As All My
Children's Bianca (Eden Riegel) and Reese (Tamara
Braun) head for the altar, executive producer Julie Hanan
Carruthers signals trouble ahead -- but it's not what you
might think.
Julie Hanan
Carruthers
Two women get
hitched this Friday on ABC’s daytime drama All My
Children... but not without a hitch. Friday,
February 13 -- continued on Monday the 16th -- marks
another milestone for the long-running soap: Bianca
Montgomery (Eden Riegel) and Reese Williams (Tamara
Braun) tie the knot in the first same-sex wedding
ceremony on a soap.
AMC is known to be the leader in LGBT daytime
TV. The show led the charge with the introduction of
daytime's first lesbian character, played by Donna
Pescow, in 1982, followed by the first lesbian kiss in
2003, the first transgender character in 2007, and even a
few fizzled gay-male story line attempts in the 1990s.
Coming on the
heels of Proposition 8's passage in California, and the
recently enacted bans on same-sex marriage in
other states, this latest story line is significant.
Reese and Bianca are granted a legal union in the
state of Connecticut, where marriage equality became a
legal reality in late 2008.
But until the
gals say “I do,” many Advocate.com readers are
keeping an eye on the budding relationship between
Reese and her bride-to-be's brother-in-law, Zach
Slater. Is AMC not prepared to let the gals
walk off into the sunset together? Is there another
sexual identity crisis just around the corner? Is a man
going to come between these lady lovebirds?
To get the
answers, Advocate.com went straight to the top and chatted
with AMC executive producer Julie Hanan
Carruthers. She speaks candidly about the true intent behind
the Bianca story line, lays some fears to rest,
and previews the Valentine’s Day wedding and a
moment that will change the course of Reese and
Bianca's relationship. But is it forever?
Advocate.com:Viewer concern among the LGBT community is that Reese
will leave Bianca for Zach, and it has angered many who
worry that she has feelings for him. How
would you respond?
Julie Hanan Carruthers: First of all, it’s
not true. I think what’s confused in Reese’s
head is she has misinterpreted a friendship. Zach is
one of the [few] people who have not kicked her to the
curb, so to speak, in Pine Valley. She is a confused,
insecure person at the moment. She has never wavered in her
commitment to Bianca. It’s solid. Reese has
just had a lot of emotional stuff hit. Her family is
rejecting and judging her... in both her family and
Bianca’s.
However, something happens right before Bianca and
Reese’s wedding that is a time bomb.
The night before the wedding when Kendall,
Zach’s wife, nails her with a backhanded toast,
Reese gets a little drunk, and the person who consoles
her is Zach. It’s a moment where she kisses him and
then realizes, “Oh, my god, what the heck am I
doing? The person I love is Bianca, and the person you
love is Kendall. What just happened?” That moment is
what unravels the world, and unravels it in a very
“soap” way, dramatic and misunderstood,
where someone tells somebody and it grows bigger than it
ever was. The people who were involved have resolved it.
When Reese says her vows to Bianca in that wedding,
there is nothing more real. The problem is the
audience that watches the show knows somebody saw
something that shouldn’t have been seen. They are
legally married at the moment Bianca finds out.
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Fairman runs MichaelFairmanSoaps.com and is
creator/ host of Soap Break on XM Satellite Radio
channel 24, The Pink Channel. All My Children
airs daily on ABC.