“One Life to Live”’s Gay Love Triangle is Truly Groundbreaking Television

If you’ve ever doubted how quickly the world can change once an impasse is broken, consider the incredible case of the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, which is currently featuring a complicated love triangle among three gay male characters. Next week, two of them are planning to participate in a mass “protest” gay wedding ceremony that will also include a (faked) lesbian marriage involving one of the show’s long-time female characters.

But just two years ago, viewers of the CBS soap As the World Turns were growing increasingly frustrated because it seemed clear that the producers of that show were not allowing its two gay teen characters to kiss — a controversy that eventually spilled over into the mainstream media.

As the World Turn’s gay kissing moratorium was finally broken on April 23, 2008 — 211 eleven days after the characters kissed for the first time. But even then, it was hard to imagine how quickly, and how completely, America’s daytime drama landscape would be completely transformed.

Earlier this year a major gay storyline popped up on The Young and the Restless, although it was subsequently put on the backburner and hasn't lived up to expectations. And while some have been disappointed by the recent writing on As the World Turns, the two boyfriends are no longer shy about sharing on-screen intimacy (and even finally went “all the way” in January of this year).

But it’s on One Life to Live where the major gay action has transpired. Kyle Lewis, played by Brett Claywell, had a college affair with Officer Oliver Fish (played by Chris Evans’ handsome brother Scott Evans), but back then, Oliver wasn’t ready to come out as gay.

Now, years later, he’s finally admitted to himself who he is, come out and still clearly carries a torch for his former flame. Problem is, Kyle has moved on to the arms of Nick, played by Nicholas Rodriguez, who, last month, proposed to Kyle on bended knee — a soap opera first.

This meant we we had daytime television's first gay male love triangle. (ATWT was supposed to have one this summer between Luke, Noah and Noah's college professor, but the show got cold feet and never went there.) Love triangles, long a staple of daytime drama, often offer up some of soap's best and most beloved storylines. That gay men have finally been admitted to this inner circle of the soap world is a definite breakthrough.

One Life to Live's Nicholas Rodriguez, Brett Claywell, and Scott Evans

Sure, One Life to Live's mayor-pretending-to-a-lesbian-in-order-to-win-votes storyline is patently ridiculous, even by soap opera standards.

But the way the show has treated its gay characters is remarkable on a number of levels.

First, there’s simply the fact that these gay characters are getting such major air-time. According to Rodriguez in an interview earlier this year AfterElton.com, the character of Nick was originally brought in for a mere four-episode arc.

“I'd finished my four [episodes] and I knew I'd had a really great time, and pretty much immediately I got called and they said they were going to write some more stuff so just hang loose,” he says.

Given the publicity that As the World Turns had reaped with their gay characters, the producers of One Life to Live clearly saw the potential in a prominent gay storyline. But unlike with As the World Turns, there has been almost no controversy — and no hint that the network or advertisers have balked. That alone is extraordinary.

Next Page! Nick becomes more than just a "third wheel"!