I grew up watching soap operas, and yes, soaps also influenced my development as a writer–which means I have to be careful not to slip into melodrama.
I know my grandmother watched them, and so did the lady down the street who babysat us in Chicago: One Life to Live, General Hospital, and Dark Shadows. I’ve always recognized Dark Shadows as a major influence on me as an artist and author; that and the old black-and-white crime movies my grandmother loved to watch with me. It’s why I’ve always had a taste for the dark and Gothic, and Dark Shadows merged horror with mystery in an expert blend that I can vividly recall to this day–and often go there in my work sometimes.
One Life to Live was always interesting, and they did stuff other shows weren’t doing. Viki’s Dissociative Identity Disorder storylines–including when it came back when she was under heavy emotional stress, usually involving memories of her father–was riveting; so was the Carla storyline, in which a beautiful young light-skinned black woman was passing for white, and involved with a white doctor. (I was terribly disappointed to find out, years later, that actress Ellen Holly, the first Black female star of a soap, received death threats and was also victimized by bigotry within the cast and crew and network.) It was never a favorite through the late 1970s and 1980s, but I watched; Erika Slezak was terrific as Viki and Robin Strasser was INCREDIBLE as her arch-enemy and stepmother, Dorian Lord. Andrea Evans returned in the 1980s as Tina, Viki’s ward…only to find out that Tina was actually her half-sister because her mother, Viki’s best friend, had an affair with Viki’s father…which led to yet another return of Viki’s DID.
Like all soaps, it was complicated.
But it was in the 1990s that One Life to Live became must-watch television.
Novelist Michael Malone was hired, out of nowhere, to be the headwriter, and he reshaped the show completely to his vision of what good storytelling should be, and the issues the show should be bringing forward. He introduced some new characters, slowed down the pacing of the show, and dove into the interior lives of the long-term characters, as well as their history. There were any number of explosive storylines during this period that made the show must-watch television; I recorded it every day so I would never miss anything. (All My Children and General Hospital were also having glorious runs at the same time; ABC was firing on all daytime cylinders.)
And then they brought in a new character, a friend of Viki’s son Joey, Billy Douglas–which was also Ryan Philippe’s big break.
Daytime had dipped their toe in the water of queer characters before, before quickly ending the storyline and writing the character out. But in the early 1990s, Malone was willing to push the envelope and confront homophobia in all of its ugliness. It began with the arrival in town of Reverend Andrew Carpenter, who was shortly followed by his father, Sloan, from whom he was estranged. The reason of the estrangement was the father’s rejection of his gay son, who subsequently died from HIV/AIDS. Andrew can’t get past how his father rejected his brother due to homophobia, and they didn’t reconcile before the brother’s death. Already something was building here, and then Joey Buchanan’s (Viki’s younger son) friend Billy–a popular athlete, just elected class president–comes out to him. Joey is surprised, but accepting, and is there for Billy as he agonizes over what to do. Eventually, he goes to Andrew for counseling–and young villainess Marty Saybrooke, whose romantic interest in Andrew has been rebuffed, overhears the counseling session and tells everyone that not only is Andrew gay, but he’s been grooming (the term wasn’t used there) Billy into becoming gay too! The town is then torn asunder over the sudden outbreak of homophobia; Billy comes out to his parents and is rejected by his father, everything comes to a head, and the truth comes out–and Marty would get “punished” for her crimes later, in the most horrific way possible (again, must-watch television)–and Andrew and his father reconcile; the AIDS quilt is brought to Llanview; and people become more accepting of Billy. They introduced a love interest for him, but viewer reaction to this was harsh, and so they wrote Billy out by sending him off to Yale, never to be seen again.
Since then, almost every show gradually had gay or lesbian or bisexual characters, but I have stopped watching soaps, finally giving up on them in the late 1990s because I couldn’t really spare the time to watch anymore. But Billy, acted brilliantly by young Ryan Philippe, and beautifully written, was one of the first and best portrayals of a gay teenager on television, and I’ve been a fan of Philippe ever since.
It’s a shame One Life to Live no longer airs, going down in the bloodbath of soaps after the turn of the century. The show’s run in the first half of the 1990s was extraordinary–including the brilliantly conceived and written gang-rape of Marty that happened at a fraternity party, and the aftermath was explosive and brilliant. One Life to Live at the time also had a fantastic cast, wracking up Emmy wins left and right…and it was shortly after the Billy storyline concluded that they cast Nathan Fillion as Joey–and another fandom was born for me.
I’ve often wondered how much impact that story and character had on the public perception of queer people as well–during the Clinton administration things began to look up a bit from the horror of the 1980s, and I think television definitely had something to do with it, with positive representation.
Queer and Loathing in America 