Fans Protest Bias Against Gay Affection on As the World Turns

A group of As the World Turns fans have started an online campaign aimed at the show's producers and Procter and Gamble claiming that CBS treats the love between gay characters Luke and Noah differently than it treats the heterosexual couples on the show. While the show has presented a groundbreaking storyline, fans say that while heterosexual couples are given graphic love and kissing scenes, Luke (Van Hansis) and Noah's (Jake Silbermann) affection takes place mainly off-screen, and passionate kisses are few and far between.

The L.A. Times reports:

"It all started last Christmas, when Luke and Noah, the young gay couple on 'As The World Turns,' were about to kiss. Though fans had seen them kiss before, this time the camera panned up to the mistletoe. Over the next few months, while heterosexual couples were kissing, Nuke (as fans call the couple) was restricted to holding hands, playing with one another's neck scarves and sharing meaningful looks. Ensuing complaints of discrimination to CBS and the show's producer and sponsor, Procter & Gamble, had no effect. And the last straw apparently arrived on Valentine's Day, when every other couple but Nuke shared a kiss. They hugged instead. Online fans began a nationwide media blitz on Feb. 20 to bring attention to the show, which has been twice nominated for an award from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). 'Presenting a gay couple on television only to relegate them to insulting hugs and slaps on the back is the 21st century version of putting African Americans on the back of the bus,' wrote one disgruntled fan named Tony. 'We're simply supposed to be happy that we got the ride at all. This is 2008, and yet CBS and Procter & Gamble are clearly stuck in the past.' GLAAD media spokesman Damon Romine agreed with them that, 'while tremendous strides have been made on soaps, it's clear that we're not at a place where gay and transgender people are treated the same on daytime as they are on prime-time or cable.'"

AFTER THE JUMP, a fan-created video called "Luke and Noah: (A Distinct Lack Of) Passionate Kisses" set to "Passionate Kisses" by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

The fan who created this video wrote on its YouTube page: "This is a protest video of sorts for the way that Luke and Noah have been treated on As the World Turns. The show's continued intimation that affection between two gay guys in love is shameful is itself shameful. I chose this song because the lyrics say it all, whether they are construed as being from one boy to the other or from the fans to the show."

News: Norway, Spice Girls, Talan Torriero, Gregg Araki, Taipei

University of Virginia attempts to deal with anti-gay football chant: "After a Cavalier touchdown, the marching band strikes up what, to an outsider, sounds like 'Auld Lang Syne.' But, to its tune, students and alumni sing the 'Good Old Song,' its lyrics written by Edward A. Craighill in 1895, its mention of all being 'bright and gay' a throwback to when 'gay' meant 'happy,' the line a launching pad for what’s since become a university tradition of negating the word 'gay' with gleeful (often drunken) shouts of 'not gay!'"

Spice Girls lipsync their way through Victoria's Secret fashion show.

Is Laguna Beach's Talan Torriero the next Aquaman?

Norway's Lutherans vote to allow clergy in same-sex partnerships to serve: "The compromise decision reflected the realization that the church may have to live with a deep split over the issue. After an anguished week of debate at its annual meeting, the church's 86-member governing synod voted 50-34 to make the change. Two members abstained. The meeting, which ended Friday, was held in the town of Lillehammer. The decision means that six of Norway's 11 bishops are likely to open the pulpit to gay clergy in partnerships. In a vote earlier in the year, those six bishops voted in favor of easing the ban. The church already allows gays to serve in the clergy as long as they are not living in a homosexual partnership."

Amherst College students apologize to five Hampshire College students who "were allegedly called names, threatened, spit at and were blocked from leaving the dorm" following a gay party at which they were guests: "Dozens of students gathered outside Valentine Dining Hall at the college yesterday carrying signs that said 'We're Sorry Hampshire' and "I don't want to be 'tolerated.' They also asked passers-by to sign a banner that said 'Please Come Back.'"

IndieWire chats with filmmaker Gregg Araki about his film Smiley Face. We previewed a couple John Krasinski stills from the movie in October.

AfterElton talks to Van Hansis and Jake Silbermann about their gay storyline as Luke and Noah on As The World Turns. Hansis: "My parents are so proud of me it sort of embarrasses me. My mom cried on the red carpet at the Emmys this year when she was asked about how she felt for her son to be nominated. It was actually really nice. It’s great to see your parents so proud of your accomplishments. Both my parents now go through the soap magazines at the grocery store and point to pictures of me and tell the cashier 'That’s my son!' They are generally busy during the day so I think they watch the show online. But they have always been my biggest fans and I couldn’t ask for anything more."

From the just-don't-get-it dept: Taipei restaurant gives a completely new meaning to potty-mouthed.

Esteemed design group Pentagram takes a look at the redesigned Advocate: "Today gays and lesbians are no longer an ignored minority, and the younger generations have experienced a saturation of media both from and about the community. Activism, while still important, is less in the mix, and issues like gay marriage, medicine and civil rights have shifted to the mainstream press. At the same time, the circulation of newsweeklies is changing as news and information is more readily available online. The magazine’s redesign reflects these transformations. The new Advocate is modern and vibrant while continuing to confront politics and difficult LGBT issues. Impressively, it manages to successfully straddle the line between opinion leader and entertainment magazine without losing its journalistic integrity and with a tone that is sophisticated, but not frivolous."

Rod McCullom on HuffPost: John Edwards and Barack Obama make mistake of repeating Republican talking points to attack one of their own. "...something funny happened to Senators Edwards and Obama on their way to Las Vegas. Maybe the high-roller suites have complimentary testosterone and egos on the pillows, or, possibly they bumped into Elvis, who told them, "A little less conversation and a little more action." They lost their mojos. Instead of throwing the hungry audience sound bites that were wrapped in juicy, red meat, the two candidates tossed stale, Republican talking points at frontrunner Hillary Clinton and the audience booed and hissed."

Without fanfare, Nicaragua drops anti-sodomy laws: "In adopting a new national civil code on Monday, the Nicaraguan National Assembly sidestepped the longstanding law that penalized sodomy between members of the same-sex with up to five years in prison by overwhelmingly voting to approve a new civil code that simply did not mention it."

Bah Humbug: The Bill O'Reilly Christmas Store is now open!

On the Stage: Speech & Debate and Die Mommy Die!

Please welcome Kevin Sessums, who adds to his recent reviews of Cyrano de Bergerac, Rock 'n' Roll, and Fuerzabruta with a look at two new productions.

Now that the stagehand strike on Broadway looks to be longer than at first anticipated I thought I’d let you know about four productions not affected by it. Two are comedies and two are dramas. Take your pick or pick all four. They are all to varying degrees worth a visit. Today the comedies. Tomorrow the dramas.

Each season there is a breakout hit off-Broadway that theatre mavens flock to. A few seasons ago it was Avenue Q at the Vineyard Theatre, which moved to Broadway and beat Wicked for the Tony for Best Musical in one of the biggest upsets in years. It was ingeniously directed by Jason Moore who has done another ingenious job this season mounting Speech & Debate as the inaugural production at the Roundabout’s new Black Box Theatre downstairs at its Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre at 111 West 46th Street. (Moore is currently busy putting together the Broadway musical version of Shrek.)

He has cast this play-with-music about cyberspace and sexual secrets and teenage angst — written by Brown graduate Stephen Karam — with his usual keen eye. Susan Blackwell in the dual roles of the teacher and a local reporter finds different ways to be kindhearted and yet officious in each role. The two male leads, Jason Fuchs and Gideon Glick, as the high school gay nerds, Solomon and Howie, can be cruelly awkward and caustically funny and eccentrically sexy all at the same time. But it is Sarah Steele who is the revelation of this production as Diwata, the female drama queen of the high school. Steele played Adam Sandler’s daughter in James Brooks’ film Spanglish a few years back, but now almost all grown up she is heartbreaking and hilarious and rightly full of bravado. It seemed at times watching the brilliant Steele as if she had boarded some sort of theatrical time machine and Charlotte Rae were playing one of her own charges in The Facts of Life. Steele is so good she keeps your head spinning trying to come up with such concepts to describe what she’s accomplishing in this production, especially when, as a character from The Crucible, she really does board some sort of theatrical time machine in her character’s fertile mind to perform in a musical she has written in which she meets up with Abe Lincoln.

Speech & Debate is more than utterly delightful. It is in its confounding simplicity a profound little gem of a play about the complexities of difference.

T T T (out of 4 possible T's)

Speech & Debate, Roundabout Underground, Black Box Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre, 111 West 46th Street (between 6th Ave & Broadway), New York. Ticket information here.

***
DIE MOMMY DIE!

Charles Busch is back where he belongs — on a stage and bewigged and batting around, like only he can, the finely honed bon mots he has written with his own manicured hand.

In his latest production, Die Mommie Die! at New World Stages, he plays Angela Arden, a washed-up singer circa 1967. On a sumptuous set that captures the Hollywood hyper-hacienda aesthetic, Busch and his talented co-stars gleefully mug their way through a murder mystery he has so expertly concocted to showcase his singular talents. Busch is more than a drag queen. He is an accomplished male actress — arch and chiding and chillingly funny. He presides over his plays like a latter-day Lynn Fontaine played by Alfred Lunt.

The supporting cast in this outing can match him laugh for laugh. The hillbilly maid is played by Kristine Nielsen. Ashley Morris, newly graduated from North Carolina School for the Arts, is making her New York debut as Angela’s daughter Edith and she is a perky, sexy delight. Chris Hoch plays the well-hung gigolo, Tony Parker. (I think the play pre-dates Eva Longoria’s marriage to the basketball star with the same name, but every time his name was mentioned in the play I kept wondering if the real Tony Parker — and hence, Eva — were both so blessed.) Angela’s movie producer husband, Sol, who can’t believe he’s lost financing for the Billie Holiday story starring Elizabeth Taylor, is played by Bob Ari (Frank Langella’s understudy in the recent Frost/Nixon) who lends a bit of his legit stage chops to the parodic proceedings.

And for you Towleroad readers who have watched the YouTube clips posted here from the soap opera As The World Turns of the teenage gay character, Luke Snyder, there is Van Hansis. He plays Snyder on the soap, but nothing could prepare you soap fans for the outrageousness of his portrayal of Lance, Angela’s gay son who has been cast as Ado Annie in his college production of Oklahoma.

For those of you disapppointed in the film version of Die Mommie Die! — and I count myself among you — don’t let it deter you from this 90 minute intermissionless version. It’s much better than the movie. And you should never miss the opportunity to experience Charles Busch onstage. Busch is in a league of his own.

T T 1/2 (out of 4 possible T's)

Die Mommie Die!, New World Stages, 340 W. 50th Street, New York. Ticket information here.

Next up: Things We Want and Peter and Jerry

Recent Reviews
On the Stage: Cyrano de Bergerac
On the Stage: Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll [tr]
On the Stage: Tom Stoppard's Rock 'n' Roll and Fuerzabruta [tr]
On the Stage: Black Watch [tr]

It's Ryan Phillippe Flashback Time

I've posted a few clips of the Luke and Noah gay teen love story currently taking place on As the World Turns. One of our soap-loving tipsters has pointed us to a clip from One Life to Live from 1993 (on the right), which is remarkably similar to a scene that played out on As the World Turns just last week in which a dad confronts his gay son.

One Life to Live was one of Ryan Philippe's first acting jobs, which brings us to the second half of this post.

After the jump you'll find a clip shot by David LaChapelle for Armani featuring a very young, and very nude Ryan Philippe, as well as Amanda Lepore in her first video appearance for the director. Probably not safe for work for some, due to a brief cameo by Ryan's heiney.

As the World Turns to Get First Teenage Gay Kiss

A preview of tomorrow's (Friday) As the World Turns, which is set to feature daytime's first same-sex teenage kiss. The show's storyline between Luke and Noah has been building up to this moment. Van Hansis, who plays Luke Snyder, was nominated for a daytime Emmy for "Outstanding Younger Actor" earlier this year.

Previous clips we've featured can be found here, here, here, here, and here.

You may have missed...
Van Hansis Grabs Emmy Nomination for Portrayal of Gay Teen [tr]

Towleroad Guide to the Tube #160

INVISIBLE: New Hillary Clinton campaign spot to begin airing in Iowa tomorrow.
(source: slog)

AIDS: The latest from Chris Crocker.

VACATION: Clip from Fahrenheit 9/11. Bush on track to become the 'vacation president': "The presidential vacation-time record holder is the late Ronald Reagan, who tallied 436 days in his two terms. At 418 days, and with 17 months to go in his presidency, Bush is going to beat that easily."

GAY PANIC: The latest from As the World Turns' gay storyline between Luke and Noah.

Check out our previous guides to the Tube here!