Beware spoilers.
Jodie Campbell is back, the first recurrent gay character, pioneer of sitcoms, for the second season of SOAP, in 1978, and he was very close to get married.
Thanks to the genius of Susan Harris, creator and writer of the show, and helped by Stu Silver, season 2 is as great as the first, with still actor Billy Crystal as Jodie, here is a little reminder of season 1.
Crazyness goes further in the second season : non-adulteries, amnesia, a devilish pregnancy… Jodie doesn’t get away with it, the big issues are failed mariage and fatherhood.
1 - Jodie in season 2
How come Jodie could end up in this situation. Logically, he keeps on dating Dennis the famous quarterback, but he wants to honor his proposal to roomate with Carole.
But it turned out, that Carol is too possessive with him.
The reason why Carol clings so much to Jodie, is that she is pregnant. Because of him. The news is not that easy to believe.
There only Burt to believe in the miracle of spontaneous conversion, as if this pregnancy was a proof that Jodie was straight after all. Carol’s father, cannot believe it.
Jodie desires to take on the responsibility of being a parent, he wants to marry Carol and be a dad, knowing that choice is very touch.
Except that Dennis refuses to let Jodie assume a fatherhood that would result in marriage; he doesn’t want to risk losing him. And since Jodie can’t think of any other solution, he picks up his stuff at Dennis’s, and the two men get into an argument. Dennis goes too far, and so does Jodie. Between the two men, it’s a story that is coming to an end.
But Carol has doubts about the viability of the marriage; she senses that things are off to a bad start and wants to call it off.
But her jealousy of Dennis drives her to marriage.
And then, the big day ! Jodie stands alone in the church.
Finally, Carol vanished, she only left a note.
Of course, Jodie needs an explication. He goes to Texas to set things straight with Carol who went back to her folks, and, unfortunately, the texan has decided to refuse any parental right to Jodie.
This is quite a brutal shift in Jodie’s life. And, somehow, he comes across a woman who’s about to kill herself. Her name is Alice, and she is a lesbian. Alice is not a main character, but she might be the first out recurring lesbian in a tv series, for a few episodes.
Jodie allows Alice to roommate with him, since Carol is gone for good. They become really good friends very rapidly. Very good friends, to the point where seem to be jealous of each other’s dates. And, eventually, to try and date each other.
2 - Lgbition
Jodie’s visibility is still very new, and the first season dealt with heavy topics such as suicide, closeted sexuality, coming out, and something looking like a gender dysphoria. And that’s a lot for one character, and even for one season. Yet, ultimately very little in the television landscape of 1978. Susan Harris pushed even further (and for all the characters), in that second season. She imagined this very funny, yet very credible scene for all viewers, especially female viewers, the housewives, the targets of advertisements for soaps and other household products, discovering the character of Jodie. And she made it by embodying those housewives as Carol’s mother, a Texan, that makes us laugh.
And yes, Texas as always been very conservative.
In fact, it’s an entire generation that needs to open up to this new subject. Jodie’s aunt Jessica, for example, talks about her times, and she tries to understand. Susan Harris took the opportunity to make a joke of Burt, played by the excellent actor Richard Mulligan.
And of course, Burt is also out of place with Alice, the first lesbian he has ever met, as he was with Jodie in season 1.
Those funny situations have no other purpose than to normalize homosexuality and make haters look ridiculous, and, it works very well.
Jodie / parenthood
When Jodie announces that he is going to be a father, his friends and family initially react with skepticism. This, is because being gay was, and still is, considered, by default, to be an obstacle to having children. The news quickly spreads throughout the family. Jodie’s potential parenthood can bring out invisible hatred, contained by polite behavior, as in episode 7 with Carol’s father. When in fact, deep down, this Texan is simply homophobic.
In contrast, Carol is perfectly integrated into Jodie’s family.
It is interesting to see that Jodie finds himself in a situation that forces him to choose between a man and a woman, who are both too jealous to share him even a little, which puts him in an uncomfortable, even impossible situation, like a bisexual person facing an injunction to choose sides, when the bisexual possibility is not considered in the story.
Alice
I mentioned it, SOAP’s season 2 brings back some of the themes from the first season, this time, with a lesbian character : Alice. She, too, has the temptation, like Jodie in season 1, to commit suicide, by throwing herself off a bridge, because her life as a lesbian would be, wrongly, a failure.
And Alice must face peoples reactions, who are surprised, and theses create the same comic effect previously produced by Jodie. With Danny for example in episode 18.
I also note that the most conservative are the oldest straight men, since Burt too is still not comfortable with homosexuality since season 1. He shows it again, when he meets Dennis, in a moment that ridicules him because, his phobia is all the more unjustifiable, as he had always admired the athlete before meeting him.
Conclusion
Fourty years later, season 2 is just as funny as the first, Susan Harris’ powerful writing still works today, and the character of Jodie, in this comedy flipping moments of high emotion or zaniness, is still soberly played by Billy Crystal.
But why, when Jodie proves his desire to be a father, is he sacrificed by a script that denies him this right ?
– Is it because he is not in love with Carol ?
– Is it because it’s too early in the American television broadcasters ?
– Is it a plot twist for season 3 ?
This story is to be continued, in the next episode.
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