Well, it’s happened. It hurts my soul to say it, but John Paul has officially left Hollyoaks. The end of an era was marked last week with the departure of James Sutton’s character from the well-known UK soap which has become an online favorite of many gay viewers in the U.S. All of the twists, the turns, the turbulence, and the towel shots, are over.

Only two years ago, Sutton walked into Hollyoaks and into our hearts and there’s been nothing but drama ever since. We’ve watched John Paul come in and out of steamy relationships, as well as steamy showers. Our little guy’s gone from Craig, to Kieron, back to Craig again, and stopped in his fair share of closets along the way. It’s been intense. It’s been raw. It’s been real. …Ok, let’s not get ahead of ourselves - It’s still a soap opera, but it’s been as intense and raw and real as a soap like the Oaks could get.

Left: James Sutton with Guy Burnet ("Craig")
Right: Sutton with Jake Hendriks ("Kieron")

With John Paul still fresh in our minds, now is the time to look back in honor of all the twists, the triangles and the towels (seriously, is it just me or was John Paul always showering?) and more so to consider how the show did in terms of its queer representation; after all, this was Hollyoak’s first real attempt at developing a gay plotline.

Most British soaps (Emmerdale, EastEnders, and the old Coronation Street to name a few) have included gay characters, some even starting decades ago. Up until two years ago Hollyoaks, which debuted in 1995, did not. And for a soap cast of virtually all teens and twentysomethings, targeted at younger audiences and one that proudly tackles controversial issue-oriented storylines about everything from incest to eating disorders, to not include queer content, well, that was just wrong and outdated.

Finally in ‘06 the creative team responded to criticism from alienated audiences about the show’s lack of queer visibility and decided it was time to diversify their content. That was when J.P. came strolling into Chester with his blonde hair and blue eyes that could make a grown man weep.

It wasn’t all rainbows and daisies though; you can’t just throw a gay guy into the mix, call it diversity and forget about the character except for the occasional witty ( or bitchy) quip. Indeed, television shows have a host of inherent risks ahead of them when they introduce a gay character for the first time, certain stereotypical traps they may fall into. For argument’s sake, let’s call them “Gay Potholes” - ruts in the road of character development that some of our most notable daytime homos have tended to get stuck in along the way.

Let’s look at some of Hollyoaks’ holes and see how, for the most part, they managed to avoid falling in. The show’s success at queer representation will be graded on its successes and failures by an arbitrarily-awarded towel point scheme, in the memory of our beloved John Paul.

Gay Pothole #1: The clichéd coming out

Hollyoaks’ Pothole Status: Avoided, sort of

Arbitrary Points Awarded:

With the intro of any gay character onto a television show, there’s always the potential he will succumb to the clichéd coming out story: the token gay who grapples with his ‘different’ identity for months, alone in his room, with Dido playing softly on his stereo. This "Othered" identity becomes the sole defining factor for him and limits his interaction with the series' other ongoing plotlines. Often the gay story becomes solely about him dealing with his gayness, and then ‘coming out’ to his heterosexual counterparts.

John Paul, however, dealt with the whole gay thing pretty fast. Sure it was hard for a few episodes and emotions ran high (especially when he broke the news to then-girlfriend-slash-beard Hannah) but John Paul didn’t wallow. He knew who he was, came to terms with that and turned away any adversaries that stood in his way. He was strong-willed, confident and an admirable gay character. Ultimately, John Paul came out of his striped-tee infested closet, put a Brokeback poster up on his wall and called it a day.