Are the current producers ruining Home and Away?

[dee123]

1 hour ago, Matt said:

Winners & Losers showed a wide spectrum of characters - diverse in culture, race, and sexuality.

Really? Winners & Losers? Jonathan was a fay voice and hand swish away from being a character on Are You Being Served? The minorities you are correct, they did well for Aussie network television.

Oops, i see your comment after this went into much more details about the history of 7 shows.

Apologizes.

 

[Matt]

If anyone wishes to hear a former Script Producer briefly touch on gay characters on Home and Away, go to the 35-min mark of the latest Australian Screenwriters Podcast

[atrus]

Thanks for the heads-up.

For anyone struggling to find it, here is the reference:

HOST: But do you think over in England they can get away with more, even though the timeslots are actually similar?

HOLLY LYONS: Yeah, I think they definitely do, because - like Emmerdale would have gay relationships, and gay kisses, and I know Home & Away, erm, doesn't like to do that very often...

This is a subject I try to keep abreast of, as I think H&A's current policy towards gay storylines is crazy - particularly given the recent material with Tabitha and Olivia which in my view was highly offensive, given the context. In an interview earlier this year, former script producer Sarah Walker made references to a storyline that I strongly suspect is that of Charlie and Joey from H&A. If so, it sheds a little more light on the prevailing attitude of the network:

[Walker] was working on a mainstream drama when she wrote a same-sex relationship into the script. When it aired, a storm of controversy erupted and “everyone at the network freaked out”. In the aftermath, the writers were told that there was never to be another gay storyline in the show. And so there hasn’t.

A few months later, a fairly innocent line in a script merely mentioning lesbians caught the attention of executives, one of whom sent the stern message back that his wife and kids “don’t need to see this kind of s**t on TV”. These anecdotes aren’t from the 1970s or 80s, but just several years ago.

“That was quite distressing,” Walker recalls. “Imagine if that was a conversation about an indigenous person or storyline. It would be outrageous. No one would ever say something like that. I was told there was to be no mention of gays and lesbians on the show — no references at all.”

[samdanfan]

2 hours ago, atrus said:

Thanks for the heads-up.

For anyone struggling to find it, here is the reference:

HOST: But do you think over in England they can get away with more, even though the timeslots are actually similar?

HOLLY LYONS: Yeah, I think they definitely do, because - like Emmerdale would have gay relationships, and gay kisses, and I know Home & Away, erm, doesn't like to do that very often...

This is a subject I try to keep abreast of, as I think H&A's current policy towards gay storylines is crazy - particularly given the recent material with Tabitha and Olivia which in my view was highly offensive, given the context. In an interview earlier this year, former script producer Sarah Walker made references to a storyline that I strongly suspect is that of Charlie and Joey from H&A. If so, it sheds a little more light on the prevailing attitude of the network:

[Walker] was working on a mainstream drama when she wrote a same-sex relationship into the script. When it aired, a storm of controversy erupted and “everyone at the network freaked out”. In the aftermath, the writers were told that there was never to be another gay storyline in the show. And so there hasn’t.

A few months later, a fairly innocent line in a script merely mentioning lesbians caught the attention of executives, one of whom sent the stern message back that his wife and kids “don’t need to see this kind of s**t on TV”. These anecdotes aren’t from the 1970s or 80s, but just several years ago.

“That was quite distressing,” Walker recalls. “Imagine if that was a conversation about an indigenous person or storyline. It would be outrageous. No one would ever say something like that. I was told there was to be no mention of gays and lesbians on the show — no references at all.”

I believe other shows have had that issue as well.

[Skylover]

Thanks for the info.

[joany208121]

6 hours ago, atrus said:

[Walker] was working on a mainstream drama when she wrote a same-sex relationship into the script. When it aired, a storm of controversy erupted and “everyone at the network freaked out”. In the aftermath, the writers were told that there was never to be another gay storyline in the show. And so there hasn’t.

 

Wow. Such a shame that some backlash, that has now blown over has resulted in the future of the show to be severely altered, and thus has resulted in both the show and the network appear as regressive bigots.

[samdanfan]

47 minutes ago, joany208121 said:

Wow. Such a shame that some backlash, that has now blown over has resulted in the future of the show to be severely altered, and thus has resulted in both the show and the network appear as regressive bigots.

I guess we never see anything close to PLEASE LIKE ME in Summer bay? I read that Josh Thomas made the 4th season ending as a finale in case they do not do a 5th which I doubt they will after reading this. it may have went further than CH 7?

[joany208121]

But Ch7 was doing fantastic diversity, especially in the early seasons of All Saints. In terms of portraying same sex relations, we saw only Bron, Charlotte and Scott were in same sex relationships, they constantly had many guests who were gay, of different races, ethnicities and religions and mobility status

[Skylover]

I think we can very safely assume it's not the producers fault there are no gay characters.

The network executives shouldn't get away with this, I don't think they will either. It's only a matter of time.

[Matt]

11 hours ago, joany208121 said:

In terms of portraying same sex relations, we saw only Bron, Charlotte and Scott were in same sex relationships...

Scott wasn't gay, was he? Did that go straight over my head??

As for Bron, she and Charlotte spent the night together once before she went back to Ben, so I don't know how much of a 'relationship' you could call that...