have played an important role in reinforcing and to some extent in shaping American cultural mores and norms governing relationships within families, among friends, and especially between lovers and spouses.
Soap operas have generally tried to reflect the social mores of American mainstream society over the years. However, starting in the 1970s, a number of the daytime dramas began trying to work “social relevance” into their storylines. Indeed it may be argued that the soaps have tended to run slightly ahead of the cultural curve in matters of sexuality in general and LGBT issues in particular. In the past four decades, the growing presence of LGBT characters has been a barometer of Americans’ increasing acceptance of this minority. From virtual invisibility in the early years to the current crop of gay and lesbian characters who are able to live their lives authentically and without shame, the growing visibility of LGBT lives on daytime TV has reflected an ongoing change in public attitudes over this generational time span.
The 1970s
By the 1970s, many soaps were addressing issues like alcoholism, drug abuse and recovery, the Vietnam War, marital rape, and mental illness. However, by the end of this decade, the soaps were unanimous in their reluctance to grapple with issues relating to homosexuality. That would soon change; and over the decades the soaps have made reasonable strides in introducing LGBT characters and in addressing issues related to coming to terms with one’s alternative sexuality and coming out to family, friends, and the community. Fledgling efforts to present a gay relationship have culminated in the creation of a “supercouple,” when two names become one, in the characters of Will Horton and Sonny Kiriakis—“WillSon”—on Days of Our Lives.
Let us take a look back and trace the progression of the ways in which American soaps have taken steps forward to embrace LGBT characters and storylines, and how soaps could progress even further in the years ahead.
It was not until 1977 when ABC-TV aired its hugely popular primetime comedy Soap—an obvious spoof of the genre through its focus on the hilariously dysfunctional Tate and Campbell families—that viewers saw one of the soap genre’s first gay male characters, Jodie Dallas. As played by stand-up comic Billy Crystal, Jodie experienced everything from a failed romance with a closeted football player to a brief liaison with a female attorney that resulted in the birth of a child for whom Jodie sought full custody. Decades before transgender issues became part of the American conversation, Jodie considered having a sex change. In spite of—or perhaps because of—the criticism of various religious groups that Soap promoted immortality through homosexuality, the show enjoyed a four-year run. Jodie remained a popular character.
In the late 1970s, perhaps due to the popularity of the Jodie character on Soap, the enormously popular CBS-TV primetime sudser Dallas focused on homosexuality—albeit for just one episode—when spoiled, college-aged heiress Lucy Ewing fell for the handsome, well-to-do Kit Mainwaring. The couple made love and became engaged. However, Kit eventually came out to Lucy and broke their engagement. Lucy was devastated but she matured enough to encourage Kit to live his life as an openly gay man, and to assure him that they would remain friends.
The 1980s and ’90s
The treatment of homosexuality in primetime would have a more far-reaching impact on Dynasty in 1981. ABC-TV’s answer to Dallas, Dynasty focused on the oil-rich, problem-plagued Carrington clan, headed by the headstrong, stern, self-made billionaire Blake Carrington. As Blake’s apparent only son and heir who felt the crushing pressure of living up to his father’s high, heterosexual expectations, college-aged Steven Carrington was engaged in a gay relationship with Ted Dinard. As their romance became more public, various family and friends encouraged Steven to “act the gay away” by pursuing women. Steven’s visit to a female prostitute was to no avail, and his brief affair with the married, mentally unstable Claudia Blaisdel was not nearly enough to suppress his love for Ted.
The Steven–Ted romance came to an abrupt, violent end when Steven’s ever hard-to-please father Blake came home from a typically difficult day as CEO of Denver Carrington. Alerted by his loyal major domo/butler Joseph Anders of Ted’s presence on the Carrington estate, Blake, incensed that Ted would dare infest his precious 48-room mansion, shouted: “I’ll get him!” Upon seeing his precious son in an embrace with Ted, Blake lambasted and started shoving Ted amid Steven’s anguished cries for him to stop. Ted hit his head in the scuffle and died. Blake was tried for Ted’s murder and, despite damning testimony from both Steven and Blake’s first wife—the glamorous, venomous Alexis Carrington, whom Blake blames for turning Steven into a “weakling” by encouraging him to share his mother’s interest in art—was sentenced to probation.
Steven and Alexis quickly renewed their mother–son closeness after a separation of fifteen years (Blake had banished Alexis to Europe for an affair with one of Blake’s business associates), but it would take nearly ten years for Steven and Blake to repair their fractured relationship, at one point with father and son fighting for full custody of Little Danny, Steven’s son with his social climbing first wife Sammy Jo Dean. Blake claimed that Steven was unfit to be a stable father because of his “unnatural lifestyle.” Steven eventually won custody of Danny, but only after a quickie wedding to the now widowed but still unstable Claudia (with whom he had a stormy marriage before their divorce). Perhaps taking a cue from his second wife, Krystle, who always embraced Steven’s homosexuality, Blake slowly came around, especially when Steven had a romance with business associate Luke Fuller. However, this gay romance also suffered a sudden, brutal end when Luke was fatally shot by assassins during a post-wedding massacre in the kingdom of Moldavia (which actually was a kingdom in the Middle Ages). By the time Dynasty ended its nearly decade-long run in 1989, Blake and Steven had reconciled some of their differences as father and son. Steven was pursuing a successful romance with a D.C.-based politico, assuring Blake that he and his new lover were practicing safe sex, and Blake in turn assured Steven that first and foremost he wanted Steven to be happy.
In 1983, All My Children, an ABC daytime soap known since its 1970 inception as a drama willing to tackle social issues (a trademark of the show’s highly esteemed creator, Agnes Nixon), focused on the camaraderie between established character Devon McFadden, a divorced young mother with a long history of failed relationships with men, and new Pine Valley resident Lynn Carson, an openly gay child psychologist. As their friendship grew, Devon professed feelings of love for Lynn. Although flattered, Lynn gently rejected Devon’s romantic proclamations, claiming that Devon would always be a straight woman. The Devon–Lynn friendship was not a front-burner storyline, but Soap Opera Digest and other magazines applauded the storyline for its focus on a lesbian character and a friendship between straight and gay characters.
Nearly five years later, in 1988, CBS’s long-running As The World Turns (ATWT) introduced the character of Hank Eliot. The show’s head writer at the time, Douglas Marland, a soap scribe highly esteemed for his emphasis on social issues, created Hank as a New York-based fashion designer whose dark-haired looks, warm smile, and easygoing manner quickly win over the good citizens of the Midwestern city of Oakdale, including the romantically troubled Iva Snyder. Iva develops a romantic interest in Hank, even amid hints that Hank has a secret male lover in the Big Apple. During a long discussion at the famed Snyder pond, in sensitively written scenes, Hank reveals his homosexuality to Iva along with his five-year relationship with his lover Charles. Like Dallas’ Lucy with Kit, Iva expresses hurt and disappointment but declares her unconditional friendship with Hank.
Having no previously established ties to Oakdale, Hank spent less than two years on the ATWT canvas as a supporting character, as Marland focused on other characters’ reactions (many positive, some negative) to his homosexuality. By the end of 1989, Hank has been dispatched back to New York. Nevertheless, Soap Opera Digest commended ATWT for its groundbreaking storyline, claiming that “Daytime’s last taboo [of]male homosexuality” had been shattered.
In 1992, ABC’s One Life to Live (OLTL)—another Agnes Nixon creation known for its principal storylines with social relevance—took the soap genre’s treatment of male homosexuality a step further with the character of Billy Douglass. Created by head writer Michael Malone, a well-known novelist, Billy is a teenager of privilege who’s struggling to come to terms with his sexual identity. He’s presented as a sympathetic character that the audience is rooting for through his vain attempts to drown his pain in alcohol. Billy confides in a fellow newcomer, the disarming Episcopalian minister Andrew Carpenter, who assures Billy that he will come out to his family when he’s ready. This conversation is overheard by a female parishioner who had once come on to the handsome minister only to be rebuffed, and who now sees an opportunity for revenge. The rumor she spreads about the minister unleashes a panic in town with anti-gay undertones.
With homophobia now running rampant, Billy tearfully comes out to his parents. His mother Virginia eventually embraces her son’s gayness and prevents Walter, the father, from throwing Billy out of the house. In a series of powerful, moving scenes in and around the St. James Parish, Andrew defends his reputation and his belief that all people have a right to sexual privacy, encouraging his flock to discontinue their homophobic ways. They can start by sewing a panel for the AIDS Quilt, which happens to be displayed nearby. Despite his father’s objections, Billy publicly comes out as a young gay man in front of the entire congregation, with the unconditional support of Andrew and several prominent citizens. In turn, Billy leads the way in getting his fellow parishioners to have Andrew reinstated as their parish minister. And he finds a boyfriend by and by. In the end, not unlike Hank of ATWT, Billy would remain in his new soap town for only two years.
The 21st Century
In the past fifteen years, several gay male couples have achieved “supercouple” status with considerably greater longevity than some heterosexual ones, albeit with various levels of success. Nearly ten years after ATWT introduced Hank as daytime’s first major gay male character, teenager Luke Snyder had an enormously popular romance with fellow aspiring filmmaker Noah Meyer. Luke was a legacy character as the son and stepson of supercouple Lily Walsh Snyder and Holden Snyder, and thus deserving of his own storyline. However, perhaps based on the anxiety of the powers-that-be over whether viewers would accept a male couple in a fully realized romance, Luke and Noah’s relationship often seemed stilted. Viewers cheered when Luke and Noah had their long-awaited first kiss, then expressed their frustration when things progressed no further. After a two-year waiting period, Luke and Noah finally had sex. However, their physical intimacy was invisible on screen. Instead, viewers were chagrined to watch “Nuke” (Noah + Luke à la “Brangelina”) making ice cream rather than love. Luke’s next romance with cocky medic Reid Oliver was even more frustrating to viewers, as the couple never had a chance to experience the joys of sex together before Reid died in a train crash.
Meanwhile, in 2009, OLTL explored a gay romance between morally ambivalent lab tech Kyle Lewis and the apparently wholesome good guy cop Oliver Fish (who is called by his last name). Former lovers from their college fraternity brother days, Kyle and Fish became a popular supercouple as Fish struggled to acknowledge his homosexuality to his family and friends, and Kyle nearly married the devious Nick Chavez on the rebound from his breakup with Fish. Kyle and Fish, affectionately called “Kish” by their fans, finally reconciled and in 2010 made love in a beautifully choreographed, candle-lit scene to the romantic strains of Rie Sinclair & Friends’ “My Confession.” Unfortunately, despite fan outrage, Kish was written off the canvas soon afterwards.
In the past several years, the most successful male supercouple has been Days of Our Lives’ Will and Sonny (aka “WillSon”). One reason for their popularity is the red-hot chemistry between the two actors who play the Salem sweethearts, Chandler Massey and Freddie Smith. Both are tremendous talents who seem totally at ease together, even in their most intimate bedroom and shower scenes. The same can also be said for the third party in their romantic triangle, Christopher Sean as baseball hero Paul Norita, whose character shares a romantic history with both Will and Sonny. The latter are legacy characters from families that go back to the mid-1980s, proving that viewers become deeply invested in characters from core soap clans. Finally, Will and Sonny are depicted not as either squeaky-clean heroes or depraved psychopaths, but instead as decent but flawed characters who can have both deep-seated trust issues and hot sex.
So where do we go from here? As American soap viewership erodes—there are only four surviving daytime dramas as I write—what can be done to ensure that LGBT characters remain a viable part of this still influential medium? One suggestion would be for writers to focus on character-oriented rather than plot-oriented storylines. For example, Days of Our Lives fans have followed WillSon since their high school days and understand the characters’ dysfunctional family histories. In addition, the soap executives should expand their canvas to include more LGBT characters of color—flawed yet sympathetic like WillSon. Imagine how fascinated viewers might be if The Bold and the Beautiful’s new African-American triangle were revamped such that Zoe and Emma’s apparent enmity masked a secret, irrepressible love for each other? The resulting supercouple—”Zem”—almost sounds like a new pronoun to be embraced by the LGBT community.
Aubrey Garcia Baden III, an adjunct English instructor at Anne Arundel Community College, Annapolis, acts and sings with community theaters.
