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Opinion
 

Staff Editorial

                Matt Dulin                  Chris Elliott                        Robyn Morrow 
                                Johnny Peña                  Kristen Young

Daytime soap loses a man, gains a woman 

ABC's All My Children has made an unprecedented move that would send any convoluted soap plot into a confused tail spin: The television program will introduce a transgender character beginning Thursday, The Associated Press reported. 

The new character is named Zarf and is a flamboyant rock star who kisses the soap's lesbian character, Bianca. She tells him vehemently that she's a lesbian and makes Zarf wonder why it made sense to fall in love with a lesbian. 

Plot summary aside, All My Children should be commended for breaking down barriers and introducing a transgender character to Middle America, but the show's intentions behind introducing such a character should be scrutinized. 

This is another step in the right direction for embracing anyone in LGBT community in mainstream America. But it seems that the long-running soap might be using this introduction of the transgender character, and the media hype it's gaining from, only as shock value.

The daytime soap needs attention -- a lot of it. 

Following the downward trend with other daytime dramas in general, the show's average audience has slipped from 8.2 million in 1991-92 to 3.1 million last year, Nielsen Media Research reported. It should also be noted that All My Children experimented with many different characters last summer in hopes of gaining viewership, according to Soap Opera Weekly. 

It's also unclear whether All My Children would make the new character a permanent feature in the show. The fate of the character would probably rely on audience reaction. 

So acceptance of a group of individuals relies now on audience applause and ratings? 

Television executives should take cues from All My Children to make gays more visible to mainstream America.

But even though transgender people are finally being represented in mainstream television, how long is going to be for a simple, gay male kiss? The Bottom Line: They're out there, you know ...