Oy vey! GL, did you really do it? Is Natalia really pregnant? I would love to win a fabulous dinner off my partner, but I admit it would be bittersweet.  Yes, I bet her an expensive dinner at the restaurant of our choice that Natalia was going to end up pregnant with the Frank-furter’s baby. I called the old soap ploy from the first inkling of the suggestion; Nat throws up.  I hope I am wrong, but all indications for now point to a knocked up Nat.

I’m usually pretty savvy that way because I have been a lesbian more years than I will publicly admit.  I’ve seen a multitude of attempts at trying to portray my life, but sadly, they always come up just a little bit wanting…as in wanting less cliché, wanting fewer platitudes, and wanting more than a few crumbs thrown my way.  As a result, my first inclination is to jump to the obvious conclusion, but I have to ask myself have you planned it this way?

I admit am skeptical that once this boulder is in motion there is little force to stop its Newtonian progress.  There are rumors about false positives and “pregnant doesn’t always mean baby”…well, I think the latter is disingenuous and opens a Pandora’s box of controversy with this character.  A false positive is something I gave little consideration considering Proctor & Gamble would never allow one of it’s well place products to come up short in accuracy.  I gave it little consideration until yesterday when Natalia picked up the aptly disguised “OPT” box.  There is no OPT, just a very cleverly and legally defensible transformation of a competitor’s product.  Is this a cheap ploy to ramp the rhetoric of a marginalized community and check the temperature of its fever pitch?  Pregnant or pregnant ploy, how is either one of these plot devices loyal to the representative narrative you set in motion?

I am the biggest cynic south of the stratosphere, but I have to give you credit. This storyline began beautifully.  I even called the label-less approach genius as we could apply our own labels according to life’s lessons learned.  The slow, quiet build was a traditional soap ploy that worked.  It gave us time to buy in with little preconceived notion…even those of us who resisted for so long couldn’t deny there was something there, something different.

What happened?  That glacial soap movement soon turned into something just short of continental drift.  OTALIA became the melodramatic Pangaea.  De-sexualizing this couple out of whatever corporate pressure you are under anesthetized the pace.  And now you are impregnating or simulating the impregnation of Natalia as a logistical answer to Jessica’s maternity leave?  I cannot begin to tell you how many ways that is insulting whether plot or ploy, but I can offer you a few suggestions on how an alternative would bring about a better result and a happier ever after…especially since this thing is a wrap in a month.  Who knows, this is a soap, and things change.  Depending on which way the public or corporate wind blows, Natalia could wake up from a very bad dream of failed pregnancy tests and soap fan blow-back.

Ok, why not have a little fun, shall we?  It’s healthier than ranting about how pathetic another stereotypical and trite, pregnant, lesbian couple, that can’t stand alone as an independent family unit, is portrayed on TV.

4-Week Arc Suggestions Better Than Pregnancy

Kidnapping – Blake and Doris concoct a scheme of misadventure to create Doliva and Nake, their very own portmanteau.
A coma – Father Ray is the Prince of Darkness and sucks the life out of Natalia.  He’s got a good start; just allow this over-bearing element of the storyline to continue to suck for the next month.

Buried alive – Natalia gets wrapped up in one of those huge scarves and is stuck in her closet for a month.

A fat farm – Considering the only cooking going on between Nat and Olivia is limited to what comes out of the cookie pan, Natalia needs more hiking.

Demon possession – It’s not quite as trite as lesbian pregnancy and it gives Father Ray just one more reason to damn Natalia to hell.

Cloned – No, that would ultimately create an Olivia sandwich, and since they can limit the eats to only cookies, then CBS would never go for that.

Unexplained Illness – IDK-itis manifests as a four-week blank stare.

Now, these are only a few suggestions quickly thrown together by a non-professional.  I realize the point is probably moot now the Frank-n-bun is baking, but come on how long did it take you to sit in a room and come up with pregnancy?   I just can’t fathom how even a potentially pregnant OTALIA would fit into the deserved ideal of canceled happily ever after.

I have been hearing quite a bit lately about labels. Labels are everywhere, from the cereal I eat to the fabulous new shoes I bought. I use labels to make sure I wash my clothes so they don’t come out looking like toddler apparel. I use labels to ensure I am getting my recommended daily allowance of all that is good for me. My virtual girlfriend, Jillian Michaels, taught me that in all those weekly product placements on Biggest Loser. I just can’t get away from labels.

The same can be said about societal labels. We are all subject to labels just as the food we eat and the laundry soap we choose. From the time I came out at the Junior League’s cotillion until the time I came out for good, I have always been labeled. Most of the time, I had little say in the matter. As if a can of green beans, I was marked with a societal insignia that is mass-produced with a generalization about what is inside. I don’t think it is a stretch to infer that has happened to everyone. Labels such as geek, loner, popular, wealthy, jock, pretty, plain, fat, skinny, and millions more are all part of our school years. We spend so much of our time trying to scrape off those labels, but no matter how hard we try, or what we accomplish in life, only the first layer of the label comes off, and we are left with that white glue part that is never fully removed.

As regular readers of this blog can attest, I comment quite a bit on Guiding Light’s storyline of OTALIA. When you get past the demon possession, the alien abductions, and the coming back from the dead, soaps can be a microcosm of the society that envelops us. On the heels of other daytime, same-sex storylines, Guiding Light has quietly stepped through the door the others had to kick their way through. Guiding Light has been keenly careful in its attempt to market this same-sex coupling as label-less. I believe that approach is just short of genius. By leaving OTALIA naked, so to speak, it allows the network and the producers the unofficial luxury of placing it in the hands of the viewers to apply the label. And let’s face it, no matter how Telenext, CBS, or Guiding Light decides to doctor the spin, we, and I mean the collective we, would diagnose it the way we see it anyway.

I have read in recent days where some closet OTALIA viewers or fans of the other network’s team, this competition of sorts mystifies me, have publicly chided CBS and Guiding Light for this tactic trying to force some kind of official statement. It will never happen. By staying pat on some kind of official moniker, the powers that be allow thousands of different labels to be applied, each and every one placed by a different viewer. It’s personal and assumes ownership, and it allows infinite boundaries. Why confine this storyline to the two dimensional signal of its origin?

Oh, and let’s face it, who really comes out any more? You just are. A confident courage is the new rainbow flag. I didn’t send out any formal announcements letting the new neighbors know I am a lesbian, I just baked them muffins and introduced them to my soul mate of many years. When did Jodie Foster officially announce her pride on The View, I must have missed it? I am not so naïve that I would expect everyone to live as I live. I judge no one. Living our lives openly and honestly is the most difficult and the most courageous decision one can make. It is a personal truth that involves deep introspection. It does not come easy. Easy, is allowing a corporate entity the power to do that for us.

I believe the OTALIA characters are trying to define their relationship, not label it. Labels are superficial and cover the surface, but defining a relationship goes to the core of its foundation. Upon that foundation the careful construction of a lasting relationship begins. True, the pace is excruciatingly and frustratingly slow, but I have to remind myself at times that a definition runs deep in the best of reality. This is a daytime drama where the only thing done with any semblance of speed is aging small children at the whim of script development.

Some can question my knowledge of the daytime drama, and to that, I say, that’s fine, it’s not rocket science…though I do know a great deal about rocket science, so maybe I should find a new metaphor. I’m not really sure how you become an expert on soaps other than to watch them, or if there is some class to take. I guess I could expound upon my experience by soap-couple name-dropping the likes of Tara and Phil, and Jenny and Greg, but that just makes me sound old. I have experienced quite a bit of life in my years, so maybe that allows me to elaborate on life situations personified on screen, but that doesn’t make me unique either. Perhaps there is no expert ranking, just varying degrees of fandom. As a fan of the genre, I admit I am enjoying the opportunity to watch and at times question a storyline that parallels my life experiences in so many ways.

So, back to labels. We all have them, we all assign them, and we all run from them. Labels are better left to nutritional information and haute catoure. When applied socially, these sticky notes are most times erroneous first impressions imprinted with little thought of what lies beneath the exterior. Why must we be so concerned with applying labels? Maybe we should all follow Guiding Light’s example, though probably with a different motivation, and resist the urge of reactionary characterization.

Shall we dance?

One Step Forward: The fan writing campaign was an astounding success, and Liz Hendrickson returned to the show only a couple of months later.  Mary Margaret “Maggie” Stone arrives in Pine Valley to find out who murdered her identical twin sister, “Frankie”.   Inevitably Bianca and Maggie run into each other in the small town, Bianca faints at the likeness to Frankie, and as a result they become fast friends, evidence that soaps can move quickly when they so desire.
One Step Back: Bianca brings champagne to celebrate Maggie and Frankie’s birthday.  The situation gets a little too close as a slightly intoxicated Bianca touches Maggie’s face.  Maggie runs to a neutral corner professing with frenzied anguish, “I am not gay, I am not gay.”   Me thinks she doth protest too much…just like Reverend Ted and the meth massages he used to pray away the gay.

One Step Forward: Bianca and Maggie mend their friendship as soap time has a way of accomplishing.  Maggie’s heart goes out to Bianca as she overhears the resident Pine Valley High “mean girls” verbally gay bashing Bianca.  As a result, Maggie asks Bianca to be her date to the prom.  Pining looks held just that much too long lends to foreshadowing…and angst.
One Step Back: Maggie kisses a boy and tells Bianca about it.  That’s the natural progression, don’t you think?

One Step Forward: BAM takes a playful midnight swim protecting each other from the fabled “monster of Willow Lake”.  Maggie asks Bianca why she swims away every time she touches her, was it because she freaked out at the champagne incident? Maggie also questions how Bianca knew she was gay…
One Step Back: Bianca confesses her romantic feelings to a “friend” once again, but this time she feels she has reciprocation.  Maggie says, (all together now) “I’m into guys”, a natural progression, don’t you think?   Enter Henry, the nearest escape hatch for Maggie, All My Children and ABC.

Bianca, with desires of her own and tired of riding the pine so to speak, becomes involved with another woman, a dark, smoldering eastern European, named Lena.  Daytime’s first same-sex kiss is a result of this pairing.  A media blitz by ABC did little to soften the effect as a warning label was slapped across the beginning of the opening sequence.  ABC, citing the often quoted, but never producible book of Network Standards and Practices, thought the kiss required a few moments warning for the housewives of the Midwest to lock the kids out of the room.

See a pattern, but wait, there is more.  You might want to take your Dramamine now.

One Step Forward: In one of the most heartfelt, yet vulnerable scenes ever, Bianca reveals to her best friend, Maggie, that Pine Valley’s resident evil monger had raped her.  Maggie lovingly holds Bianca all night and tells her she is safe.
One Step Back: The message of this particular part of the storyline was somewhat lost in the backlash of gay and lesbian groups accusing AMC of raping the lesbian as a statement.  Gay fans of this couple, with years of soap-watching experience, saw this for what it was, an act of violence and revenge, not the prescribed cure for lesbianism.  We are our own worst enemies at times.  Who knows, AMC’s reluctance to move forward could have been partly shaded by this incident.

One Step Forward: This part of the storyline is truly groundbreaking.  For the first time in daytime television history we have an all female love triangle as Maggie becomes jealous of Lena for taking her place in the acronym.  Maggie kisses Bianca, then freaks, and you guessed it, runs away screaming in her mind, “I am not gay, I am not gay!”
One Step Back: Maggie sleeps with the nearest Y chromosome to prove she is not in love with Bianca.

One Step Forward: Lena leaves town to care for her ailing mother.  Maggie confesses to a friend she has feelings for Bianca, or according to every soap magazine spoiler, Bianca and Maggie grow closer…
One Step Back: Even though Lena is off screen, it’s a very convenient device to avoid moving BAM forward.   Maggie confesses her love to Bianca, but Bianca reiterates her commitment to Lena…somewhere in the Balkans.  As a result, Maggie runs to the waiting arms of an abusive relationship with a man.

One Step Forward: Long distance relationships just don’t work, so Bianca breaks up with Lena over the phone (classy), giving Bianca the space she needs to save Maggie from her verbally and physically abusive boyfriend.   When Maggie said she needed Jonathan because no one else loved her, Bianca once again confessed her love as more than friendship and tenderly kissed Maggie on the lips.

Now, finally, there is nothing, no antagonist, no unrequited love, nothing left unspoken to keep the powers that be from moving forward with this storyline.  Think again.

One Final Step: Bianca decides to leave Pine Valley and asks Maggie to go with her.  They fly off into the off-screen sunset together only after Maggie once again confesses her confusion and her inability to commit to Bianca.  Essentially, after three very long years and a myriad of  “growing closer spoilers”, we have BAM standing somewhat where they started…only the geography has changed.  True, the writing had to reflect the sudden decisions by the actresses to move on from daytime, but once again, we have to play pretend with characters off screen. Did they, or didn’t they, will they, or won’t they?  I don’t believe as committed fans, a mad rush into “the mile high club” was desired, either, but something other than the status quo would have been a more acceptable closure. However, as I pronounced in Part 1 of this posting, although fans would have preferred more network commitment to a more forward movement of the BAM storyline, at least the dance was begun with this pairing.  Being the first is never easy.  As a result of BAM’s success, soaps have dedicated more front-burner space to same sex couples.  Through a forward and back and forward again progression, BAM eventually sambaed down the daytime door allowing pairings such as Breese, Nuke, and now Otalia, to two-step through it.

An Aside
An article about BAM and how the couple became the first same-sex super couple cannot be written without acknowledging the fanbase that provided the support and the gentle network pressure required to move the storyline forward as much as it progressed.  The Bianca and Maggie pairing set the standard for which all other same-sex pairings would be compared.  The same can be said for the BAMfans, who danced that Sapphic samba with the network until the very end.

As I noted in Part 1 of this piece, there was a large contingency of viewers searching for any semblance of representation in the media.  Having seen little more than titillating exploitation from primetime television, AMC’s Bianca became a symbol of possibility.

A group of talented and creative individuals from across the nation became a network of concerted voices united in their desire to have BAM portray their own untold story. Until the Internet age, there was no way of organizing these voices.  Fan pages and forum boards became the party lines of the decades past.  A simple “Google” search connected you to a community welcoming your participation and your views.

Respectfully commenting on aspects of the BAM storyline that were sensitive to the ones it represented, the legion of BAMfans used letter writing campaigns, graphically designed materials, and themed giveaways to bring attention to the cause. The BAM brigade was given national mention in televised and written media across the county.  When was a fan group ever contacted by Soap Opera Digest and Soap Opera Weekly for a quote used in production?  The BAMfans created a marketing campaign that rivaled anything Madison Avenue could produce.

Having the desire to be an effective force outside of the entertainment world, the BAMfans turned their attention toward charitable organizations.  Realizing its outreach numbered in the thousands, and having well placed contacts in the soap industry, the BAMfans began to make a difference in all parts of the county.  With the unselfish and unwavering help of Eden and Liz, the BAMfans have raised tens of thousands of dollars for such charitable organizations as RAINN, the Matthew Shepard Foundation, the Pediatric Aids Foundation, and BCEFA.

Part 3 – AfterBAM, the present.  (to be continued)