The Death of The Guiding Light

Keeping with my current death blog theme, I thought it would be a good idea to say farewell to the longest running broadcast (radio and TV combined) in history: The Guiding Light - dead of obsolescence at age 72.

This was the soap my grandmother watched when I was a kid, so it was the first one I ever watched. A CBS staple, it had a conservative, religious theme that appealed to her. Later on in my childhood I started watching soaps regularly, but I went for the more cutting edge ABC soaps. As a ritual for many years, I would race home from school, move my TV into my bathroom, draw a bath and spend the next 1 ½ hours transfixed watching General Hospital, One Life to Live and Dark Shadows. (Does it surprise anyone that my single favorite thing at our house is my beloved spa? Just wish I had a TV out there….) There is something just really cool about having these fictional families and towns go on forever – always available to drop in on and see what strange, tragic thing has befallen the people and place. (So, just how is Victoria Lord doing anyway? I haven't watched One Life to Live since the early 1970s – but she is still there, right?)

I never picked up the soap habit again until very recently. And, yes, dammit, I got hooked on the Guiding Light! I had read in Entertainment Weekly (EW) that they had a great lesbian storyline about two straight women, Olivia and Natalia (aka Otalia), falling in love. Now, “great lesbian storyline” is generally a non sequitur. With very, very rare exceptions, lesbians have just been royally screwed in mainstream film, TV and books for as long as those things have existed. But, given the EW recommendation, I decided to check it out. (For the record – I think the editors of EW have great taste in popular culture.)

And, indeed, they seemed like they were really doing this one right. It was a stealth storyline for many months as the two straight women were turned from enemies to friends grappling with intense feelings for each other that, for both, were unexpected and scary. The process of the women coming to terms with these feelings was done really beautifully and realistically. Of course, the plot went through many soapy twists and turns, full of angst and heartbreak, on the road to declaring and embracing their love. Olivia, played by the very talented Crystal Chappell, was particularly moving during the full arc of the storyline. Here she is in one of the most pivotal scenes on their soapy journey.

Through the miracle of Youtube, I was able to see the Otalia back-story before I started watching. Then I moved on to Olivia's back-story for the ten years she had been on the show. She was the town seductresses – outrageous, sassy, sarcastic and just a whole heap of sexy trouble. Deep down, of course, she just wanted to be loved for who she was and could never really make it happen. She always sabotaged it one way or another. And, the truth is that I feel in love with Olivia. I mean anyone who tries to commit suicide listening to Tosca has my heart!

The story of Otalia was really the story of Olivia's redemption. I was really looking forward to Olivia finally getting it right in love and getting her happy ending sealed with an epic kiss. Well, guess what? They did get their happily-ever-after, sealed - not with a kiss - but with a sweet head touch. Seriously! Here it is - the most anti-climatic denouement in the history of television.


Yep, curses, foiled again! Not one damn romantic kiss! Another lesbian story botched. GL deserves to die, if for nothing else, for blowing what would have and could have been the first truly great mainstream lesbian love story.

But, nonetheless, I had grown fond of the town of Springfield and am very happy that they reunited their most iconic couple – Josh and Reva – and that every other damn couple got to kiss a whole lot. Yep, very happy.

So, why are the soaps losing audience? Why are they becoming obsolete? I will give the last word to a man who played Buzz on the Guiding Light for 16 years, Justin Deas:

If the soaps all go off the air, some smart person is going to figure out the right way to do it and bring ’em back. But they’ll have to rethink the form and make it bolder. I mean, we in America still haven’t gotten over our sex hang-ups! The lesbians on our show can’t kiss? What’s wrong with us? There’s a greater chance that GL would have brought in a donkey for Buzz to have sex with.