TV

“Passions” Goes Boldly, and Badly, Where No Soap Has Gone Before

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.

The camera pans to Rae’s feet and we see the robe she was wearing drop to the floor, clearly implying she is wearing nothing underneath. Rae then climbs into bed and the two women kiss. It was nothing that hadn’t been shown a million times before with heterosexual couples on daytime TV, but it was a first for a same-sex couple.

Despite how unconvincing Rae and Simone were as lovers–not only had there been zero relationship development at this point, but the two women seemed horribly matched as scene partners, with little chemistry so their exchanges fall completely flat–Passions portrayed lesbian sexuality more realistically in their one three-minute scene than All My Children did in five years.

From a visual standpoint, Passions and NBC standards and practices certainly made a bold move, and should be recognized for their willingness to show two women together in the same way any heterosexual couple would be shown. But the lack of character and relationship development, and any romantic chemistry in the pairing, diminished the scene’s impact. The audience is certainly not going to understand or accept Simone’s feelings if they haven’t had the chance to see this woman through her eyes.

But maybe that’s the point, since Passions has no intention of keeping up the relationship. When Simone mentions to Rae how wonderful it is to have found the person she will spend her life with, Rae explains that she just wants to keep the relationship casual.

Following the rejection, Simone returns home and cries in her mother’s arms which, once again, would have played better had the audience had the chance to watch, uninterrupted, the coming-out moment with her mom days before. When the audience does get to see the flashback of Simone’s coming out to her mother, it includes her mother’s fear that her poor parenting is partly responsible for this development.

So where will Passions go from here?

So far, Simone’s coming out has been used primarily as a plot device to drive a wedge between her family, and it will probably stay that way in the near future. Last week, Simone’s “secret” was dangled as a badge of shame in courtroom scenes. A prosecuting attorney attempted to humiliate Simone on the stand by implying she is gay, Simone’s mother panicked about the truth coming out, Simone herself feared having to admit anything, and her clueless father watched it all trying to figure out what the lawyer was implying.

Simone, unlike AMC’s Bianca, has been romantically interested in male characters in the past, most notably her sister’s boyfriend (who later turned out to be their half-brother, but nevermind). Bisexuality is a valid and important topic to explore, but the writers on Passions don’t evince the kind of sensitivity that requires. Not that they’re likely to attempt it, anyway.

Simone isn’t going to suddenly become straight again. “Sexual identity isn’t a passing fancy,” NBC’s senior vice president of NBC’s daytime programs, exec Sheraton Kalouria, said about Simone’s storyline to The New York Post earlier this month. “This is where [Simone] is…I can assure you we’re not going to make light of this particular topic.”

But given how the series has handled Simone’s sexuality so far, it’s unlikely that they will take it seriously, either, unless it advances the show’s other plots.

Overall, Passions’s initial foray into lesbian sexuality earns mixed grades: an “A” for allowing its lesbian couple to display almost the same level of sexuality as the show’s heterosexual couples, but a “D” for a poorly developed plot that has reduced Simone to a one-dimensional character who happened to sleep with a girl.

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