Mobile
Charlotte's Very Own Gay Soap Opera
Southern Disclosure, a homegrown answer to All My Children, gets ready to crank up again
By Jennifer Saylor
Page 2 of 5
No one is sure who came up with the idea, but somehow at that meeting it was decided -- OutMedia would produce a soap opera. An exaggerated and campy, but still recognizable, "television version" of living gay in the heart of the South, meant to challenge Old South beliefs and jumpstart New South pride -- and feature jewel thieves, evil twins, and demented exes bent on revenge.
"One of the overriding themes is the clash between the Old South and the New South," says Lari. "I don't think that's a subject Hollywood or the cable channels have explored. A lot of [Southern] culture is centered around the church, and a lot of our churches are Baptist, which are traditionally anti-gay."
While the New South is hardly the KKK-loving, gay-hating, psycho-social nightmare many non-Southerners imagine it to be, "It's a lot different being a gay person in the South than it is anywhere else in the world," says Pompey.So, under Pompey's guidance, the fictional Charlotte suburb of Wexton was born, along with a cast of characters to slink, steal, sob, and sleep around within its limits.
Steele: A promiscuous, closeted gay man making a mint in the corporate world that rejects his sexual identity, Steele is a sexy, blue-eyed, BMW-driving player pressured by his boss to marry and settle down, but nightly cruising local parks for a dose of anonymous sex -- the only sex his closeted lifestyle allows. Can he cling to his corporate identity when a former park sex partner threatens to invade his daytime life?
Lisa: A recovering alcoholic, Lisa was created to illuminate what the group saw as LGBT substance abusers' real drug of choice for medicating societally induced agonies: alcohol. In a bow to a hackneyed if genuine concern of many gay women, Lisa desperately wants a child, although her jealous ex, Flea, has sworn to keep Lisa all to herself -- at any cost.
Flea: Where were TV's blue-collar redneck lesbians? The introverted, tough-talking women in ripped jeans, with mullet haircuts, bad tattoos, baseball caps, and grease under their nails? Flea, Lisa's psycho former lover, is a rough, grimy, chain-smoking, working-class mechanic in ratty flannel and a permanent grimace, radiating enough demented, lovesick desire for Lisa to power the show's next 10 episodes.
Dr. Keva: Pursued by a smitten woman with a yappy Chihuahua and confronted by old neighborhood friends who reject her choice in love, Keva is a successful black woman with a thriving veterinary practice and a long-term partner. Keva gets flak from her friends and her clueless suitor -- not for being gay, but for daring to commit to a white partner.
Ben: Ben is a loving single parent and successful African-American business owner of the soap's community hangout, The Bean Queen coffee shop ("For a cup of truly fabulous coffee"). But nothing's perfect in the life of a soap character -- Ben's former wife (a movie star with a hidden life as a jewel smuggler) is out to get custody of their children, and is ready and willing to use his sexual orientation as a weapon against him in court.
The new team of writers created plotlines around these characters, producing enough material for Pompey to synthesize into a rough script of the first episode. With the script ready, auditions were held in late January 2001. Aside from empowering Charlotte's gay community, OutMedia was also fulfilling a secret wish of citizens, straight and gay -- to be on television.
Charlotte native Julie Henry and her best friend Kim Cobb both had dreams of acting and being on TV or film. "Lottery fantasy, movie-actress fantasy -- both seem totally unrealistic, and that's why they're my favorite fantasies," says Cobb. Though her last experience as a performer was in a ninth-grade school play, and Henry had no acting experience whatsoever, Cobb saw the ad and went for it, Henry in tow.
The pair of self-described "nervous idiots" arrived at the audition to find a diverse mix of other aspiring actors drawn by the lure of acting, creativity, and gay activism -- gay and straight, black and white, people with acting experience and people "who had no experience whatsoever, who thought this was a terrific idea, that this was gonna be fun, and that they wanted to be a part of it," as Pompey puts it.
Speaking of News_feature.html
-
When HIV comes home
Jul 20, 2005 -
Rasslin' Pioneers
Jul 13, 2005 -
Geddings on McCrory: "This guy is vulnerable"
Jul 6, 2005 - More »
Latest in News Feature
-
Bank of America Joins Chloe Capital to Invest in Women
Jul 13, 2022 -
Open Letter To Jordan Peterson
Jan 26, 2022 -
Turn Your Savings into a Profit Center
Feb 1, 2021 - More »
More by Jennifer Saylor
-
2003 Lit Roundup
Dec 24, 2003 -
Where Hope Isn't An Option
Dec 10, 2003 -
Fun With Diseases
Oct 29, 2003 - More »
Calendar
-
10th Annual "A Charlie Brown Christmas and Cool Holiday Favorites" featuring The Howard McNair Trio @ Northwest School of the Arts
- Wed., Dec. 4, 7-9 p.m.
-
-
Holidays at the Hall @ NASCAR Hall of Fame
- Mondays-Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Continues through Dec. 31
-
-
TheDiscountCodes
- Mondays-Sundays. Continues through Dec. 31
-
-
Carolina Holiday Light Spectacular @ Ballantyne's Backyard
- Mondays-Sundays, 7-10 p.m. Continues through Dec. 29
-
-
Winter Native American Art & Craft Festival
- Sat., Dec. 7, 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
-
The one that got away
Who killed Kim Thomas?
-
Inside The Spiritual Jacuzzi 1
More people are mixing and matching ideas from various faiths
-
Homer's night on the town 41
If you drank a shot with the Knights mascot on Sept. 20, you were basically harboring a fugitive
