Soap Dish

When did the gay or lesbian subplot become cool on daytime TV? I remember being conflicted when I was a wee lad home sick from school and had to stay at my grandmother's house because she was the only one available to take care of me. On one hand I loved being out of school, but on the other hand I dreaded it because I knew I had to watch soaps after Bob Barker wrapped up the"Showcase Showdown" on the Price Is Right. As much as I fought it, I was out of luck. I either went upstairs and took a nap or I was forced to watch sappy hetero love on shows like "The Bold & The Beautiful", "The Young & the Restless" and of course "General Hospital".

Needless to say there was nothing that interesting to me. I thought the leading men where too over-the-top for me to really be attracted them. At some point in the last decade, more and more shows are having a gay or lesbian characters. One of the most memorable ones is in the early 90s when cutie-pie Ryan Phillipe's character came out on "On Live to Live". Clearly this was the impetus for all gay men everywhere to fall in love with this future hunk. All My Children seems to be the most progressive of daytime TV. In the mid 90's Michael Delaney told his students he was gay, which split the town in an uproar. Erica Kane (Susan Lucci who is like a drag queen anyway) has a lesbian daughter and AMC also introduced the first transgendered character.

Recently though "One Life to Live" has been leading the charge with blonde-hair, blue-eyed Officer Oliver Fish (Scott Evans) who is an way-out policeman (hot!) But let's not stop at that bit of news because the double whammy is that Evans is actually an out actor! I am tickled pink with all of this gayness. Honestly though I don't think anyone else could pull this off. Scott, has a very supportive family including being the brother of Hollywood hunk Chris Evans who starred in Fantastic Four and son of actress Lisa Evans (who plays his mother on OLTL.) He recognizes the importance of being true to his character because he knows that many of the LGBT viewers do not have supportive families like he does. In my opinion, there really isn't a better character in a leading man. Why couldn't all of this homosexual tendencies were happening when I was growing up? I am certainly delighted that the networks realize that there is more to life than a heterosexual world... at least in daytime TV that is.