If I recall correctly--it has been a long time ago, after all--in the early '80s
NBC sitcom,
Gimme a Break, there was line uttered in one of the first episodes by series' star,
Nell Carter. Carter's character, explaining why she enjoys watching the afternoon soap operas, wisecracks "Lord knows, I love watching white people suffer."
In vino, veritas--or maybe the thought is better rendered as in
bitter wine, there's
bitter truth. That line has stuck with me for 30-odd years. It has to be one of my all-time favorite commentaries, short but not so sweet, about both the soaps and about American media culture in general.
Like the rest of American media, the U.S. daytime dramas have always struggled with diversity, often failing to create characters and storylines that make strong use of actors that just happen to be African American, Latino, or Asian, let alone gay or differently abled.
There are exceptions, of course.
The Young and the Restless has had front-burner stories involving African-American
(Kristoff St. John, Victoria Rowell, Shemar Moore, Tonya Lee Williams) and Asian-American actors.
Another World in the '90s featured an actor who in real life and on the show relied upon a wheelchair to get around. And no, midway through his appearance, he wasn't "cured" through the miracle of modern surgery or prayer, learning to walk again and also, by the way, turning out to be one fabulous dancer. Jazz and tap.
NBC also broadcast for a few years the soap,
Generations, which had an almost evenly split African-American/Anglo-American cast.
I'm more than a little biased, but I think that some of the
ABC soaps have done better over the years. Over the course of its run,
All My Children featured prominently the African American Hubbard family and the Latino Santos family. AMC also had a lesbian character, Bianca Montgomery, as one of the major leads for nearly a decade, and featured an autistic character, Lilly Montgomery, with significant storyline during the 2000s.
One Life to Live offered the character Evangeline Williamson, played by African-American actress
Renee Elise Goldsberry, as
the core female character for a good portion of the 2000s. One of the show's other core female characters, Nora Hanen, was Jewish and, in the past, married to Hank Gannon, an African-American attorney, resulting in the birth of their biracial daughter.
But even early on in
OLTL's history, there was diversity. When originally unveiled in 1968, the show featured the wealthy and WASPy Lord family along with the middle-class Seigels (a Jewish family), the working-class Rileys and Woleks (Irish and maybe Czech-Slovak?), and the African-American Gray family. One character, Carla Gray, was biracial but passing as white, something that was not revealed initially and no doubt came as a surprise to viewers who tuned in in the late 1960s.
More recently, during the 1990s and 2000s, the show has portrayed the Puerto Rican Vega family in prominent storylines, as well as a front-burner gay storyline involving a white male police officer involved with an African-American woman, who struggles with coming out, eventually leaving her for another man, an out gay doctor.
So diversity is by no means unknown on the soaps, but it isn't always handled as well as it might. Too often the storylines involving "ethnic" or "minority" characters peter out, as if the writers can't quite figure out how to integrate the show's diverse cast members with the other characters.
Granted, that's probably an accurate reflection of a good portion of contemporary
America: We work together, definitely, but sometimes we still struggle with living in the same neighborhoods, let alone socializing and sharing our lives.
So it's hard to fault TV for not doing what we can't do ourselves. Nevertheless, if we're supposed to invest in and engage with "our stories" for one or more hours a day, five days a week, perhaps more accurately reflecting the complexity of American demographics and race relations might be one way to help us do so. If nothing else, it might lead us all to a little better understanding of our friends, neighbors, colleagues, and citizens.
And I don't care what you say--Viewers who know the ins and outs of characters and follow their lives for 20, 30, or 40 years or more, can, when pressed, handle a little diversity in action.
And maybe even a gay or lesbian love scene every now and again.
* * *
As part of my mourning process over the demise of
All My Children (something I'll write more about eventually) and, soon,
One Life to Live, at least on network TV, I've been tuning into soaps from other parts of the world.
This isn't really new for me--I've always had a pash for international pop culture and soaps have definitely been a part of that. I was a huge
EastEnders fan during the '80s when it was shown on public TV in
Washington, D.C., and other cities. When I've visited
Australia and
Britain, I have made a point to watch some of the Aussie soaps, like
Neighbors and
Home and Away. On a trip to
Mexico in the early '90s I got hooked on
telenovelas, such as
Dulce Desafío and
Simplemente María. Whenever I'm in the UK (or
Canada, for that matter), I always try to catch a few episodes of
Coronation Street. I remember well the British soap
Brookside and can't believe they canceled it. From the handful of episodes I saw in the mid-1990s, during the "
body under the patio plot," I thought it was quite good--although we might all could have done without
subsequent plots.
Although what a
last episode . . .
Of late, I've been watching episodes of the
South African soap,
Egoli: Place of Gold. This is not really news either; I've mentioned this before, at least a couple of times. I became curious about the show because at one point it starred one of my favorite daytime TV actresses,
Esta TerBlanche, who played the role of Gillian Andrassy on
All My Children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The more I explored, the more intriguing the show sounded.
Joan Collins made appearances in the 1990s (and who couldn't appreciate the camp factor of that?) and one of the earliest storylines involved the "coloured" or mixed-race character of Ester Willemse owning up to a long-term love relationship with her white employer, Senator Sinclair, and bearing two mixed-race children by him.
Probably something that was not comfortable to talk about in the South Africa of the 1990s, but there you have it. Let my obsession begin.
First, I watched a few episodes of
Egoli online via
YouTube. Then, I ordered from South Africa a two-disc DVD compendium,
Egoli 18, which chronicles in 18 "new," 24-minute episodes (actually re-editings of the originals accompanied by brief interviews with former cast members, writers, and crew) a year-by-year review of the major storylines and characters. It was less expensive than you might imagine and arrived in just a couple of weeks' time.
In the midst of watching those, I learned of the
Egoli 2000 photo book and even an
Egoli cookbook, both of which I've ordered.
Egoli 2000 is good about giving details on plots and background on the actors and stories, at least from 1992 through 1999. The cookbook is still making its way here, but given that it features some very traditional recipes from the characters (for example,
mashonzha, made with mopane worms), I suspect it will prove to be a fun souvenir more than a ready reference in my kitchen.
Lazy Days by
Phillippa Cheifitz it ain't.
Still, I have my limits. I'm not willing to track down a copy of
the Egoli sticker book, the
Egoli perfume, "Essence of Gold," or any of the creations of the fashion line designed by characters Freddie Vermeulen and series heroine Louwna Roelofse Vorster Edwards Von Badenburg Edwards. Imagine that name on a designer label.
And if you hear otherwise, please put a hold on my credit cards and dial the South African equivalent of 911 to report me.
So my new fantasy world is developing nicely, thank you for asking.
About the show itself. I have watched the episodes for years 1992 through 2000, with 10 years/episodes remaining.
Egoli ran for a half-an-hour a day, 5 days a week, for 18 years, so it's hard to get a full view of the series' highs and lows from these greatly reduced and re-edited episodes. Thus, keep in mind that what follows are general observations, not a clear-eyed gospel by any means.
So far, so good. Classic soap stuff, a mix of daytime and nighttime styles. In the early years (say, before 1997), the show focused on the wealthy Vorster family and the more working/middle-class Willemse and Naudé clans. The shows were recorded on videotape, rather than film, which, in my mind's eye, always makes the action seem more intimate, immediate, and "real" than film does. Before 1997, the show seemed to be a mix of American soaps like
All My Children and
Loving (from which there was some cross-over of at least two actors during the show's run) and nighttime soaps like
Dynasty and
Falcon Crest.
Thus, you had a potent stew of high drama and high fashion, along with social issues, family conflicts, and romances-gone-wrong. Louwna's marriage to Walt Vorster starts to hit the skids when she announces she wants to have a career outside the manse as well as being a doting wife and mother. Niek Naudé is torn between the dutiful Margie Willemse and the vivacious Sonet Vorster. Joanne Logan flees her abusive husband Deon Du Plessis. Cecile Roelofse tries to run off with her husband Tom Vorster's fortune, and, soon after receiving her comeuppance, steals her sister Nora's husband instead. Bienkie Naudé falls in love with a high school teacher, joins a cult, gets pregnant, and has an abortion. Stuff like that. All in five days' work.
After 1997, things seemed to change. First, the show started recording on film rather than videotape, looking much more like a nighttime serial. Most of the Vorsters, save for Sonet and her aging aunt-with-a-secret-son-and-heir, are written out, in favor of the fabulously wealthy and complicated Edwards family. The Edwards family, Joanne's super blonde bitch sister Kimberly, newly liberated conman-cum-businessman Adriaan Malan, and some ridiculously plotted storyline involving a German baroness and two heirs--one legit (and hyper-blond), one not--make it look like they were trying to give the show a reboot, turning the show into something a little less specifically South African and more generically international.
This apparently was a conscious decision, as, according to the
Egoli book, the show was now being shown throughout Africa, Latin America, and other regions. Nothing exceeds like excess.
I have to admit to liking the earlier seasons the best so far. Generally speaking, the nighttime soap model is more about plot points and business shenanigans, not people. The daytime soap model used to be more about people, characters, emotions, and then plot, but all that seemed to change years ago. I blame it on that damned
Luke and Laura and that stupid, freakin' "Ice Princess" storyline from
General Hospital--in my mind, a storyline boost that carried American soaps through the '80s but left them high and dry in the 1990s and beyond.
To me, it stands to reason that if you're going to spend that much time with a show day-in and day-out, you need drama, yes, but you need the hook of likeable characters and authentic emotions as well. Who's on top at Jabot or who Sonny Corinthos shot up in his latest mob war just doesn't cut it for me, at least long term. I want to see people, some nice, some not so nice, interacting in honest and crazy ways, acting in intriguing, if not always quite believable, stories. That's what keeps me entertained long term, even when the plot wears too thin.
I see the same thing happening to
Egoli as this point. From 1997 to 2000, the show feels like it's more about mean people, more about business machinations, and more about plot-heavy, character-killing stories. So hello wealthy, generic Edwards clan, goodbye Vorsters, and welcome to the back burner, my dear working-class Naudés and Willemses. There may be no way of knowing the real deal from these compressed episodes. The truth may only be known by viewing some full episodes on YouTube, should I be able to find any.
* * *
The other thing that's hard to get a handle on in the edited episodes is how diverse the cast of
Egoli might be. We have the "coloured" Willemses, yes, and the African Donna Makaula. We have Mrs. Naidoo, and later we have additional African characters, such as Lerato Mashabela, played by the absolutely gorgeous
Nthati Moshesh, who I recognized from the film
Cape of Good Hope watched earlier in the summer.
But we also have a hell of a lot of very, very blond, very, very white people speaking
Afrikaans.
Funny that. During the 1990s, whites made up something like 10 to 15 percent of the population of South Africa, with their numbers dwindling due to post-Apartheid emigration. Afrikaans is the first language of approximately 10 to 15 percent as well, both Afrikaner and "coloured," although understood by many more, as it serves as a second or third language in the nation.
According to the
Egoli book, the show initially began with an 80-20 Afrikaans-English mix of dialog, gradually by the late 1990s, striking a 60-40 Afrikaans-English "balance." African languages need not apply.
The same
Egoli book shows on the cover the photos of 26 cast members--1 African, 2 mixed race, and 23 white. The DVD, released in 2010, does a little better, showing a more diverse cast.
So maybe if we're generous, we could say the show's cast and cultural touchstones directly reflected those of 30 percent of South Africa's population in the late 1990s/early 2000s. To be nice and to acknowledge the language and cultural importance of Afrikaners in South Africa, I'm willing to go higher with that figure. Alas, I haven't yet visited South Africa, so perhaps I have got it all totally wrong in my head.
Or not.
I fully believe you can have shows, books, and other forms of media that consist predominantly of characters who are white, black, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, abled, differently abled, what have you.
Friends certainly got away with it for years and in no way represented that mosaic that is
New York City. It was criticized for that, too, and I think that was fair criticism. However, I'm willing to concede that not every show has to be one big Rainbow Nation.
I don't want to pick on South Africa here. I know there are at least a couple of other South African soaps out there--
7de Laan (Sewende Laan or
Seventh Avenue) and
Isidingo, both of which aim to be more multicultural. And let's face it, America's struggles with racial inequality have been hardly less breath-taking or internationally notorious. Even though something like 30 percent + of the U.S. population might be classified with the awful "non-white" label, a show that shows a mix of ethnicities and races is a rare gem indeed.
We are not alone, of course.
Mexico, with its mestizo population, seems a little too fond of TV blonds as well. And even dear
Canada, with its multicultural policy emphasis and
Little Mosque on the Prairie can't quite get over that English-language/French-language "two solitudes."
But, wow, would it hurt any of us and our media to make a little more of an effort? I don't really want to see a sharing-and-caring mix of fake diversity on TV, in which no one ever utters a cross word or expresses an unkind thought--or conversely, where only the
bad people utter them, not the
good ones. Life's a lot more complicated and uncomfortable than that. In fact, I'd
like to see some shows that help us deal with that racial/ethnic/cultural/sexual/lingual split, even if only to say that it's a tough break to mend. Sometimes you stitch it together. Sometimes it comes undone. But at least you try.
In the meantime, while I wait for that fantasy to come to my TV screen, I'll maintain my other one,
Egoli. Maybe, too, I'll try to find an online source for
7de Laan and
Isidingo as well. My pop culture obsessions may disappoint and frustrate at times, but that doesn't mean I won't keep on watching and hoping for something more.
