Popularity
Lena and Bianca's romance was groundbreaking. Prime time television was already significantly ahead of soap operas in their representation of gay men and lesbians. With the pairing of Lena and Bianca, American soap opera was given a level of LGBT visibility that it had not had before, and now had two lesbian icons instead of Bianca by herself. The pairing "quickly became a hit with viewers" and regularly surpassed older more established heterosexual couples for the #1 spot on Internet and soap opera magazine readers' polls. "In another historical first, in October 2003, 60,000 votes were cast" in Soap Opera Weekly's Hottest Soap Couple contest; Lena and Bianca emerged as the winning couple; this resulted in the first time a same-sex couple had ever been featured in a 2 page "glossy" centerfold poster, which was "sold at grocery store check-out counters across America with nary a complaint". This was viewed as groundbreaking social change.
Though the couple was popular, they were also controversial. Sosnovska was asked if she realized that by accepting this role she would be stepping into "so much" controversy. "I’m still coming to terms with this phenomenon of Lianca," she replied, "with the devotion that I’m shown as a couple on TV, and the whole concept of fans. The letters that I get are heart breaking. It’s horrible that even now in the 21st century feel the need to hide. Not everyone is confident enough to face the world, and not everyone lives in a safe environment." She continued, "I never really thought about it before--it doesn’t occur to you that this medieval type of mentality occurs. It’s horrifying what happens." Sosnovska did, however, see the decision to be out as a personal choice. "I don’t blame people who choose not be out," she said. She donated her time to fan sponsored fundraisers that raised money for several charities connected to the Lena and Bianca storylines. Over $20,000 had been raised for the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. Sosnovska stated, "I would never have known what a powerful tool TV could be, especially daytime. It’s frightening to the extent it’s a huge responsibility on the producers, directors, and actors to influence minds. You can’t underestimate the force of it."
Sosnovska was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from fans. "I apologize to anybody who’s sent me anything and hasn’t gotten a reply. I physically can’t keep up with it (the volume of mail), especially when I go away," she said in emphasis of a recent trip to London she had made. In addition to helping with fundraisers, Sosnovska was outspoken about gay marriage. "I've been listening to the debate about gay marriage, she said. "It’s very difficult to wrap my head around people who oppose such a basic right. There’s no logic behind any of these reasons . have no idea about the fact that they’re talking about normal people." In this respect, Sosnovska hoped her role as Lena had helped, if even a little, since "the more human faces you can put to this story, the better".
AfterEllen.com cites that lesbian and bisexual women do not have "many characters" they can call their own, and had never had a daytime couple that they "could pin hopes and dreams on". Sosnovska and Riegel together as Lena and Bianca "became that couple" and the audience was given "the chance to see two sexy, confident, and very out women together as daytime television's first lesbian couple". Though prime time dramas such as The L Word feature more lesbian and bisexual content, it is only available on cable. All My Children's advantage is that it is seen "everyday in homes across the country that might not intentionally tune into shows with lesbian characters". The fact that a significant portion of viewers grew up with some of these characters enabled the series to develop "a certain comfort level" with the audience that other television characters do not have.
AfterEllen.com theorized that what endeared the Lena and Bianca romance to "so many viewers across the country" and allowed them to create a significant contribution to the acceptance of lesbians and bisexual women onscreen and in society was chemistry This chemistry, the website reasoned, made the pairing a fan favorite. The website stated that "one of the main reasons that viewers both gay and straight" thoroughly liked this pairing "was the amazingly realistic portrayal of two people in love who just happen to be women".
"They are both sensational actresses who, though heterosexual, committed wholly to the relationship," said Mimi Torchin, former founding editor-in-chief of Soap Opera Weekly and then columnist for the magazine along with soap opera website SOAPnet.com. "You weren't aware so much that history was being made but rather that this was something beautiful and special that you had never seen before," she stated. "There was a purity to their love that made it non-threatening to the straight audience."
Lena and Bianca's romance was a classic soap opera story of love and redemption--the bad girl saved by the love of an innocent. They became one of the show's most successful romances. "," said Riegel. "They embraced Bianca with a fervor usually reserved for only the hunkiest of heroes. That experience taught me to never underestimate the open-mindedness of daytime audiences."
Read more about this topic: Lena Kundera And Bianca Montgomery, Reception and Impact
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“The popularity of disaster movies ... expresses a collective perception of a world threatened by irresistible and unforeseen forces which nevertheless are thwarted at the last moment. Their thinly veiled symbolic meaning might be translated thus: We are innocent of wrongdoing. We are attacked by unforeseeable forces come to harm us. We are, thus, innocent even of negligence. Though those forces are insuperable, chance will come to our aid and we shall emerge victorious.”
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“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
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“A more problematic example is the parallel between the increasingly abstract and insubstantial picture of the physical universe which modern physics has given us and the popularity of abstract and non-representational forms of art and poetry. In each case the representation of reality is increasingly removed from the picture which is immediately presented to us by our senses.”
—Harvey Brooks (b. 1915)