General Hospital and the Lone Woman of Color

       General Hospital, a soap opera created in 1963, has experienced many creative eras. The show has gone through several incarnations as a result of the differing leaders behind the scenes of the show. Head writers and executive producers have changed by the dozen, while actors come and go in hopes of new opportunities. General Hospital remained the center of the American cultural zeitgeist for over forty years as a result of a commitment to telling intergenerational stories as shown by a compelling cast of characters. I grew up falling in love with General Hospital during its most diverse era. The Wards, a subset of the Quartermaine family, were introduced to the audience. The central love story, probably the most significant romantic relationship since Luke and Laura, was portrayed by two Latinx actors. You can imagine my surprise and disappointment at the current state of women of color in the landscape of General Hospital.

        General Hospital currently has ONE woman of color as a contract actor on the show.  For a show that relied on the legacy of two Latinx actors to retain cultural significance, this number is egregious and frankly disgusting. Primetime television, over the last five years, has benefited from the rise of women of color in leading roles. Soap operas have declined in ratings and pop cultural revelance, while scaling back the roles of women of color. Daytime soap operas used to portray progressive, forward facing content before primetime shows risked showing a narrative that centered anyone other than a white cisgender man.

       A daytime soap opera exhibited a woman choosing to have an abortion. A daytime soap opera found a creative way to encourage women to get pap smears. A daytime soap opera dared to center the stories of (white) women over the age of 35. A daytime soap opera showed a teenage girl get HIV from her first and only sexual partner. Soap operas humanized marginalized people to a larger audience, which is why the loss of women of color in these narratives is devastating. 

     Jordan Ashford, portrayed by Vinessa Antoine, is the lone woman of color on contract for General Hospital. Jordan's story caused much derision and frustration as an audience member because for months her romantic counterparts were focused on two white women, whose stories and characters we're better written. Teresa Castillo, who played Sabrina Santiago, a love interest for central character Michael Quartermaine was written off after returning from maternity leave. Michael's love interest then became a white blond woman. The message these creative decisions sends is clear. Women of color are not the future of soap operas. Women of color, who are queer, definitely are not the future of General Hospital as shown by the absence of Kristina Corinthos Davis. General Hospital introduced Kristina, a Latina character discovering her attraction to women only to let the story fall to the waist side.

     Women of color are not written in dynamic or compelling was in part because they are not written by women of color. To my knowledge General Hospital has never had a woman of color as head writer, now might be the time.