Soaps Are Sabotaging Themselves
Daytime Soap Operas. Once a household staple with dozens of choices, now a dying breed with only four still on the air in the US. As a big fan of soaps and telenovelas, the US soaps have never really drawn me in. That is, until CBS' The Young and The Restless added the relationship between Tessa Porter and Mariah Copeland to its list of many, many storylines.
You would think soap operas, which are dramatic and passionate by nature, would love gay storylines but unfortunately they are rarely featured prominently, especially in the US.
The LGBTQ+ community has proven to be a loyal audience, singlehandedly catapulting the telenovela Amar a Muerte up the charts and pressuring the company into releasing several scenes of Juliana and Valentina they initially withheld (a feat often attempted but rarely successful without a large and vocal group).
There's the typical argument that LGBTQ+ representation will chase away a large portion of their demographic, as typically older people watch soap operas. The flip side of that argument is obviously that it may actually boost viewership, bringing in a different demographic. But my argument is entirely different. Screw target audience, what about making a good show?
Adding queer stories to the plot opens up dozens of new potential story lines for soap operas, instead of falling back on cliches like "surprise twin sister" or "I'm back from the dead". A family could fall apart over the struggle of supporting a queer relative, including plenty of impassioned arguments and dramatic stare downs. The cheap but effective bait and switch of believing a character to be in love with someone of the opposite sex, only for them to actually be falling for their partner. Coming out scenes, hate crimes, conversion therapy, transitioning, pride parades you name it. It's an untapped goldmine for this content.
Would audiences like that? Would it be done well? I don't know, let's check in on our friends from The Young and The Restless. Camryn Grimes (Mariah Copeland) has had a 20 year career on the show and won two Emmys in that time period. One when she was 10 years old, becoming the youngest winner of the Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series. The other, Outstanding Supporting Actress, happened "coincidentally" the year her character went through the coming out arc. In the Emmy reels of the other contestants the scenes depicted were: a woman crying and yelling about becoming pregnant due to an affair, a woman vaguely threatening another woman, a woman yelling about almost being killed, a woman yelling about a man only wanting her for her money, and a woman yelling about killing a man. And then there's Camryn's scene, her breaking down to her mother about how hard it's been to hide her sexuality.
In fact in her 15 minute Emmy reel, the three scenes shown were all related to her sexuality. If you haven't seen Mariah coming out to her mother, I would highly recommend. While soap operas are known for overacting and cheesy writing, the scene is one of the most heart wrenching, accurate, and tastefully written coming out scenes I have ever been lucky enough to watch.
Other than Camryn Grimes being an amazing actress, the material she was given was interesting enough and new enough to warrant an award. Yes of course we could see another scene of someone cheating on their spouse but we've seen that a million times. So really what it boils down to is do you want your show to be safe? Or do you want your show to be good?
You would think soap operas, which are dramatic and passionate by nature, would love gay storylines but unfortunately they are rarely featured prominently, especially in the US.
The LGBTQ+ community has proven to be a loyal audience, singlehandedly catapulting the telenovela Amar a Muerte up the charts and pressuring the company into releasing several scenes of Juliana and Valentina they initially withheld (a feat often attempted but rarely successful without a large and vocal group).
There's the typical argument that LGBTQ+ representation will chase away a large portion of their demographic, as typically older people watch soap operas. The flip side of that argument is obviously that it may actually boost viewership, bringing in a different demographic. But my argument is entirely different. Screw target audience, what about making a good show?
Adding queer stories to the plot opens up dozens of new potential story lines for soap operas, instead of falling back on cliches like "surprise twin sister" or "I'm back from the dead". A family could fall apart over the struggle of supporting a queer relative, including plenty of impassioned arguments and dramatic stare downs. The cheap but effective bait and switch of believing a character to be in love with someone of the opposite sex, only for them to actually be falling for their partner. Coming out scenes, hate crimes, conversion therapy, transitioning, pride parades you name it. It's an untapped goldmine for this content.
Would audiences like that? Would it be done well? I don't know, let's check in on our friends from The Young and The Restless. Camryn Grimes (Mariah Copeland) has had a 20 year career on the show and won two Emmys in that time period. One when she was 10 years old, becoming the youngest winner of the Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series. The other, Outstanding Supporting Actress, happened "coincidentally" the year her character went through the coming out arc. In the Emmy reels of the other contestants the scenes depicted were: a woman crying and yelling about becoming pregnant due to an affair, a woman vaguely threatening another woman, a woman yelling about almost being killed, a woman yelling about a man only wanting her for her money, and a woman yelling about killing a man. And then there's Camryn's scene, her breaking down to her mother about how hard it's been to hide her sexuality.
In fact in her 15 minute Emmy reel, the three scenes shown were all related to her sexuality. If you haven't seen Mariah coming out to her mother, I would highly recommend. While soap operas are known for overacting and cheesy writing, the scene is one of the most heart wrenching, accurate, and tastefully written coming out scenes I have ever been lucky enough to watch.
Other than Camryn Grimes being an amazing actress, the material she was given was interesting enough and new enough to warrant an award. Yes of course we could see another scene of someone cheating on their spouse but we've seen that a million times. So really what it boils down to is do you want your show to be safe? Or do you want your show to be good?
