A Gay Bro Speaks On Black Men In Soaps

A very good article:
http://orvillelloyddouglas.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/devon-and-neil-no-love-life-for-bla

 

WOW!!! Where to begin. For starters, this brotha is AN...GRRY. But just for clarity, I watch Y&R and the writer mentioned that Victoria Rowell's character left the show because of the lack of variety in her character. In actuality, she was given a leave of absense to promote her new book. Currently, she's on a book tour around the U.S.

Now, as for the characters themselves, I cannot speak for Charles Divins because I don't watch Passions. But I've have noticed that since Dru was killed off, and even before that, that show and others "nurse-maid" black characters. Specifically black men. Everything that the writer says about Devon is true. He came to Genoa City as a runaway, had a difficult adjustment to life in a new city and was adopted by the Winters. And yes, he's NEVER had a girlfriend on the show. Sure, he won a daytime award, but let's be real. That's simply tokenism for him playing the black male character that white hollywood wants him in - young, smart, non-threatening, asexual. But I want to come back to Devon in a minute.

The writer mentioned how Neil Winters never got any play. When Neil found out that the paternity of Lily was in fact between Dru and his brother Malcolm, it drove him away from her and to drinking again. The Winters subsequently went through this period of anger and resentment towards one another. Then comes Carmen Mesta. A fair-skin latin woman from south Texas in town to do relations work with Newman Enterprises. It was fixed where she and Neil befriended one another and eventually started seeing each other. Dru became jealous and this whole ugly wife versus other woman business started. Later, Carmen was killed off. A few interesting things happened in between though. For one, Carmen first dated Jack Abbott, a white guy on the show. I guess the writers felt like her ethnicity could go either direction. Aside from that, her and Neil never actually slept together. My guess is the writers felt like it would irreprebably damage any chance of Dru and Neil getting back together, much less bother some sistahs watching who probably count on the Winters to be presented as a strong black couple. Then after Carmen was killed off, the writers fixed it where Dru was the primary suspect in her murder.(not surprising) They even brought in a guy named David Chow with a Carmen-look-a-like in order to try and drive Dru crazy and portray Neil as the angry, out of control brotha.

Finally, after all of that, Dru gets pushed off of a hillside by Phylis Newman, leaving Neil a drunken mess again. And here's the kicker. With every other male prospect on the show having viable relationships during that time, particularly after a tragic event, Nia Peeples was conveniently brought in as David Chow's associate to help in Nicky Newman's state senate campaign. After the campaign, she and Neil have become close. She's even been hired on in, guess who, Dru's old job! Currently, the writers seem to be taking the two characters slow as it seems the focus on relationships is with all the white characters right now. Oh yeah, the writer mentioned maybe putting Neil with Sharon. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Shortly after Dru's passing, Sharon noticed Neil hitting the bottle again and got worried. She offered to have him come back to the loft with her. But she immediately jumped in reminding him that she was just being his friend. It's too bad too because they would make a nice couple. And for a woman in her mid-30s, she's freakin' HOT!


Now I won't continue too much longer with Devon. His track record with girls is this. Near and none. Back on Valentine's day, he was hanging out with the youth crowd. This consisted of Lily, Daniel, Kevin, Jenna (the english girl) and Amber, the new white blonde from L.A. They wen out on Valentine's and it appeared for just a moment that he and Amber would hook up. She even hugged him to seem as so. But that went away quickly. And conveniently he spotted a black girl from the school he went to and they started chatting. Don't get me wrong. She was pretty. And like the author, I've got nothing against black on black relationships. I'm black myself and love black women as much as other colors. But it was the way they simply found a black girl and reminded us of his sexual orientation to put us at ease. Then, they never developed the character. Which is my real gripe. If they are going to have him date, then give him a female counterpart which complements him and develop the storyline. But, the only thing they did was have her show up at his apartment a couple of times after that representing that they were just passing aquaintances. Before that though, there was this white girl named Sierra who was a friend of Lily's. She was pretty and they even had it where she and Devon were "hanging out" for a while. But in typical fashion, they wrote were he reminded everyone that he and Sierra were just friends. Currently, the girl is not on the show and Devon is not dating anyone.

I just read a description from "Zap2it.com" for tomorrow's show that states that Devon attempt to renew his interest in Lily, his step-sister. This after Daniel, her husband, lied about his relationship with Amber and currently caught up in a murder investigation involving stolen money. And to top it all off, friday's episode showed just a glimpse of Lily's subtle interest in Amber's faux husband Kane.(Amber doctored the marriage license) I mean, come on. Another white boy for Lily to be interested in and no one bats an eye??? But Devon's character can do no better than to lust after his own step-sister.


Ultimately, the writer is right that this is blatant racism and the writing doesn't seem to be changing. American television seems to be in this mode of writing good solid material for characters that don't involve black men. Particularly with respect to relationships. Remember it was written in another thread that the brotha on "Heroes" just got written off. And exactly who was shocked by that? America seems to have a real perception problem when it comes to black men and television is doing nothing but continuing to percipitate that negative mentality. I for one am glad the writer is pissed. Now hopefully maybe enough blacks in general will observe this trend and be more pro-active in calling Hollywood out on it.

 

Jeez. It takes a gay black man to stand up and write a post about daytime's dirty but open secret. White writers/bloggers don't notice black men enough to care or they don't think they are worthy of defending. Many black women don't have a problem with the situation. And straight black men rarely ever complain about double standards in soaps and films. But this guy laid it out.

The sad thing though is that there are far more examples (and worse ones at that) that he could have explored from OTHER soap operas. And this must be pointed out because Y&R has treated black men overall far better than any other soap opera of the past 10 or so years. But even TPTB of the show were hesitant to pair up Shemar Moore with any of the white chicks when he was around. But to their credit they did pair Keith Hamilton Cobb with a few white ladies (the first time a black male has ever been the object of lust for multiple white female characters.

By the way I learned of the Chad storyline on Passions just a few weeks ago. Now Passions had already been one of the most insulting daytime series ever in terms of its treatment towards black men, but the Chad turns gay storyline was an all time new low. And the reasons why it was done, in my mind, were exactly as the writer of the blog pointed out.

 

Does anybody know what's going on with the bro on THE GUIDING LIGHT :?:
:arrow: http://www.whitewomenblackmen.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5274

 

I have not noticed on Y&R. Two steps forward and two steps back on IR. The brother still has no play. Only in the UK does he has play.

 

That's why I don't bother with soaps. I think at one point on Y&R. They either Neil or Malcom hook up with Victoria Nueman and that did not sit well with some fans from what I heard.

 

I stopped watching soaps since about 2001. The last soap series i used to follow religiously was Passions and i just got turned off in about '01.

 

It was Neil. Even worse it was such a half-hearted pairing with Neil rarely getting much screen time with her and hardly eve kissing her though they became engaged. The actress was stunned at how much hate mail came their way.

Its also been reported that the people tend to send the most hate mail in these scenarios are white males and black females. That's funny because white men in general (in terms of proportions) watch daytime TV less than white women and black people. Obviously the must set their Tivos for black men-white female pairings in order to protest any they come across. Its also funny because black viewers tend to not write letter at all relative to their numbers (a very silent minority). But get a black man near a white woman and those ladies are inspired to write down their thoughts. How perfectly predictable.

 

Check out my rant about Passions in the Comments section of the blog.

 

Remember the relationship of Damon and Phyllis years back? It was hot and then back in 05 Keith H. Cobb the man who played him was let go. I was disappointed since it was a great romance. I give Michelle Stafford props for making it work.

 

Where can we find this blog?

 

The link to the blog is at the top of this thread (in the first post).

 

Ok found it. I have to say the blog seems to be on point.

I may have to stop in and add my .02 later.

 

I will no longer watch soap operas. I am so glad that a brotha has mentioned it. BW don't mind this double standard because it suits them. They don't realize that this affects them too. I am so tired of the soaps only showing one aspect of our community. Not all of us are in same race relationships.

Once again, its Hollywood demeaning BM and Black people as a whole. :x