>Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1993 11:14:42 EST >From: Diane Bailey >Subject: UK Soaps, in ratings battle, include young lesbians. One of British television's four prime-time soap opera's chose it's Christmas week episodes to feature the first lesbian crisis for it's first major character to be identified as lesbian. Beth Jordache is only the fourth lesbian character to appear in a British tv network soap opera in the 40 year history of the genre in this country. The longest running production, Granada Television's 'Coronation Street' (which regularly tops the national viewing charts with around 17 million viewers three time a week) has yet to have any such character. But then that supposedly 'gritty and realistic Northern drama' only gained its first non-white characters recently, despite running for 30 years and being set, and definitely produced, in a part of England with a long established and substantial Black and Asian population. None of the Australian soap-operas in the day-time schedules - 'Neighbours' (10.6 million), 'Home and Away' (9 million), 'A Country Practice' (Not top 50) and 'Flying Doctor' (Not top 50) - ever seems to have had either a gay or lesbian character, or even mention such sexuality, yet the cult, late-night Australian soap, 'Prisoner Cell Block H' (Not top 50), made in the 1980s but still on the air here, always has at least one lesbian character. None of these Australian soaps have any regular Black or Asian character either. The BBC's now dead 'Eldorado', set in a European expatriate community in Spain, had a gay male character (a retired nurse) but no lesbian - although one of its main female - and very heterosexual - characters was played by an out-lesbian actress. Both 'Brookside' (Not top 50) and BBC1's 'EastEnders' (usually second in the national viewing charts with around 15.25 million) have had short-lived and peripheral lesbian characters once, during the '80s. Both have had more than one gay male character, including kissing-couples, for longer periods and in central roles, although no gay male characters are current in any of the series. Both series have several Black and Asian characters, although none have been gay. Both 'EastEnders' and 'Coronation Street' also have out-lesbian actresses playing heterosexual women. The Yorkshire TV's 'Emmerdale' (10.1 million) went completely against its previously "safe", conservative, rural image when one of it's younger and most normal, and successful characters came out as lesbian earlier this year. The character is still present, although her sexuality is only mentioned infrequently. But the show did take it upon itself to portray an LGB student disco, including real LGBs as extras. The character is the daughter of one of the district's leading businessmen. He, along with almost every other character, has reacted pretty well to his daughter's honesty. It is understood that 'Emmerdale' acted on advice from TV guru Phil Redmond in introducing this storyline. Redmond, who first came to fame by inventing the children's soap 'Grange Hill' - realistically set in a local comprehensive school - then went on to found his own production company in his native Liverpool and won the contract for the soap opera for Channel Four when that channel launched. 'Brookside' is mainly set, shot, and completely produced, in a street of real houses owned by the company in a Liverpool suburb. It is the most popular programme on the country's third most popular channel. Now Redmond appears to have followed his own advice and introduced a lesbian character to his own series. Although this is without doubt a welcome advance, there are some worries. The first is that the character has a history of being sexually abused, and of being involved in the series' most over-the- top-story-line - when she and her mother murdered her abusing father and buried his body in their backyard. When poisoning him didn't work they knifed him. Repeated at 17.00 on a Saturday this earned the series its first rebuke from the TV regulator. Since the body might yet be discovered it could be that the teenager's sexuality may be raised in a trial story-line, or be "explained" by her abuse. She had to deny this link in an episode last week. Her family is also under threat of eviction from their house in the street, with the consequent danger of discovery of the father's body, so the character may not be intended as a long-term part of the series. These worries apart, her lesbianism is being well handled. The character is attractive, lucid and intelligent. She had already explained her attraction to a male friend-of-the-family, after he tried to find her a boyfriend. She had found herself in love with a neighbour, another attractive, slightly older young woman working as an au-pair. To this young woman she had found herself able to talk about the abuse she had suffered. This week, just as her friend was about to leave the street, she told her that she was in love; then that she loved a woman, and then that the woman was her. There having been several long hugs along the way to this, she then tried a kiss, and was rebuffed, in shock and possibly with some distaste. The woman grabbed her bags and ran for her taxi; end of scene. In a counter-point storyline, another isolated young female character was being baptised into a local Christian youth cult. Grabbing for audience in Christmas week, they also featured the mistress of one character giving birth in great hurry and before schedule, and the wife of another character discovering her husband taking cocaine. Interviewed in the teen magazine 'Just 17', the actress in question, Anna Friel, says that she is enjoying the part and learning a lot. The directors had told her not to research the part but just to go along with the script. The large circulation magazine uses the story over three pages, including a letter written by a reader, following up on a previous article about gays, telling how she feels (positively) about her best friend coming out as lesbian. However, apart from 'Brookside' production photographs, the article is illustrated with pictures "posed by models". The article gives contact details for London Lesbian Line, the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard, and the Black Lesbian and Gay Centre (again London-based). This however continues the problem verbalised by Beth Jordache, as a Liverpool based young lesbian, that she knows nowhere and no way to meet or learn about other lesbians locally. Still, perhaps Beth Jordache might read 'Just 17' and make a call to London. Then she might learn that there is a thriving LGB life in her own city, with more than one well stocked LGB section in bookshops, copies of 'The Pink Paper', and probably 'Deneuve' too. Since 'Brookside' is scripted 12 months in advance, and shot 6 months in advance, such hopes are perhaps in vain. It is infuriating that portrayals that have such a potentially important impact upon members of our community are kept secret from us - even from our media - in just the same way as any other twist in a soap-opera plot. This would be fine if they were really everyday twists in such plots, but the ground-breaking nature of these portrayals makes them something far more important for us - just as they are for soap series in their battles for audience - upon which one would like to know that the writers and producers, and actors, had the benefit of the best advice and knowledge. Diane Contributing Editor, The Pink Paper, London dbailey@cix.compulink.co.uk