My blog was driving me nuts because the paragraph returns weren’t working and haven’t been working correctly for some time now – but Christine to the rescue!
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Procter & Gamble Takes Heat for Same-Sex Storyline on ‘As the World Turns’
By Jack Neff Published: April 25, 2008
BATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) — When it comes to gay kissing and soap operas, you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
Just ask Procter & Gamble Co., though its long-lagging soap opera “As the World Turns” just may be benefiting from the controversy.
After being criticized for months for not allowing a gay couple on “As the World Turns” to kiss on camera, Procter & Gamble Productions finally allowed them to do so April 23. Now, P&G is being attacked by the American Family Association, whose founder and chairman, Donald Wildmon, this morning sent an e-mail message titled “Procter & Gamble promotes explicit open-mouth homosexual kissing” and asking his followers to bombard the company with complaints.
First criticized for lack of kissing
Two gay characters on the soap opera first kissed last year on air. But it had been nearly seven months since they had last kissed, which had become the subject of fairly persistent blog chatter criticizing P&G Productions for treating them differently than it has numerous heterosexual couples.
The upside for P&G Productions: At least some people have been watching closely for that next kiss.
The blog AfterElton.com noted April 23 that it had been 211 days, 14 hours, 45 minutes and 45 seconds since gay teen characters Luke Snyder (played by Van Hansis) and Noah Mayer (Jake Silberman) had kissed.
The pair, termed “Nuke” by some fans, is the only gay couple currently on daytime TV. They last kissed Sept. 26, but subsequent encounters met with “interruptions and pan-aways whenever it seemed like the gay teens might kiss,” according to AfterElton.
“The CBS soap opera caught viewers off guard with surprisingly steamy kisses between the two,” the blog noted. That punctuated a lengthy online protest, which had generated more than 12,000 blog postings per a Google search.
Circulated ‘repulsive’ clip
It took the American Family Association more than a day to respond. And in case any members of its One Million Moms e-mail list, a group that has numbered in the six figures over the years, missed the kiss, the Rev. Wildmon conveniently included a link to a YouTube post of it.
“Warning,” his e-mail said. “Content is repulsive.”
“Luke is a character on ‘As the World Turns’ [who] was born on the show, and has grown up on the show,” a P&G spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “ATWT has been telling the story of Luke as a gay character on the show for two years now, which has included effects on his relationships with family and friends. As well, Luke’s romance with Noah is a natural part of telling his story which has evolved in recent months.”
A little controversy couldn’t hurt “As the World Turns,” which has generally been in the bottom half of eight daytime soaps in ratings in the past year, but in more recent weeks has moved up into the No. 3 or No. 4 position, according to Nielsen ratings reported by SoapCentral.com.
For P&G, the kiss is a marked departure from past practices. In the mid 1990s, it pulled all its advertising from a syndicated episode of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” in which two female characters kissed, at a time when P&G brands were practically the only sponsors of the show.
Previous boycott
The Nuke kiss may also signal a more assertive stance vis a vis the AFA, which ended a boycott of P&G in 2005 after declaring victory of sorts. At that point, the AFA said P&G appeared to have pulled its ads from shows such as “Will & Grace” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.” P&G said nothing to dispute that notion then, but a later analysis by Advertising Age found P&G actually had increased spending on the shows targeted by the AFA during and after the boycott.
“P&G is a company that values diversity,” the P&G spokeswoman said. “We strive to be a responsible advertiser, sponsoring programming that enable us to connect with a diverse consumer base. … The story of Luke and Noah on ‘As the World Turns’ is intended to be an authentic reflection of what’s happening in society today. … We recognize that there are times when the subject matter of content P&G sponsors will not be acceptable to all people as we strive to reach a very diverse group of consumers.”
It’s unclear to what degree P&G brands either will benefit or get hurt by the controversy, said Jim Nail, chief marketing officer of TNS’ Cymfony, which tracks online buzz.
The Nuke couple has generated moderate web buzz that appeared to peak around Valentine’s Day, he said. But the buzz “appears to be split, not just two ways, but about five ways,” he said, and he has doubts about how much long-term impact it will have.
When I wake up tomorrow morning, my girlfriend will be three days from coming home and I’ll be days away from my 49th birthday. All of this seems so incongruent and yet perfectly natural. Three days is better than 32 days. That is what I tell myself, but for some reason I miss her more right now that I have any of these tormented days before. Must be blind love, only kind of love is stone blind love.
I left for Jazz Fest about 2ish and on the way I ran into a woman I haven’t spoken with in five months, but in typical New Orleans fashion, the woman picked up our conversation at the same level of intimacy as if we had just seen each other and spent an evening together. I left her still talking and walked toward the Fairgrounds – the air was cool and there was the threat of rain but I thought positively. Then I got inside and went to see Irma Thomas – the Queen of New Orleans, and she sang, “It’s Raining Again,” right as the rain drops started falling. I listened to her for a bit then I decided to head for a tent but in a state of confusion about which to see when, I wound up by some artists stands just as the sky turned black and the clouds squeezed out all their rain – I found myself in a stall with a guy who had painted oysters and banana trees and one big nutria – the oysters and the banana flowers were evocative in and of themselves, and at first he draped a curtain down to protect us, and then the rain came heavier and he asked me if I wanted a beer and then the larger flap was pulled down over the whole structure so we sat and weathered it out inside our rainproof cube – a beer, oyster art on the wall and a few stories about music. He had seen at Essence festival Barry White, Al Green and I forgot who else. Then he said that his sister had bought $7500 worth of his art, so he felt he could relax and so the rain wasn’t getting him down. Then he told me about a friend who was trying to sell his house and he got a good price for it because his child had a special condition that required a machine and so they had a generator and the generator was what really appealed to the buyer so the house sold. The guy was totally charming, cute, and his art was of oysters but suddenly I wanted to go and so I dodged out behind flap after flap and made my way over to Congo Square – and I didn’t go see Elvis down at the Gentilly Stage but instead parked myself in front of the Congo stage ready to hear Al Green. And the Rev did not disappoint – he was fabulous, his dancers and backup singers were fabulous and I felt like I had died and gone to heaven when he sang Amazing Grace. Wow!!! But when he sang Let’s Stay Together, I wanted to call Tatjana up in Zagreb and say COME HOME Right Now…
I have had this vision of her since we met, her dark hair has turned to grey, her body is older, thinner, and her smile is still the same and still warms me to my core. This is us, later in life. It has made me think of Yeats’ When You Are Old –
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with a love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
And we welcomed the light into our hearts, our family, our friends, our cities, our countries, our planets, and our universe. Bienvinidos the clouds bellowed. Baruch haba the wind whispered. Welcome roared from the mountains. Dobro došao spoke the trees. Hoz geldiniz murmured the water. Bem-vindo sang the birds. Estamos listos, yo dije en silencio, estamos dispuestos.
T’s quote for the day: “Nobody is perfect until you fall in love with them.” So here are four reasons why I miss T and why she is perfect for me. Reason #4 – we are cosmopolitan: New Orleans chose me as my home – mi patria es españa, but during the Catholic monarchy we were forced to flee to Istanbul in 1492; after several hundred centuries of flourishing in Turkey, in 1930, when Constantinople became Istanbul, we fled to Cuba until Castro ran us out in 1959, which is when I arrived on the scene and was raised in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Puerto Rico, and all over the U.S. but in particular New Orleans. T’s heritage is Serbian and Croatian, but she came into adulthood in the Pacific Northwest in Seattle, Portland, and made her way down to New Orleans, which called her home as well. Reason #3 – we have similar sensibilities – deep passion and conviction for our likes and dislikes and a profound capacity to love. Reason #2 – we’re over 40, read: we have learned what to leave in and what to leave out and that helps simplify our lives and love, we’re too old for bullshit yet young enough to take risks. And finally, reason #4 why I miss T and why she is perfect for me is we are COMPLETELY mismatched in a totally, completely, marvelous and inexplicable way — all of me loves all of her and I see in her eyes my love – that two people could venture out on Fat Tuesday and find the love of their life before noon in the midst of a riot of color, a cacophony of sound, a world in motion, tells you we were meant to be and ella es para mi.
By the time I finally was dressed and getting out the door for Jazz Fest the sky darkened, lightning flashed on the horizon, thunder roared overhead, and there you have it – it started to rain cats and dogs. I watched the endless parade of wet Jazz Festers coming back all of them slick from rain and yet happy. I ventured over to J and drank a mimosa and danced to Valerie and then we all decided to be contra flow and head out into the rain, all going our separate ways. I went to the Fairgrounds and trampled through the mud with my umbrella barely keeping me dry. I looked around at the lines for food in the pouring rain, the hoards trekking through the mud, and decided I was completely insane for being there and came home to finish the Almodovar movie we had started a month ago.