Yes, yes, yes. You’d have to be blind not to see the inherent homophobic pandering that was deliberately put into the way Will’s death was handled. Ben was given more sympathy and POV, while Will was degraded in every possible way – treated like garbage. Meanwhile, the show was tweeting happy pictures of heterosexual cast members telling us all to celebrate. As has been pointed out before, Will and Sonny had no reunion and were not even allowed to be in the same scene with each other. There were no flashbacks. Will’s sexuality was barely mentioned. Sonny abandoned their daughter but not before lining up his next date while standing on Will’s grave. This wasn’t an erasure of the gay – it was a deliberate, obvious and carefully crafted political message that gays are garbage and deserve nothing but death and misery.

Chandler Massey and Guy Wilson both deserve all the credit in the world for their graceful and articulate portrayal of Will. Neither was perfect, but Mr. Wilson in particular had to deal with a bunch of bitchy and hateful trolls on top of homophobes. Both did wonderful work when it counted, and I hope they both go on to great careers.

In the industry there is conversation about how women are not paid enough or considered for roles enough. The African American population complain that their actors and actresses are not considered for roles because of a hidden bias or prejudice. Latins are not represented very well either. Then we have the Asian community who always painted with the same strokes when written about in any show story line. Then we come to the LGBTQ community. We are always used as a stunt. A ratings grabber. A sweeps audience grabber. Let’s have a transgender character on B&B cause it’s “cool” and trending on Twitter. Or let’s start a gay love story that will culminate with a wedding and an ill conceived child in the mix. Gays have no morals so let’s make them cheat after they get everything. And then finally let’s punish them for it all by killing the main character off. That will teach those homos for being such horrible human beings. The message conveyed by daytime television, as far as gay characters are concerned is that, they can get some representation but only in the construct of how the heterosexual community deems acceptable. When it becomes too scary just get rid of the story and all the characters. Never speak of the abominations again. The reason that a gay character never works in daytime is because they are not written as a part of society, they are written as the circus side show freaks that every one has to make “normal”. When Will Horton was created they made him experience the shame and fear of being gay. Then he fell for Sonny and it was still wrong. So then Will in a moment of “weakness” sleeps with Gabi (cause all gays really want to sleep with a woman cause it’s the “right” thing to do) and gets her pregnant. Finally to satisfy the naysayers in middle America they force a young couple into marriage. Not only marriage but parenthood too because God forbid a gay character actually be happy as a single person. Of course to be realistic to people they have to show a married couple in their intimate moments. Which feeds the fears of the homophobes who cry out, “i don’t want to see that stuff shoved down my throat” and then the sponsors get nervous. They don’t talk at all about the couples who are unmarried getting laid all over the screens. How many straight couples are shown in bed day in and day out in daytime without the “tool” of marriage. After all, it’s okay to be promiscuous if you are straight, men will be men and women well they have to find their future mates somehow. The sponsors aren’t nervous when they promote easy, commitment free sex with straight couples but don’t let those homos have that kind of fun cause it’s wrong. Here is the problem: the Gay community is a living breathing part of society. We get up in the morning and get dressed for work. We drive our cars and pay our bills and vote and want the same things every one else wants. We root for the underdogs. We cheer for the righteous. We cry when people are unjustly punished or tortured. We watch TV and want to see us represented as any other group is. Making a certain group of people fit into the same mold doesn’t work. The Black community have different struggles. Racial inequality, financial hurdles and possibly some lifestyle issues to overcome and yet we don’t tell the African American community that if they don’t behave we will revert to the mistakes of the past in our nation’s history. Same goes for other racial groups struggling for acceptance and representation. We all want the same things. Stop punishing a certain group of people for a minor part of their lives – who they love. All My Children had Erica Kane’s daughter come out as gay but before they left the air she was banging every dude possible. Because the message is that no gay person is happy being gay they are just looking for that one straight person to turn them around. This bias has been happening for years. As The World Turns had a gay character long before Luke and Noah. His name was Hank and he worked for Barbra. When he started they discussed his being gay but never showed or portrayed it. Soon enough just the word gay was too much and As The World Turns ended the run of Hank. This teaches every one that if you complain loud enough that you can get rid of something you don’t understand or accept. We need to, as a society, stop putting things that might be uncomfortable back in a box. We need to deal with it head on. Daytime TV does it with every other social matter around. Rape, Incest, racism, poverty, education, and the others so why is the topic of anything “gay” so scary? My hope is that one soap, I don’t care which one, will choose to place some gay characters in the scenery and portray them as everyday citizens. Will they mess around? Yes because every one else messes around. Will they experience loss and love and financial ruin? Yes because we as humans face that every day regardless of our orientation. It’s time for soaps to stop running scared of the bigots and narrow minded souls and stand up and say……thanks for being a part of our world now let’s show every one else that being gay means nothing other than loving a person of the same gender. Stop using gays as “plot devices” and make them humans. I think it’s time….

I think the greatest travesty here is that the fans are taking advantage on by the networks or the producers.

When Days was hitting lows in their ratings, they used the gay storyline was re-booted to encourage progressive viewers amidst a progressing societal and political evolutions of gay marriage and equality.

They highly publicize their marriage and coming storyline in a variety of platforms and media, billing themselves as the first daytime marriage, first daytime actor on contract to play a gay character. All in all in attempts to woo the equality crowd with positive messaging behind. They gained accolades and support from media watchdog organizations such as GLAAD, advocate and also other pro-LGBT media platforms.

The entire scrubbing of the gay storyline and their refusal to return their GLAAD awards and the silence behind the media watchdog organizations like GLAAD stunted whatever progression these media watchdogs claim to support. The entire muzzle craning on all the progressive viewers and the subsequently murder of Will Horton entirely dehumanizes the LGBT that they can be taken for granted. To the networks, LGBT viewers are not a potential viewer block despite the LGBT viewers provided the platform behind the renewal of Days, netted them 4 Emmys and other accolades.

We are being raped and discriminated and the eerie silence behind this entire fiasco is slowly but surely draining us, silencing us and shutting us up

It is such a shame the way Days turned on its gay and ally audience with such malice. The gay audience has always been so supportive, why Days would spit in their faces and embrace the Kim Davis audience which is dying off. Last Winter, the Will, Sonny, Paul triangle was the best thing going and they obliterated it to pander to a dying off demographic. It wasn’t just Will’s horrific death but the elimination of gay fatherhood – and Will’s onscreen love of his daughter was very special – that was truly offensive and awful. I feel bad for the actors involved because they had no choice but I hope the writers and producers involved are fired.

I didn’t see the big deal about it.

Some people stay in the past, no gays in tv, perhaps??
the Encyclopaedia Britannica have not been used in book form for a very long time. Many now gen have never held/seen an Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Cassette players /Walkmans are near antiques..
Just saying;
Growing Pains
Knight Rider
ALF
3’s Company
Who’s the Boss?
Full House
Miami Vice
The Love Boat
Married… With Children
MacGyver
Designing Women
Maud
(all ^^^ via google)

Well, the world has greatly changed.. there are common things beginning used daily that weren’t even imagined back then–iPhones, apps, tablets, interactive internet, cars you talk to to do whatever and windows 3.1 long gone..
The soaps remain back in the 20th century, not much change, that is factual in comparison to tv, cable, movies of now, it’s like a different plant to the now generation that have never seen or used a dial phone.
they are what/who the soaps desperately need.

And that is the problem for the soaps getting new viewers of the coveted demo ages.
What could possibly entice anyone from the now gen on their iphones cruising the net to watch a soap called ”General Hospital or Days of Our Lives.. the titles alone are a wtf deterrent.
I think soaps need to modernize their titles.
The Young & The Restless has a more alluring title..

So, gays on TV. movies etc etc was simply another step into the 21st century and is everyday commonplace now, but not on the soaps they have mostly remained the same since the 80’s….
If there is nothing new and exciting in the 21st century soaps to entice the now gen to tune in, the soaps are dead.
I’m straight–And I highly doubt it will be gay characters used to lure in new soap viewers, because gays are simply good friends, neighbors, and family, they are everyday people doing everyday boring stuff, paying bills we are all us,
Having people of different races/cultures, gays, straights, overweight normal people is the key .. We all can relate to us ..
((the Good The Bad And The Ugly 🙂

Long Live ALL the Soaps!!!
Soaps are an American traditional culture and should be celebrated and preserved!

There was a time when daytime dramas were progressive and cutting edge because back in the 70’s and 80’s the shows were not being micromanaged by focus groups and corporate suits who don’t have a creative bone in their body. However today daytime dramas are less about being cutting edge in their storytelling but more about just maintaining the status quo as long as possible, and as cheaply as possible.

The fact that at one time Days was willing to make an established character linked to the history of the show gay and put that character out there front and center in attempt to integrate gay characters onto the canvas not as a fad or short term story, but with long term potential was progress. And if the show was just catering to homophobic viewers they would have never even done the story at all, much like Y&R has managed to avoid doing all these years.

But they did do it. And that is why it is disheartening and short sighted that with a change in writers and producers and with Ken Corday becoming more hands off for the 50th after neglecting the soap for years, they decided to not only drop this story line, but do it in the most disrespectful way possible. It is obvious by this thread that insult was more hurtful than just abandoning the gay story. The way they did it was unnecessary. The story could have change direction in many other ways, and as a straight woman who is in her 50’s I was just as appalled and furious with them for doing that and in the way they did it.

Homophobia was no face, it can be anyone, from a young boy in middle school who is bullying his gay classmate, a middle age woman who thinks she is accepting but still cringes inwardly when she sees two women holding hands at the mall. It could a young couple who is afraid of letting their son play with Barbie in fear it would make him gay or the old man who uses the world fag because it was the only word he was ever known to use without understanding why saying it now is hateful.

I do think things are changing and perhaps not fast enough for some, maybe too fast for others, but one thing is for sure you do not overcome hate with hate. I know that is difficult to do when hate is thrown at you a thousand different ways directly or indirectly, but if we learned anything from history, all great movements of change were birth not in hate, but love. No matter what your sexual orientation, skin color or gender if we cannot treat each person on this planet with love the human race will never truly evolve beyond the evil that is based in fear and in misunderstanding the evil we call prejudice

So in the cause of having daytime dramas incorporated gay characters as just characters and not just a story to be told and discarded after the telling, losing Will on Days may mean a battle was lost, but war is not is over, a war fought not with hate, but with love,patience and most of all hope.

Boy, nasty back-and-forth there between commenters! Here is a reminder: The question of this article is “Have Daytime Dramas Become More Afraid Of Having Gay Characters on the Canvas?” It’s a toss up isn’t it. Let’s look at the facts: Y&R has had less than a handful of gay stories, both handled embarrassingly terrible. The Powers That Be seems to not be interested in showing any GLBT stories, as each writing team have stayed away from any. I don;t think CBS or Sony has an issue, as B&B has been groundbreaking with their GLB”T” story, but that Soap has not been #1 for decades, so CBS may be scared to rock the boat of their #1. GH has had a gay storyline that’s been ongoing for a while, but the pacing and momentum all but died after a decent start. PROPS to GH for really going there with bedroom scenes, they were/are IMO very sexy for daytime. And DAYS, the WilSon story was front burner for a long time, and although far from perfect, was the most interesting story during a time when watching paint dry was more appealing. That story was winning Emmy awards for acting. The new team of Josh Griffith & Dena Higley took over (THE DAY after Sonny left). They immediately removed Will and Paul from the front burner, only to quickly have Will brutally murdered. Paul is now on less than once a month. I don’t see NBC being afraid to have GLBT, as DAYS was winning GLADD awards and they were front burner for 3+ years. I think it’s Josh and Dena’s decision. Comments from Michael Logan indicate what I have believed, that Josh and Dena hate gays. They are in charge, so until they leave, expect at least Paul to be murdered, or turn into a crystal meth, HIV positive junkie, and THEN be brutally murdered.
Are Soaps scared to have GLBT? I don’t think so, I think the current TPTB writers don’t have the chops to tell a good GLBT story, or just really don’t care to.

A Gay Telenovela soap would be hilarious!

Somehow I think NBC is planning to cancel DOOL unless the number of viewers go up substantially. I want to see Hope go after Stefano and Andre to avenge Bo’s death.

I don’t feel like “Days” did this because the characters are Gay & I don’t think that TPTB or the new Head Writers are Homophobic. I think all of this happened due to a series of circumstances NONE having to do with the characters being Gay. The previous Headwriters in my opinions were HACKS they ruined so many long time favorite characters by writing them out-of-character & so many of their storylines did NOT follow “Days” history & were BORING, too Slow, went No Where, & No One Care for all the Newbies, that were being shoved down our throats that had no family or history in Salem. I and Thousand of other long time “Days” Fans so WELCOMED the behind the scenes changes & New Headwriters and since their storylines have been airing the pace of the show is SO MUCH BETTER, the Storylines actually are written in character & follow Show History and are SO MUCH BETTER, the Actors themselves seem to be Much Happier & appear to be acting SO MUCH BETTER. “Days” has killed off Straight, Long Time, Popular, Fan Favorite, Characters played by Long Time, Very Very Popular, Fan Favorite, Soap Vets & Legends!! I know because several Happened to be my Favorite Character. So to say this was only done because the character were Gay, I believe is wrong. This is Show Business & Soap Business 101 Folks. I LOVED the character of WILL as played by the very talented CHANDLER MASSEY but unfortunately Chandler CHOOSE to Leave the show, & No offense to GUY WILSON, but to be honest, He was Not as Good an Actor as Chandler & the previous Hack Writers Totally Ruined the WILL character for Me. I (and from the thousands of post I read online at Various Soap & “Days” web sites) Many, Many Other Fans, Hate what His character had become. He was a whiny, poor pitiful Me, everyone is out to get Me, character who acted like SONNY was the one who cheated on Him. WILL was the one who willingly cheated on SONNY but He acted like it was the other way around. WILL was turning into his Mom SAMI a character I personally have NEVER liked. I think So Many Fans HATED this WILL & did NOT care for Guy Wilson and they were complaining & posting Everywhere & All over that is why TPTB decided to Kill off the Character. I would not have minded had they just Re-Cast but they TPTB at “Days” said they had recast this Character so many times before so a decision was made to Kill Off the character. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the character of SONNY especially played by the excellent FREDDIE SMITH, but unfortunately Freddie CHOSE to LEAVE the Show. I truly hope that He changes His mind & Returns to show to play SONNY opposite PAUL who I also LOVE LOVE LOVE as played by the talented & handsome CHRISTOPHER SEAN. From the first moment He aired on “Days” and We saw him together with Sonny, I have like the chemistry between Sonny & Paul more than WILL (as played by Guy Wilson) & Sonny. I also believe the fact that We haven’t seen that much of Paul recently, is because Christopher Sean also plays the character Gabriel on primetime show “Hawaii 5-0” so He splits his taping schedule with “Days” & his “H5-0” storyline recently increased. So like I said, I truly believed that What Happened to these Characters was due to circumstances, Actors Leaving, Characters being Written out of Character, Re-Cast that didn’t quite work, Changes that were made behind the scenes, etc…etc… Which like I stated in NORMAL SOAP BUSINESS 101 and NOT because these characters happened to be GAY! I mean LOOK AT ALL THE STRAIGHT CHARACTERS THAT HAVE & ARE GOING TO BE KILLED OFF!! Hey IF You totally want EQUALLY than You have to Take that EQUALLY with the Good & the Bad, In Soaps, Soap Character get killed Off & it SUCKS big time when it is YOUR FAVORITE CHARACTER, like I said It has happened to Me several times, but I don’t believe it happened just because the character were Gay. Straight or Gay Soap Character come & go, Re-Cast are made, Kid Actor are SORASed, etc…etc…. It is just part of SOAP BIZ & SHOW BIZ!!

I’ve been fascinated to watch the cast tip toe around the homophobia issue because at least some of them are not stupid and know exactly what was done and why it was done, and I think they have all been told not to speak of or acknowledge the talk about it being homophobic. At Day of Days, even Deidre Hall seemed visibly nervous when it was brought up. They will probably be fired if they dare admit the truth, which of course makes them look either naive or like they are endorsing the homophobia. It puts them in a bad position, because being associated with a violent, right-wing gay-punishing show is not going to be good for anyone’s career.

Meanwhile, GLAAD and the network and Sony remains silent. Something must be going on behind the scene, which is probably some sort of quick thoughtless fix before we go back to Rafe’s hour of death and misery and whatever attempt they will make to redeem Ben because being a serial killer of women and gays makes you a fan favorite in the eyes of Griffith and Higley.

This whole debate is framed wrong, as is the term homophobia. It’s been pointed out many times phobia means fear, and maybe people hate gays because they fear them deep down, but I didn’t see any fear of Will or Sonny or Paul’s sexuality once the new writers took over. I saw hatred and contempt for it. They aren’t fearful cowards, they are aggressive bigots and presumed the audience was.

There’s a rumor that a Will and Sonny love scene was shot but cut out for not being appropriate for Days’ new audience, but Will’s death was shot for maximum pain, humiliation, loneliness and degradation.

Indeed, hatred, spite and violence are the core values that these new writers have. Will’s death was the worst example, but they sure did want to get back to the 80s. Day is now a world that finds sexuality dangerous and wrong but the violent degradation of gay men and women is considered family friendly entertainment. Bo apparently owns Hope and has the right to pass her off to Rafe like a cow, but the man she chose to move on with was evil – proving women can’t make their own decisions about who to love and need a man to tell them what is right. There’s also a rumor from Day of Days that Ben will be somehow redeemed because the audience finds him so sexy – think about that for a second.

The whole show is, at its core, reactionary and hateful. Fearful? Not so much. If they feared gays, they would have tried to hide their total and complete contempt for them.

On folks to all who are calling Dena and Josh homophobic writers. The hard facts : Dena and White sell created Sonny and Josh with Michael Malone created a gay character on one life to live in 1992( when it was really taboo for daytime soaps) So stop saying hateful things just because they kill off a character that was gay. I was upset that they kill him off not because he was gay, it was because he was a legacy Horton/ Brady character.Remember this is tv show and you got to move on . It gonna watch anymore , so be it. Nobody cares.