Fans of daytime soaps have seen it all on their television screens: weddings, divorces, natural disasters, long-lost siblings reunited, family reunions, etc. One thing they hadn’t seen until last August was two men kissing. That’s when CBS soap As The World Turns documented the new relationship between two young male characters Noah and Luke (or “Nuke” for those really in the know). The kiss between the two men marked one of the first times (if not the first time) that a daytime soap opera had depicted such a scene. The characters apparently kissed again in September, but despite the growth of their relationship, they haven’t kissed again.
According to a recent CNN.com story, even the Christmas and Valentine’s Day story lines only showed the characters hugging. Afterelton.com (which maintains a regular feature on the storyline complete with videoclips) has sarcastically referred to the frequent scenes of the two men merely holding hands instead of displaying any more deep affection for one another. They’re now featuring a "lipclock clock" marking the days, hours, minutes and seconds since the two characters last kissed.
We blog regularly about the importance of accurate, respectful portrayals of our lives and our relationships. It’s great to see a regularly scheduled television program that reaches millions of people address the realities of our lives. But they need to address the full realities of our lives: we don’t just hold hands. Yes, I know I’m talking about a daytime soap, but the point is still valid: LGBT characters should be treated as fully as any other characters on the show and not forced to be seen as somehow not as deserving of love and affection as other people.
Images of LGBT people in popular media have everything to do with how we are perceived and treated by society. The more accurate and complete those images are, the more honest we can all be about who we are and who we love. Effective communications is always about honesty. Honest communications are much more interesting and much more relevant to how the world turns for everyone, not just some of us.
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