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Portmanteaus+Double Standards by *Delusions-Of-Grandeu:iconDelusions-Of-Grandeu:

Categories Literature > Prose > Non-Fiction > Academic Essays


For those of you that aren't obsessed with Merriam Webster, the word portmanteau is used to describe another word that derives from two forms.  For example: smog.  Smoke plus fog equals smog.  This word is also used when talking about power-couple names.  Like Brangelina, for Brad and Angelina.  The portmanteau [power-couple name, in this case] that I will be using most often in this rant is Otalia.  Olivia plus Natalia equals Otalia.

For those of you that aren't obsessed with the show Guiding Light, well, that's where Otalia comes from.

Guiding Light is a really old soap opera that first started on the radio in the 1930s, and then made its way to television in the 1950s.  So.  It's really old.  Olivia [Spencer] is, obviously, one of the main characters, however, she was not introduced until 1999.  Natalia [Rivera] was introduced to the show in 2007.  The story line between these two characters started March of 2008, and has been going on since [only it ended today because of the series finale...more on that later].

For those of you who wish to gain a bit more knowledge about these two characters and their epic storyline: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otalia.   Yeah.  They have their own Wikipedia page.

So.  Olivia and Natalia [portrayed by Crystal Chappell and Jessica Leccia].  They hated each other.  They absolutely hated each other.  So much, in fact, that Natalia pretty much left Olivia alone in a bathroom to die [she needed a new heart...it's a soap, just go with it].  And then Natalia's husband died, and she donated his heart to Olivia.  

But they still hated each other.  And Olivia didn't want to be alive, knowing that she had Natalia's husband's heart [she was in love with him...it's a soap, go with it].  Long story short, Natalia pretty much forced Olivia to live, and ended up nursing her back to health.

The actual explanation of their relationship would take an extremely long time.  To watch their relationship unfold would take well over twelve hours of Youtube videos.  So now I highly recommend that handy-dandy Wikipedia page.  It sums things up pretty nicely, however I think it's only up to June.  

Let me explain the rest for you [because by now, you should have read said Wikipedia page]: Natalia and Olivia planned on coming out to the entire town of Springfield at the annual Fourth of July Barbecue.  Natalia has a new job with a character by the name of Blake, who is a writer/publisher, and is now doing publisher-type things.  So, some random soap opera things happen, and Natalia gets sick.  Turns out she's pregnant with Frank's child.  Whom she slept with back in February.  

Blake, along with Natalia's priest ['cause she's so religious] help her leave town so she can figure things out.  Natalia totally ditches Olivia, and never shows up to the barbecue.  Instead she goes to a convent to think things through, because she just found out that she's five months pregnant with her ex-fiance's baby.  And she's in love with another woman.   

Olivia had no idea what's going on, and thinks Natalia is going to meet her at the patriotic festivities.  But Natalia doesn't, and Blake breaks the news to her that Natalia has left.  Olivia sit alone in a field crying while the rest of the town watches the fireworks.

Many weeks of Olivia-angst later [including a road trip to try and find Natalia], Natalia returns.  She loves Olivia and wants to be with her.  She wants to rise the baby with her [only it's been a month, so she's six months along].  Olivia can't trust her.

Another two weeks of angst, they're finally happy and together.  And then the show ends.

Now, the reason why Natalia left in the first place was because Jessica Leccia, the actress who portrays her, was on maternity leave.

Double-you.  Tee.  Eff.

The producers decided to play to lesbian cliches and make her pregnant.

And that's not even the worst of it.

Over a year.  Otalia has been going on for over a year.  This relationship spent over a year to develop.  Want to take a guess at how many times that have kissed?

Once.

After Emma's "My Two Mommies" project.  And that wasn't even a real kiss, because that was before they both realized that they were in love with each other.

So, these two women have only kissed once.  They're in love.  But they've only kissed once.  Every other couple on the entire show gets to show actual, physical contact that involves more than hand-holding and hugs.  One couple even started off by just getting in bed together!

On Monday's episode [September fourteenth], there was a wedding.  A double wedding, actually.  Billy and Vanessa got married, along with Buzz and Lillian.  Yay.  That's when the pretty much show the whole town that they're together.  Yay.  Here's a little excerpt from AfterEllen.com's recap of this week's episode: "...'The Newlyweds' have a kissing contest. Once again, Otalia is eclipsed by a game show. For obvious reasons, Liv and Nat don’t enter the kissing contest, but if they ever have a hand holding or a forehead bumping competition, they will wipe the floor with these amateurs."

Hand-holding and forehead-bumping.  Because that's all those two ever do.  ...Did.  Because now the show is over.  The show ended, and Otalia never kissed.

People were having sex all over the place, and Olivia and Natalia were merely gazing longingly at each other, with the occasional leaning of the head on the shoulder.

Sarah Warn, the creator of the website AfterEllen.com, said this regarding the Otalia double standards: After months of becoming emotionally invested in the couple's romantic relationship, many fans became increasingly frustrated as the writers began using every trick in the book — including obvious and obnoxious stereotypical lesbian storylines — to avoid showing the women, you know, actually together.

Woman tries to deny her feelings for another woman by sleeping with a man? Check!

Lesbian storyline hijacked and consumed by resulting pregnancy? Check!

Double-standard around physical affection between heterosexual vs. homosexual couples employed? Check! Check!

The double-standard around kissing was probably the most painful aspect, because by the end, it was actually impossible to watch the show without noticing it. The writers didn't even seem to be trying to hide it anymore — in one scene this week, the heterosexual couples actually engaged in a kissing contest at a wedding, while Olivia and Natalia looked on, a foot apart from each other. I found myself actually hoping Kanye West would storm the set to rant about it."

Okay, so, the part about Kanye was hilarious.

There have been so many scenes, enough that I have actually lost tract, where it would have been perfect for Olivia and Natalia to kiss.  Especially last week, when they finally got back together, and Olivia [and Emma] moved back in with Natalia.  Or even this week, because it was the last week of the entire series!

The fact that every heterosexual couple in the show got to show immense amounts of physical contact in today's final episode, while all Otalia did was hold hands, is... I can't even think of the right word to use.  I suppose I could say that it's just terrible, but these type of double standards have always happened.

Take Grey's Anatomy, for example.  Callie and Erica.  Erica and Callie.  Callica, if you now have an obsession with portmanteaus.  Best friends turned lovers, pretty much.  They wake up after sleeping together in one episode.  And they look like they've been dressed by Maria, and they're about to go frolicking through the fields with the Von Trapp children.  Seriously.  And then Meredith and Derek wake up, and they're not wearing cloths at all.

And then, of course, Brooke Smith, who portrayed Erica, was fired.  She had a monologue scene where her character comes out, and compares the revelation to when she first got glasses.   The whole "I can see the leaves!" thing.  Right after they shot that scene, the producers came and told her that that was one of the best scenes they had ever done on the show.  And then they fired her.

Basically, all of these double standards come down to one thing: visibility.  More specifically, lesbian visibility on television.

As of the fall 2009 television lineup, there is currently only one out lesbian character on prime time television.  Arizona Robbins on Grey's Anatomy [because Callie doesn't have a defined sexual orientation].

At least Callie and Erica got to kiss.  I think it was a total of four, maybe five times.  They had sex, too, but...no one really wants to see something graphic.  Erica walked off into the parking lot of doom, and Callie is now with Arizona.  I can still count the amount of times they have kissed using only one hand.  Three, maybe four.  They're a new couple.  The double standards aren't that bad yet.

Because, you know, it's not like they're relationship has been developing for over a year.  Yeah.  Guiding Light.  I'm talking about you.  Otalia.

Another excerpt from Sarah Warn: "But when the writers refused to let the couple kiss (or even hold hands until close to the end), they made them — and us — second-class citizens, and ruined the fantasy element that is the the heart of daytime drama. I get enough of seeing lesbian couples being treated like second-class citizens in the real world, thank you very much, I don't need to watch it for fun (or for your ratings benefit).

So when they weren't studiously avoiding kissing, what were Olivia and Natalia doing in the last two weeks of the show? Saying goodbye to Natalia's son Rafe, who joined the Army; attending heterosexual weddings; picking out baby names, and reassuring the baby's father, Frank, that's he's super special."

The Otalia storyline was epic.  Seriously.  It was so fantastic, and then the writer's decided to ruin it because they didn't want to show a real lesbian relationship on television.

For those of you that now feel the need to waste over twelve hours of your life to watch Natalia and Olivia's relationship: http://www.youtube.com/user/Otaliafan.

There was no Otalia kiss.  Nothing for them.  All of the straight couples?  Sure.  They can kiss.  They can even have kissing contests.  But all Olivia and Natalia get to do is hold hands.

We get this great relationship that fans can really grasp on to, and then it just...drops.  Because network executives were too afraid to show two women who physical, romantic contact, and instead covered it up with more men and women getting together.

The point is: visibility matters.  But we aren't getting any.

…And CBS sucks.  The end.
©2009-2010 *Delusions-Of-Grandeu
:icondelusions-of-grandeu:

Author's Comments

Ranting. Guiding Light series finale. A bit of Grey's . Lots of Olivia/Natalia.

Mmm. Yes.

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September 20, 2009
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